Sheriff Wehrly won’t ‘wallow in the mud’ with reporters over old allegations

Nye County Sheriff Sharon Wehrly on Tuesday responded to claims of serious misconduct by a member of her department, following a Las Vegas Review-Journal investigation that detailed a high-profile captain’s long history of inappropriate behavior, including conflict-of-interest allegations, multiple lawsuits and liability claims, a state probe into him holding “porn matinees” at the office, and an FBI investigation into whether he had inappropriate relationships with inmates.

In a post on the department’s mobile app on Tuesday, Wehrly said the “article contains numerous inaccuracies, lies and innuendos.” But some of the claims “center around pending litigation and personnel matters which we cannot comment on,” she said.

New court documents allege Boruchowitz helped form a Nye County activist group, Members for Change, to remove the Valley Electric Association’s leadership at the same time he was overseeing a high-profile 2019 arrest of the co-op’s top executive, CEO Angela Evans, depositions show.

Boruchowitz was considering a run for a paid position on the VEA board, which paid up to $28,000 a year, according to testimony in a federal lawsuit filed by Evans. She is claiming unlawful arrest and violations of her civil rights.

Despite the ongoing investigation into Boruchowitz’s involvement, he has not been charged with a crime.

“Appropriate action will be taken at the conclusion of all investigations in accordance with law and applicable collective bargaining agreements,” Wehrly said in her statement.

As part of its investigation, the Review-Journal on Sunday resurfaced a nearly 9-year-old FBI case into claims that Boruchowitz had shown videos of local adult residents having sex — and even sex with dogs — around the sheriff’s office, according to a Department of Public Safety report. The videos came from a residence where deputies were investigating child sex offenses, and Boruchowitz’s actions reportedly jeopardized the conviction of a sex offender.

The FBI ultimately found Boruchowitz had committed no crime. He was promoted two years after the porn investigation and two weeks after Wehrly took office.

Wehrly had no comment about those offenses, which she said pre-dated her tenure as sheriff.

“Past administrations responded to reporters in a knee-jerk fashion,” Wehrly said, adding that she “will not be wallowing in the mud with reporters, and certainly not over almost decade-old repeat allegations from previous administrations.”

As part of its investigation, the Review-Journal also interviewed two former Nye County inmates who claimed that Boruchowitz had sexually harrassed them.

One woman told the newspaper that Boruchowitz made lewd gestures and blew kisses at her while booking her on a theft charge. A second woman, who conceded she was a meth addict at the time but says she has since cleaned up her life, said Boruchowitz was trying to cultivate her as a confidential drug informant. She alleges he asked her to perform sex acts short of intercourse on him four times. She said she complied with his requests because she feared he might arrest her on drug charges.

Wehrly largely dismissed those claims too, saying the women quoted in the Review-Journal were “criminals who are defending themselves using a newspaper reporter.”

“The Nye County Sheriff’s Office and Nye County as a whole do not appreciate the attempt to incite local unrest, destroy our tourist businesses and attempting to dissuade people from moving to Nye County communities,” Wehrly said.

Boruchowitz has called many of the claims against him a “journalistic witch hunt.”

The Review-Journal’s investigation comes in a year where Sheriff Wehrly is up for re-election.

You can read the full unedited statement from Wehrly here.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal is a sister publication of the Pahrump Valley Times.