Former Valley CEO no longer employed at Pahrump co-op

Angela Evans, who was put on paid administrative leave just months after being named permanent CEO of Valley Electric Association Inc. in October 2018, is no longer with the co-op.

As of Monday, Evans was no longer with Valley, Dave Hall, president of Valley’s board of directors, said in a news release from the co-op.

“Dick Peck will continue to serve as Interim Chief Executive, and we have the utmost confidence that Dick will continue to lead the company in a way that serves the best interests of Valley’s members,” said Hall in the release.

In a Tuesday phone interview with Peck, he said he couldn’t give any more details about Evans’ departure because it’s a personnel matter.

Valley’s board of directors has already begun the process of finding a permanent CEO for the co-op, which could take several months, according to Valley’s release. Peck has made previous announcements in public forums that he never intended to stay at Valley long term and he would eventually return to his home state of Alaska.

Evans, who took the reins on a permanent basis of the co-op in October 2018, has been on paid administrative leave since the end of February following her arrest on suspicion of embezzlement of $3,500 plus. She was named interim CEO of the co-op in May 2018.

Evans has been the only person arrested by the sheriff’s office since an investigation was launched into the co-op in February.

The allegations surrounding Evans’ arrest include that she billed the co-op $75,000 for work done on her personal residence in Pahrump.

The sheriff’s office has also been investigating allegations over the last several months that “hush money” was paid to current and former Valley employees to keep quiet about former CEO Thomas Husted’s alleged sexual harassment of a female employee.

Husted has never been charged with a crime or arrested over the ongoing investigation by the Nye County Sheriff’s Office.

Two search warrants were executed in February at Valley’s administrative offices. The first was on Feb. 22 with the second on Feb. 26 when Evans was taken into custody.

According to court officials on Tuesday, Evans had not been formally charged by the Nye County District Attorney’s office in the over four months since her arrest.

Valley Electric executives, and the co-op’s board of directors, have avidly made comments that the allegations on Evans and the overall investigation are false.

Attempts to contact Evans have been unsuccessful.

The Nye County Sheriff’s Office was contacted for this report.

The sheriff’s office said it was checking for updates on the Valley case.

Investigations

In previous interviews, Peck has spoken about the co-op’s private investigation into Evans.

In a May 17, 2019 report in the Pahrump Valley Times, Peck was noted saying, “I was in the board room when the special investigator went through the report on the timeline and on the line items, and he could find nothing in his investigation that would indicate any illegal activities went on in regard to the actions. She was not either directly or indirectly involved in the decision-making process. That’s all I can say. It was in the report, and that will be given to the DA.”

In Peck’s May 17 response to the overall Valley investigations, he stated, “One of the other things I’d like to state too that in 2018 was a forensic audit and the final audit was done this last February. There was nothing in that audit that caught my attention or the auditor’s attention about any illegal activities by the prior manager, Tom Husted.”

Peck said that “there’s nothing in the audit that would support any of the allegations of hush money paid.”

An audit of Valley’s 2018 financials was done by Texas-based accounting firm Bolinger, Segars, Gilbert and Moss in February.

Attempts by the Pahrump Valley Times to reach Husted for an interview have been unsuccessful.

Contact reporter Jeffrey Meehan at jmeehan@pvtimes.com