Why Democratic DA Steve Wolfson is backing Republican Joe Lombardo for governor

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson broke party lines to endorse Gov. Joe Lombardo’s re-election campaign because of his relationship with Lombardo and his gripes with Attorney General Aaron Ford, he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

His move was unusual in Nevada politics following the era of the “Reid Machine,” during which Democratic U.S. Sen. Harry Reid kept the party tightly coalesced.

Wolfson, a Democrat, said in an ad that he and Lombardo, a Republican who previously served as Clark County sheriff, “worked together to put violent criminals behind bars.”

Wolfson then took shots at Ford, Lombardo’s Democratic opponent.

“Aaron Ford calls himself Nevada’s top cop. No way,” he said in the ad. “Ford cares more about criminals than victims. Joe Lombardo fights for us.”

Ford’s campaign would not make him available for an interview.

Wolfson told the Review-Journal that he believes Lombardo is the better choice for public safety. He said he has known Lombardo for 30 years and that he worked with Lombardo frequently when the governor served as sheriff.

Ford also has cast himself as a good choice for public safety.

“As attorney general, Ford worked with law enforcement to put dangerous criminals behind bars, bringing violent crime down across Nevada,” a narrator claimed in one Ford campaign ad.

Wolfson said it’s misleading for Ford to talk about working to reduce violent crime.

“His office does very little,” Wolfson said. “My office is in the trenches every single day.”

Wolfson said that in some instances, his office asked the attorney general’s office to appeal a federal ruling and Ford’s office refused.

Then there was the case of Kirstin “Blaise” Lobato, who was convicted in a 2001 killing but won a $34 million federal verdict after reaching a settlement with Ford’s office and receiving a certificate of innocence.

Lobato spent more than 15 years behind bars and was released in 2018 after her conviction was vacated for a second time and prosecutors chose not to pursue a third trial. Jurors in the federal civil trial found that police detectives fabricated evidence against her.

During the civil trial, the Metropolitan Police Department released a letter signed by current Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill and Wolfson that questioned why Ford’s office settled with Lobato shortly before her federal trial and indicated “key parties involved in her prosecution” continued to believe in her guilt.

Wolfson told the Review-Journal he thinks Ford should have fought the certificate of innocence harder. He still thinks Lobato is guilty.

“I didn’t do the trial, but I have to rely on people to educate me,” he said. “I believe that she committed the crime.”

Lobato’s attorney, David Owens, a law professor at the University of Washington, said Ford’s office saw the scientific evidence showing that she was hours away when the slaying of Duran Bailey occurred and agreed she was innocent.

He called Wolfson’s prior letter “misleading and unfair.”

“Wolfson needs to get over it,” he said. “He needs to accept that Lobato is innocent and that the Nevada courts and his office made a mistake by prosecuting an innocent person.”

Contact Noble Brigham at [email protected].