State Wildlife helicopter pilot
Jon Remlinger and his three passengers were at about
5,000 feet, out of Winnemucca, when they received a radio
call from a twin-engine BLM Otter. The Otter
was flying a posting mission over two wildfires raging
within 20 miles of the helicopter and casting a line of
brown smoke along the near horizon over the Humboldt
Range. Three firefighters, one of them a
woman, had been caught by a shift in the blaze and were
now lying in the field, urgently in need of rescue. The
BLM pilot in the Otter asked Remlinger if he could divert
his Bell Jet Ranger into the area to pick up the
firefighters down from the second degree burns and smoke
inhalation. Remlinger confirmed his Loran
directional equipment and began edging the stick in the
direction of the distress call. Next to him, in the left
seat, he noticed his boss and passenger, Nevada Division
of Wildlife Administrator Will Molini, turning as if to
seek advice from another passenger in the back seat. "No," Molini's voice
crackled over the intercom, "Go on to King's
River." Molini's order to ignore the call
for help began a process of cover-up that extends today,
some five years later, into the working of Nevada's
Democrat machine politics and its chief manipulator, U.S.
Senator Harry Reid. The passenger in the back seat was a
Republican, State Senate Majority Leader
William Raggio of Reno, who later events seemed designed
to protect and perhaps influence. At the time of that flight in August
of 1991, helicopter pilot Remlinger was a 20-year veteran
of the Las Vegas police department, launching what seemed
a promising new career in flying the state chopper meant
to keep track of wildlife. Molini would later argue that a
Careflight Medical helicopter was already en route and
only 30 minutes away from the injured firefighters when
the Otter asked for their assistance. The Careflight
helicopter, the Wildlife boss argued, was better equipped
to deal with the situation. But Remlinger's own instincts and
training as a police officer told him that the quickest
response possible could make a life or death difference
to the injured firefighers. He heard that in the Otter
pilot's voice, and he would learn later that the crew on
the twin-engine plane desperately considered attempting
to land on a dirt road themselves to reach their people. Even after he set the Jet Ranger
down at King's Ranch, Remlinger was still in closer range
than the in the printed edition September 26 helicopter
pounding the sky out of Reno. The urgent call for help
from the BLM Otter and his own reluctant answer,
"Unable to respond," pulled at Remlinger. He
told Molini he could reach the firefighters in 10 minutes
and have them to the hospital in Winnemucca within
another half hour. "No, turn it off," Molini
told him. Remlinger was troubled by what he
had been made to do. He knew his mission that day was
little more than a joy ride for the Senate Majority
Leader and lobbyist John Sande to visit Raggio's private
club at King's River Ranch to get a jump on the hunting
season by spotting where the chukkar were congregating.
They spent the night there at the Humboldt Hunting Club
where Senator Raggio maintains a trailer of his own. Remlinger reported the incident to
his own direct supervisor, another pilot, who felt the
same concerns, but decided to let the matter drop. Later, with the knowledge and
permission of his employers, Remlinger agreed to tell the
troubling story to Dr. Gerald Lent, President of the
Nevada Hunter's Association, and along with many other
sportsmen in the state, a critic of Nevada's wildlife
administration. When Molini realized what Remlinger
had 
told Dr. Lent, he summoned the helicopter
pilot into a meeting in which Molini pointedly asked why
the former police officer couldn't remember the flight
"the way I do."
Remlinger remembers hearing Molini
say at the end of that meeting something about
"knowing what I have to do." Before reports of
the incident would go further, Molini fired Remlinger,
claiming it was part of a consolidation move with the
Division of Forestry. The ex-policeman, put out in the
cold by his left-seat boss, began a long legal process
against wrongful termination.
He had been on vacation, and was
just 16 days short of earning 26 years toward retirement
when he received the letter telling him he was
terminated.
In the meantime, hunter's groups,
including Lent's association, were urging new legislation
on the state legislature to change the make-up of the
Board of Directors of the Nevada Division of Wildlife and
give it more authority over the budget being administered
by state appointees.
The state's Democrat administration
wanted to protect its appointees, but the hunters had
growing support among Republicans in the legislature.
By the time it came to a vote, the
bill had been watered down more than hunters wanted, but
it did pass, with only one Republican voting against it
-- Senate Majority Leader William Raggio.
Remlinger's story was also getting
around the halls of the legislature, so much so that it
was brought to the attention of the state Ethics
Commission, supposedly an independent body of appointed
state leaders capable of keeping an eye on the many
temptations offered to Nevada lawmakers.
The case lingered without action for
years. When it was heard, only Remlinger was called to
testify against Molini and Raggio's claims that the trip
had been a legitimate legislative function -- to examine
wildlife department operations.
Remlinger told his story while his
former boss and the State Senator both listened along
with the Commission. When he finished testifying,
Remlinger was asked to leave the room, but the other two
stayed for the decision.
The decision, finding no impropriety
by Raggio in the trip, brushed aside the incident with a
statement that the Senator was justified in taking the
ride to learn more about activities of the Division of
Wildlife.
It was signed and released just last
month, five 
years after the
incident, by the former Chairman of the Ethics Commission
-- now Democratic candidate for Congress -- Thomas
"Spike" Wilson.
Wilson, ironically, touts himself in
his campaign as not only an independent thinker capable
of such fair decisions as those from the Ethics
Commission, but a proponent of law and order supported by
the same Las Vegas Police Department where Jon Remlinger
put in 20 years before that politically-heavy helicopter
flight.
Wilson's vaunted independence has
been questioned by some of the same sportsmen and rural
residents of Nevada who worry about the wheeling and
dealing in Vegas and Reno politics.
The former state legislator insists
he carries no party baggage and owes no machine
obligations. His chief handler in the media campaign he
is waging, however, is Larry Werner, on loan from his job
as administrative assistant to U.S. Senator Harry Reid.
Few doubt who is really behind Wilson's well-financed
campaign.
Remlinger's case for wrongful
termination is awaiting trial in federal court. He has
been offered a cash settlement to forget the whole thing,
but turned the offer down.