Aaron Ford’s Report to Nevada Legislature Highlights Successes of Attorney General’s Tenure

AP Photo/Cathleen Allison, File

By Keya Vakil

September 16, 2022

“As we say in this Office, ‘Our Job is Justice,’” Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford wrote in the report. “I am proud that the Office of the Attorney General has delivered justice to our state.”

Over the past two years, the Nevada attorney general’s office has investigated and prosecuted child sex predators, helped recover 61 missing children, and investigated people responsible for elder abuse and exploitation.

These are just a few of the accomplishments featured in Attorney General Aaron Ford’s new biennial report to the state legislature, which covers the office’s efforts and successes from July 2020 through July 2022. The report is intended to ensure accountability and build credibility for the office, according to Ford.

“The Attorney General must be an institution that Nevadans can trust,” Ford wrote in the report. “Nevadans should always trust that the Office of Attorney General is a credible, accountable institution that exists only to serve the State.”

The 49-page report details the AG’s office’s efforts on numerous fronts, including defending the state against lawsuits, obtaining $330 million in legal settlements from companies responsible for the opioid epidemic, and prosecution of various kinds of fraud. 

But the office’s efforts against crimes involving children and violent and sexual crimes are also a notable piece of Ford’s report. While most criminal cases are handled at the local level, the Nevada AG’s office’s partners with local law enforcement to investigate crimes related to sex trafficking, missing and exploited children, and elder exploitation. The AG’s office also has jurisdiction over investigating other types of criminal activity.

According to the report, over the past two years, the AG’s Investigation Division was responsible for:

  • 61 child recoveries
  • 187 search and seizure warrants
  • 188 arrests or summons
  • 424 investigations closed/declined
  • 440 referrals for prosecution
  • 1,068 subpoenas or request letters
  • 1,072 forensic examinations

Ford’s office has also been involved in several online sting operations, where undercover law enforcement officials posed as minors online and were solicited for sex by the adult suspects. Police then set up meetings with the suspects, who were taken into custody.

These stings include efforts that led to the arrests of dozens of child sex predators in the Las Vegas area alone over the past year and change. The cases of some of these defendants are ongoing. 

The AG’s office also successfully prosecuted a Reno man for his role in trafficking a minor child and received a guilty plea from another Nevada resident for his role in the attempted sex trafficking of a child.

Ford’s office is also prosecuting Joshua Miller, a former Nevada parole and probation officer alleged to have threatened to take a probationer to jail if she did not have sex with him. Miller also faces local sex abuse charges in Las Vegas, where he has been charged with nearly a dozen felonies, including sexual assault of a child under 14.

The AG’s office furthermore aided in the investigation and successful prosecution of Mary Glenn and her partners for running an unlicensed group home in Las Vegas where residents suffered from untreated medical issues and poor nutrition. One resident was found sleeping in his feces, while another only had his diaper changed once a day–and neither received food, as the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Another resident died of kidney failure because she could not attend her dialysis appointments.

According to Ford, these various efforts underscore his office’s mission on defending and protecting Nevadans. 

“As we say in this Office, ‘Our Job is Justice,’” Ford wrote in the report. “I am proud that the Office of the Attorney General has delivered justice to our state.”

The full 2020-2022 Biennial Report from the Office of the Attorney General of Nevada can be read here.

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