Nye authorities investigate allegations of embezzlement, forgery
A man formerly employed at a Nevada brothel was arrested this month, accused of embezzlement of funds and forgery, Nye County authorities report.
A sheriff’s office arrest report stated that Pahrump resident Rodney Camacho had been in charge of replenishing cash into ATM machines at the Area 51 Travel Center and the Love Ranch Vegas store owned by brothel owner Dennis Hof.
All told, more than $122,000 turned up missing, according to investigators.
Camacho, who chose not to comment on Thursday, is being represented by Public Defender Brent Percival.
Though Camacho, who is free on bail, was scheduled for a formal arraignment in Pahrump Justice Court on Thursday of this week, Nye County Deputy District Attorney Patrick Ferguson noted that the case was not called due to a glitch in the paperwork. “We will not be filing the complaint in Pahrump because we will be filing it up in Beatty because that’s the correct venue for it,” Ferguson said.
“As far as I’m concerned, there is enough evidence to file charges,” Ferguson said. “I would be surprised if charges were not filed.”
The revelations came about after brothel owner Hof’s chief financial manager found cash discrepancies following an internal audit back in 2017.
“He noticed that intercompany accounts were not adding up,” noted Deputy Wesley Fancher in the arrest report. “The CFO stated that he discovered several forged receipts that were turned in by former employee Rodney Camacho. He also stated that Camacho had embezzled $72,340 from the Area 51 Death Valley Travel Center LLC and $49,900 from the Cherry Patch LLC.”
During the course of the investigation that began on April 11 of this year, Fancher said the CFO provided binders containing documents of the CFO’s findings for each business and copies of forged receipts, along with summaries of the findings.
“The CFO stated that when he was reviewing the receipts, he noticed his fingers had smudged the ink on the receipts, which prompted him to further investigate,” Fancher noted. “He also discovered a small difference in the font size with the forged receipts. I also observed the data of the cash flow that showed inconsistencies only during the months that Rodney Camacho was employed.”
Fancher submitted what’s known as an administrative subpoena to Golden Entertainment, which owns the Pahrump Nugget, to glean information on Camacho’s player card data and frequency of gambling at the resort, dating back to 2011.
“The data had shown a significant increase during the times that Rodney Camacho was embezzling the money and forging receipts during his employment,” Fancher said the arrest report.
On July 11, a search warrant was executed on Camacho’s residence, where several items of evidence were seized by authorities, who subsequently arrested him.
Hof, meanwhile, said he felt betrayed by Camacho’s alleged actions.
“That was money I was using for my campaign, and I’m mad as hell, but I’ve had some time to cool down,” Hof said this week.
Hof, who won the Republican nomination for Nevada’s Assembly District 36 last month, said that Camacho had started working for him at least four years ago as a graphic artist.
“… As management changed, we gave him an opportunity where he worked his way up the ladder. He was a very nice guy with a nice family,” Hof said. “It was back in January when he left and we just could not figure out why he left so abruptly. There really didn’t seem to be a good reason for it because he was getting paid well. He also had a lot of perks.”
Hof said he had placed Camacho in a management position “where he had an opportunity to do real well and take care of his family.”
“All of the working girls out at the ranch were upset because they also liked Rodney, but his actions turned the whole place upside down,” Hof said.
“I just wanted to beat the hell out of him,” Hof said in reference to learning of the allegations.
Camacho declined to be interviewed Thursday.
Contact reporter Selwyn Harris at sharris@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @pvtimes
