LAS VEGAS — A Las Vegas construction defect lawyer and her former police officer boyfriend pleaded not guilty Thursday to multiple felonies in an arson-suicide-murder scheme that unraveled after the lawyer was found unconscious in her burning home last October.
Nancy Quon, 51, stood with her lawyer before Clark County District Court Judge Michelle Leavitt and William Ronald Webb Jr., 43, stood in shackles in custody during their arraignment on charges including conspiracy and insurance fraud.
Quon also pleaded not guilty to arson and intent to defraud, and Webb pleaded not guilty to burglary, drug and conspiracy to commit murder charges. Both could face decades in state prison if convicted of the charges contained in a grand jury indictment handed up Aug. 17.
Prosecutor Sandra DiGiacomo and defense lawyers Tom Pitaro and John Momot told the judge they expect the trial will be complex, and that pretrial motions could take several months. No trial date was immediately set.
Quon, Pitaro and Momot declined comment outside the courtroom. Quon is free on $50,000 bail. Webb remained jailed afterward on $150,000 bail.
The state alleges that Quon set fire to her home last October in a botched suicide to escape pressure of a sweeping probe of homeowners associations, and that Quon and Webb plotted to hide the suicide by using a hard-to-detect illegal drug, gamma hydroxybutyrate or GHB. The drug is best-known as a date rape drug.
According to a 13-page Las Vegas police arrest report, the couple planned for Quon to take the drug to commit suicide.
Police and prosecutors allege the plot was hatched after Quon was identified as a target in the HOA fraud probe that local and federal agents launched in November 2007. Webb planned to collect Quon's life insurance, administer their affairs and then commit suicide himself.
Quon is named as "one of the top targets" in the HOA investigation, according to the police report. It said her indictment was "imminent" on unspecified charges that could get her about 20 years in prison. She has not been charged in that case.
However, a 54-year-old southern Nevada political consultant, Steven Wark, pleaded guilty this week in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas to taking part in a scheme to elect candidates to HOA boards to steer legal work and contracts to favored friends. A federal Justice Department lawyer told the judge in that case that more cases are expected to be filed in coming weeks.
Webb, who retired as a Las Vegas police officer in August 2008, was in San Diego when the house fire occurred, according to the police report. His brother found Quon unconscious on a couch in the burning house.
The indictment alleges that even after the fire Webb talked with an unindicted co-conspirator, Robert Justice, 45, and an unnamed undercover Las Vegas police officer about obtaining GHB. It wasn't clear if the drug was to be used for a suicide or in a slaying.
Webb was recorded and videotaped buying the drug Nov. 9 in a parking lot at the Green Valley Ranch Resort, Spa and Casino in Henderson, the police report said.
He was arrested after putting the drug in Quon's red Lexus. Police arrested Quon in a room inside the hotel.