Remember, this guy had to file bankruptcy as a result of a $15 million libel suit and had a DUI arrest.
Below is a list of six separate opinion pieces written about me by John L. Smith (JLS) when he was working as a columnist at the Las Vegas Review Journal.
I ask you, how did I rate a half dozen articles, as a witness, in a case that was hardly even getting any media attention when it was underway? I’ll tell you how: because JLS was led by the nose — influenced by a decidedly dishonest cop, former Metro PD detective, Tom Dillard, who was hired by the defense team to impugn, lie, intimidate, and, in short, throw dirt on me any way he could. And the judge was watching it play out in his courtroom and reading it in the pages of the RJ under John L. Smith’s byline, as was, apparently, the judge’s wife.
To quote from current FBI Director Kash Patel’s book, Government Gangsters, where he addresses a similar situation he had to deal with: “The judge had it out for me from the get-go, and the local prosecutors were abject failures to the mission.” That really struck a note with me, because it was exactly what I lived through in court on this case. The two attorneys assigned to prosecute the case, Crane Pomerantz and Eric Johnson (now a District Court Judge) did nothing to overcome the onslaught of lies and untruths the defense was throwing about in open court. There is an audio transcript of this case that can be accessed for anyone interested in hearing all the details as the case played out in court.
Here are the commentary pieces written by JLS about me in the Las Vegas Review Journal (RJ) in the order in which they appeared, and my notes and full write ups about each of the six:
- Charges dismissed against former NLV Muni Court chief marshal
John L. Smith April 29, 2009 – 12:30 pm
Right off the bat, Smith shows his disdain for me by writing, “With a resounding slap …” A hit job on me from the start.
SEE DETAILS BELOW - Money laundering charges dropped against ex-NLV court marshal
April 30, 2009 – 9:00 pm
Money laundering charges dropped to the court’s “surprise” by a judge the RJ itself said, TWICE, should step down from the bench.
SEE DETAILS BELOW - After strange days in court, ex-lawman seeks return to jail job
May 6, 2009 – 9:00 pm
SEE DETAILED BULLET POINTS IMMEDIATELY BELOW
AND FURTHER DETAILS BELOW:
• Called judge a “steady hand.” Not true. The RJ called twice for the judge to step down because of his high overturn rate — highest ever in the state of Nevada
Judge Robert Clive Jones stated from the bench that not only did he not believe me, but neither did his wife.
• JLS called me a “professional snitch.” Not true.
• JLS called me a “con man.” Not true. Made up. What proof is there anywhere that I am or was a con man. Then he says, “although he had no prior convictions,” JLS wrote. What?! What kind of a self-serving statement is that?
• JLS wrote that I “bragged about his law enforcement clout …” Demeaning. Degrading. Untrue! I only answered a question when I was on the stand in court.
• It was written I hadn’t bothered to pay my taxes. Not true. That’s what defense attorney Tom Pitaro said without any basis in fact. At the time, I was in negotiations with IRS for an offer and compromise.
• JLS wrote that I used “law enforcement clout wasn’t above using those contacts to help himself out of various civil jams.” Completely untrue. I have had no “civil jams” that I had to wiggle out of.
• “Barket has no collector’s license” and … “used a girlfriend to purchase more than 50 guns. Complete fabrication. There is no such thing as a gun collectors license. I know, because I checked with the ATF.
• JLS says I paid $1,000 a moth to live in $1 million-plus home. I was a roommate. The house was being marketed for sale.
• JLS also wrote that I drove various luxury cars that weren’t in his name. Please identify those cars and who they belonged to.
• JLS wrote that I accepted investments from people for business plans that never quite came to fruition. Who? When? Please name those people. More completely made up lies.
• Please identify “former associates” who say I was “vindictive.” Please identify them. More made-up stuff.
• The judge brings up his wife’s opinion in open court. What possible relevance could that have in court?
• JLS writes: “Meanwhile, back on the bench that at one point mentioned his wife’s opinion of the government informant’s credibility [referring to me] and left friends of the US Attorneys office somewhat bewildered, Judge Jones seized on Barket’s questionable veracity and dismissed all charges.” According to a June 3, 2018 article by Jane Ann Morrison, “Nevada’s most overturned federal judge — Robert Clive Jones — was overturned yet again in one case and removed from another because of his bias against the US government.” That’s who we’re dealing with here. And what is one agency that represents the US government? The FBI. Biased? You be the judge.
• In another quote I agree with wholeheartedly by current FBI Director Patel in his book Government Gangsters, called one federal judge he was dealing with, “rather cuckoo” (Chapter 2, Page 13). Director Patel. I get it. - Will federal informant Barket reappear in future trials?
John L. Smith June 1, 2009 – 2:32 pm
• Rampant speculation about my future from someone who doesn’t know me
• A vendetta against me fueled by the defense team in the Bonvicin trial.
SEE DETAILS BELOW - After not impressing His Honor, government witness defends his honor
June 2, 2009 – 9:00 pm
• Not impressing His Honor? You mean the judge the RJ itself called for twice to step down from the bench?
SEE DETAILS BELOW - True survivor claws way back to position in law enforcement
February 16, 2011 – 2:02 am
• True survivor due to a biased judge
• A defense team that engaged in unethical conduct related to me in an unfettered attempt to skew the facts and the court.
SEE DETAILS BELOW
I will address each of these commentary pieces in detail, in order, separately:
- Charges dismissed …
I’ll set up the story for you: I was a witness in an FBI investigation into money laundering and lying to a federal official by Ricardo Bonvicin, a one-time North Las Vegas Municipal Court Chief Marshal.
In his duties, Bonvicin was responsible for maintaining court security (he’s the guy you’d see posted in court as a deterrence and first responder in case any defendant wanted to get crazy and disturb proceedings); he transports prisoners between court and jails; he screens people entering the court; he monitors security cameras, alarms, and access to secured areas; he pulls defendant criminal history and driving records; and he also would prepare operational assignments for those in his chain of command.
Pretty important responsibilities; pretty important stuff for courts and law & order. Bonvicin’s background in law enforcement should have trained him in understanding right from wrong; legal vs. illegal activities.
Here’s what the US Attorney’s office alleged in the case they filed against Bonvicin in 2007: “Ricardo Bonvicin, age 40, of Las Vegas, a former lieutenant with the North Las Vegas Detention Center and Chief Marshal of the North Las Vegas Municipal Court, has been indicted by the Federal Grand Jury on charges that he laundered approximately $40,000 in cash which he believed had been obtained illegally through cheating at video poker, and for making false statements to the FBI during their investigation of the case, announced Steven W. Myhre, Acting United States Attorney for the District of Nevada.”
The case was set up by, and investigated by, the FBI, and was assigned for prosecution to Assistant US Attorneys Crane M. Pomerantz and Eric Johnson. I was just used by the FBI to collect information.
This first column that John L. Smith wrote about the case started out with this sentence: “With a resounding slap at a veteran federal law enforcement informant …” That veteran “informant” was me.
Words matter. You can’t come up with a much more biased perspective. “With a resounding slap … “ Do you think that sets a tone for the column? Do you think you can tell right away that Smith has disdain for me? I’d never met the guy before. It’s about as negative an opening sentence for a column that you can write.
And the word, “informant”? I’m not an informant — not a “snitch” as that word might negatively imply. I simply was a witness for the FBI, and told the court exactly what happened after they had directed me about how to interact with Bonvicin.
Smith actually uses that word, “snitch” in the second paragraph of the column. That’s his opinion and nothing more. It’s the word he chose to use instead of labeling me as what I was — a witness. It makes a difference.
Smith then goes on to say that I “admitted having a 25-year relationship with the FBI, IRS, ATF and other law enforcement agencies.” Admitted? What the hell is that about? As if there somehow was some guilt associated with working with those agencies? Admitted? It’s used as a pejorative. Like I was fessing up to something I wanted to hide. I have certain pretty special skill sets when it comes to collecting information. The FBI, IRS, ATF, etc., find them very useful. I’m not admitting to anything; I proudly stand behind my work with those elite federal agencies.
Later in the story, Smith writes that the judge in the case said I had a “lack of credibility.” Really? Why? Where did that come from. Nothing explained, no context at all.
Talk about a hit job. And that was just the first column. Smith wrote many more.
2. Money laundering …
This was a day-after follow up story published a day after John L. Smith’s initial column, addressed above.
US District Judge Robert C. Jones dismissed six counts of money laundering and one count of lying to a federal officer in the trial of former North Las Vegas Municipal Court Marshal Ricardo Bonvicin.
That was what the first column was about. I guess they really wanted to hammer home their dislike and disapproval of me. Because it was the same content the RJ published the previous day in John L. Smith’s column minus the “With a resounding slap,” part.
But Smith and the RJ wanted to pile on, I suppose. No new info, no moving the story forward, essentially just the same item published a day after the first. No bias there, right? I’m sure no axe to grind. Something Smith and the RJ do all the time, right? Well, not really.
I guess they just wanted to get this item from the story out there about me: “Jones said the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office officials strayed when they chose to trust witness Steve Barket.”
And this: “On cross examination by Bonvicin’s attorney Tom Pitaro, it was brought out that Barket used his relationship with the FBI to attempt to bury the defendant after their friendship had soured.
”
This drove home that they were really just out to try to trash me.
3. Strange days in court …
In this one, John L. Smith writes: “It became clear during Barket’s cross-examination by Bonvicin attorney Tom Pitaro that the government’s key witness was a professional snitch who bragged about his law enforcement clout and wasn’t above using those contacts to help himself out of various civil jams. By the end of Pitaro’s questioning, Barket appeared little more than a con man caught in an endless web of fiction.”
“Professional snitch …” Really? Says you? Smith is trying to paint me broadly in caricature fashion — like one of those TV show “snitches” who somehow are always unworthy of respect and who are the focus of derision from the main characters. They’re usually portrayed as alcoholics or hooked on drugs or compromised by some blackmail-able activity. That’s the picture Smith is trying to paint in your mind, isn’t it? Not me. Not even close. What an embarrassing, demeaning, untruthful term.
“Bragged about his law enforcement clout …” On the stand in court, I was asked about my work for law enforcement, and I answered the question truthfully. That’s all. And Smith turns that into me “bragging” about my “clout.” This is just pure fantasy; made up in his own twisted mind, colored by who he’s getting his information from — disgraced former Metro cop and detective Tom Dillard. See, I can have opinions, too. (For more on Dillard, please to to: TomDillard.net)
Just like Smith. He’s using words — written by him and published in the RJ — to try to tag me, brand me as some braggadocio who can get out of any jam because I’m hooked up with law enforcement. Just a joke.
And then this little tidbit: “… [Barket] wasn’t above using those contacts to help himself out of various civil jams.” What civil jams? What exactly is John L. Smith talking about? Fantasy. Misconception. Accusations with no basis in fact. Simply not true. Just another case of some columnist in the media writing what he wants to be the truth, not writing the actual truth. Death by 10,000 key strokes.
Then Smith mentioned me not having a “collector’s license” (I suppose he meant a gun collector’s license, because in the same sentence he said that I used “… a girlfriend to purchase more than 50 guns.” I’ll pull a $5 word out of my back pocket to describe that: balderdash! — which is defined as senseless talk or writing; nonsense. That is just simply not true. There is no such thing as a “collector’s license” when it comes to collecting guns. At least not in Nevada.
And here’s a key paragraph that proves Smith is on some vendetta against me; he writes: “Nothing Barket said under cross-examination led me to believe he was more than a gifted con man who apparently has also suckered some law enforcers. Jones was right to question Barket’s credibility, and Bonvicin is fortunate the judge was outraged.” His opinion completely. Nothing more. How can Smith possibly sit in judgment on me when he knows nothing about me at all?
Then, after bashing me around some more, Smith goes on to write, “Meanwhile, back on the bench, in a rambling speech that at one point mentioned his wife’s opinion of the government informant’s credibility and left friends of the U.S. attorney’s office and defense team somewhat bewildered, Judge Jones seized on Barket’s questionable veracity and dismissed all charges. He did so despite the presence of recordings that appeared to implicate Bonvicin in at least one incident of money laundering.”
Well that’s just great, isn’t it? The judge makes a “rambling speech” in which he mentions that his wife thinks I lack credibility. (How can she make a judgment like that? We’ve never met.) And out of the blue, the judge dismisses all charges in the face of evidence that solidly implicated Bonvicin. And Smith himself writes, “In the end, Jones surprised everyone by dismissing all charges against Bonvicin without waiting until the prosecution finished presenting its case.” What kind of judicial system is this? (My emphasis on the word, surprised.)
However, here’s something to pay attention to that Smith wrote about. He wrote that even though the judge dismissed all charges in the case, “He did so despite the presence of recordings that appeared to implicate Bonvicin in at least one incident of money laundering.”
In fact, Judge Jones, according to the RJ’s own writing, was the most-reversed judge in the state of Nevada. He had more cases — his decisions — reversed than any other judge in the Silver State. The RJ’s own Jane Ann Morrison wrote the following about Jones: “Nevada’s most overturned federal judge — Robert Clive Jones — was overturned yet again in one case and removed from another because of his bias against the U.S. government.”
Morrison also wrote: “An analysis by the online legal research service Westlaw for the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2016 showed he was the most overturned judge in Nevada’s U.S. District Court.”
There’s more: “In a 2016 column, I urged him to leave the bench after the 9th Circuit, for the sixth time since 2012, issued an opinion slamming Jones.” Did you get that? The RJ’s own writer called for him to step down from the bench.
And, in this 2018 column, Morrison called again for Jones to step down from the bench: “For a second time, I suggest Jones fully retire and quit mucking with justice.”
In my opinion, I’d call Judge Robert Clive Jones a disgrace to the judicial system.
And who did Smith rely on by being spoon-fed lies to write his columns? A disgraced two-bit former LVMPD detective, Tom Dillard, who cost Clark County millions of dollars, caused a wrongly accused man to move to another state and die shrouded in shame, and who withheld exculpatory evidence.
In his closing lines in this column, Smith writes: “The jail’s a nice place to visit. Bonvicin just doesn’t want to want to live there.”
Yep. That’s it alright. Pitaro, Dillard & Smith pulled all the strings they possibly could, both legally and in my opinion, highly sketchy ways to keep Bonvicin out of jail. And in doing so, trashed me. They didn’t care who they walked all over. They got the result they were after. That’s my opinion.
My own little piece of commentary.
The time for talk has passed.
4. Federal informant …
In this column, John L. Smith leads off quoting me — about the only accurate thing in the entire column: “ ‘You’re way out of line,’ Steve Barket said in a phone message. ‘You need to call and get my side of the story.’ ”
We talked. Here’s another accurate quote from his column: “ ‘The only thing that I did is what they told me to do,’ Barket said. ‘I didn’t invent the crime. I didn’t lay out the crime. I sat there. This guy’s been on the radar obviously for other things … I answered my questions the best that I could. Bonvicin, I have no ax to grind against him.’ ”
All true. All what I said. But then Smith flipped the script. He wrote that I was accused of doing what actually was being done to me: INTIMIDATION.
Smith writes, “But now it seems witness Barket is the one taking the heat. When an anonymous, May 12 e-mail to Pitaro claimed Barket intended to hire a private investigator to follow Pitaro and defense investigator Tom Dillard and their families, both men responded with terse letters to case co-prosecutor Assistant U.S. Attorney Crane Pomerantz.”
Hmmm. Interesting. Anonymous. ONE anonymous email, and I’m being accused of trying to intimidate Pitaro and Dillard.
THEY were the ones intimidating me. I have never, in all my time as a federal witness, felt so intimidated during a case. The real straw that broke the camel’s back was when Dillard parked and hung out at my then young son’s school. In fact a teacher went out to confront him because she had noticed him just sitting there at the school and appeared to be lurking — loitering as it’s known in the law. She chased him off.
Next paragraph from the column: ”As I consider Mr. Barket to be a potentially dangerous individual given his involvement in criminal activity over the last twenty-five years … I am concerned about him stalking my family,” Pitaro wrote. Another baseless statement.
Did you mean, John L. Smith, the 25 years I had spent cooperating with federal law enforcement to try to help them combat crime? Is that the “criminal activity” you’re referring to? Because a background check on me will come up free of any “criminal activity.” You lying sack of sh… well, you know what.
And Smith published what Dillard had to say about all this. Dillard said, “I will not tolerate any harassment or stalking of my family members and have no qualms taking the appropriate legal action … I consider Mr. Barket an unstable individual and potentially dangerous based on my investigation and interviews with his victims.
”
Harassment? Stalking of my family? Are you kidding? That’s exactly what you did to me and my family, you sorry excuse for a human being. Unstable? Potentially dangerous? — This is just where you make up stuff and go running to bankrupt, untruthful, DUI-guy columnist, John L. Smith, and spew it to him so he’ll publish it. Ridiculous. A continuation of the hit job being perpetrated against me.
And victims? What victims? Who did you talk to? Ghosts? Because I have no “victims” hiding in my past. Unlike you, Tom Dillard. You, who withheld exculpatory evidence in a murder case, wrongly accused a man murder in another case who had to close down his pharmacy business and flee to another state, dying a broken man; and you, who cost Clark County, Nevada more than two million dollars because of your unethical, immoral “detective” work.
And John L. Smith and the RJ swallowed your B.S. hook, line and sinker — in effect colluding with such a reprehensible soul like yourself.
Look in the mirror. Oh, you won’t, because you won’t like what you see.
5. Not impressing His Honor …
In this column RJ opinion columns John L. Smith speculates wildly about my future (he was wrong) and continues to defame and demean me. “Call it a hunch,” he writes. “But I am beginning to wonder whether the U.S. Attorney’s office has future plans for its veteran informant Steve Barket.”
Excuse me, but what? What the hell is that about? So now the RJ is just printing rampant speculation from Smith about me? And you wonder why I might be highly suspect about the RJ’s and Smith’s credibility? In my opinion — and yes, just like John L. Smith, I have one — they have zero credibility.
Smith goes on to write more scurrilous accusations speculating about my involvement in “allegations that personal injury attorneys conspired with local physicians and trial consultants to corrupt the legal system and generate enormous paydays.
”
Where exactly is that coming from?
The guy is unhinged. I just don’t know what else to say.
6. True Survivor …
I guess we’re supposed to be inspired by this column by John L. Smith, published in the RJ?
Maybe that’s the point of this ridiculous “comeback” story about Ricardo Bonvicin.
RJ columnist John L. Smith called former North Las Vegas Detention Center Chief Marshal Ricardo Bonvicin a “survivor.” Smith wrote that Bonvicin, “won reinstatement through arbitration after the 2009 dismissal of federal money laundering charges against him.”
A judge with questionable judgement (my opinion — confirmed by the Las Vegas Review Journal’s story mentioned above), Robert Clive Jones, threw out all charges (six money laundering charges, plus one charge of lying to a federal officer) even though in court Judge Jones was presented with credible evidence that Bonvicin had in fact done the deeds that he was being charged with, complete with taped recordings of the exchanges.
Charges don’t equal guilt, but the US attorney’s office would not have brought charges against Bonvicin if they thought they did not have a case to make against him. Jones just didn’t like the way the money laundering occurred. He thought it was entrapment. And he said that I had a credibility issue. Yet the Assistant US Attorneys assigned to prosecute the case showed that Bonvicin had taken action to earn those money laundering charges, and then lied about it.
In this story, Smith also mentions my ex-wife by name, and that she was lining up in opposition to me. Big surprise. We were on the outs at the time (hence the “ex-wife” label), had significant relationship issues (and I won’t get into why, I don’t want to drag her through the mud again, she has enough problems) that resulted in an acrimonious divorce.
The defense team in Jones’s court where Bonvicin was on trial actually paid my ex-wife to provide information about me that they could use against me. Again, some solid ethics and morals there, right? Give me a break. But this is how Smith writes it, as if this payment were some altruistic move on the part of Bonvicin: “Bonvicin even sent money to the financially strapped [ex-wife].” I mean, come on, people. The collusion to color the money the defense team paid to my ex-wife as some sort of charity donation is reprehensible and insulting.
And Smith closes with this: “And every day Lt. Ricardo Bonvicin reports for duty at the North Las Vegas jail, he’s sure to be reminded just how close he came to being one of the inmates.”
He should be one of the inmates, in my opinion. He was guilty of what he was charged with — again, my opinion. He just got lucky that he got a highly suspect judge to preside over the case — a judge who even the RJ called for to step down from the bench … TWICE, because according to the newspaper’s own reporting, he was the judge with the most overturned rulings in the entire state of Nevada.