LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — The office of the state bar counsel, in its effort to discipline Clark County Commissioner Justin Jones, filed a complaint in February 2024 and another in October where it alleges Jones violated several rules of professional conduct, according to documents the 8 News Now Investigators have obtained.
Attorneys for Jones, commissioner of the county’s District F, and the state bar counsel met for over three hours Thursday to discuss these complaints and to argue motions related to a hearing set for March 2025. That hearing, bar counsel told the 8 News Now Investigators, could result in discipline resulting in Jones losing his law license.
Together, these complaints detail how Jones made “false statements of facts” to in federal District Court and Bankruptcy Court for the District of Nevada. The complaints say he deleted text messages on his personal phone related to a development involving land near Red Rock Canyon, and that he then lied about it.
In October 2022, a federal judge magistrate held a hearing and ultimately sanctioned Jones, determining he “appears to have carefully chosen words that were not out-and-out misrepresentations of the truth, but were also not truthful.” That judge also said he “deleted his texts for the improper purpose of attempting to prevent discovery of his conduct.”
The state bar uses these and other findings to support their claims that Jones violated the state’s Rules of Professional Conduct. In one instance, the complaints outline what they a “deal” with then-county-commissioner Steve Sisolak, who successfully ran for governor of Nevada and served from 2019-2023.
The complaint says in 2018 Jones – at the time an attorney representing a group that called itself Save Red Rock – emailed an offer to Sisolak wherein “if Commissioner Sisolak would commit to vote against” a legal maneuver Gypsum was attempting, then Save Red Rock “would promote Commissioner Sisolak’s support to its entire email list, promote it on social media, and, if desired, appear with Commissioner Sisolak to support his gubernatorial candidacy.”
That offer also promised that Save Red Rock would “dismiss its claims against” Clark County in the ongoing legal dispute over the land.
The complaint includes the transcript of a text message after Jones’ offer to Sisolak, where Jones told the then head of the Nevada Conservation league, “well, I’m doing my part. If Sisolak doesn’t want to play, then it’s going to blow up in his fact [sic] tomorrow.”
Sisolak and Jones both won their elections for Governor and commissioner, respectively, in November 2018.
In June 2024, the Clark County Commission approved $80 million with the developer, Gypsum Resources. The threat of losing in court with more than $2 billion on the line forced the county to look hard at what it could afford to do, the commissioner reasoned at the time.
Daniel Hooge, the bar counsel, told the 8 News Now Investigators the disciplinary committee deciding the case must determine Jones’ mental state and the “size of the injury” caused by any misconduct Jones is found to have committed. Essentially, the issue boils down to whether Jones acted negligently or, alternatively, acted intentionally in deleting data from his phone, among other things.
“We see this as intentional misconduct, and we see the injury as serious,” Hooge said.
Jones’ entry in the state bar’s directory lists him as an active member since 2003 with no disciplinary action on his record. It lists him under the employ of Jones Lovelock, an eponymous firm with an office in Las Vegas.
Jones did not answer a message seeking comment Friday from the 8 News Now Investigators, and a spokeswoman for Clark County declined to comment on Friday afternoon.
