MARK SMITH / PVT Sheriff Tony DeMeo outlines a variety of law enforcement matters during his most recent public forum at Wulfy's Sports Bar. Advertisement

Sheriff Tony DeMeo had some blunt words Sunday about identity theft here in Pahrump.

"If you haven't been hit," he told the dozen and a half people who showed up for his monthly public forum at Wulfy's Sports Bar, "you will be."

He said one recent bust in Amargosa Valley involved a virtual factory making credit cards and even high-quality counterfeit money. As many as 900 victims might have been targeted.

Many of the victims were from Las Vegas, he said, "but some of the victims were here."

He said the phony money was done well and might easily have passed muster in many businesses.

DeMeo said one action the elderly and those who have been victimized by ID thieves can take is to have their credit "frozen."

A "security freeze" can ensure that no one else can get into your accounts and open new ones without your knowledge.

Later he said many banks will deliberately drop the ball in ID theft cases, choosing to take care of the problems internally and never prosecute.

In effect, the real victims of such problems back off from demanding prosecution.

DeMeo also spoke about drugs in his wide-ranging discussion and question-and-answer session.

"Meth," he said, "not the problem here that it was years and years ago."

Instead, there are plenty of other drugs around to cause problems, ranging from marijuana to heroin and cocaine.

But one of the most difficult problems has to do with prescription drugs that are either taken from those who gained them legally or are acquired through careful "doctor-shopping" for physicians who can be cajoled into writing an Rx for a drugstore.

'Seventy-five percent of people who come to your house," he said, "will go through your medicine cabinet." And that includes workmen, salesmen, would-be buyers, friends of your children, you name it.

If the focus remains on meth, he said, "we're going to miss all the other problems."

Several in the audience asked about disposing of prescription drugs in the event of changes in a given dosage or even a death of a loved one.

Contact us at the sheriff's office, said DeMeo, and we'll handle it. "It's been pretty effective," he said.

Several questions had to do with the difference between arresting someone and actually seeing to it that a suspect goes to trial.

The problem, said DeMeo, is that in too many cases, after his department requests charges be filed, are returned without action and the district attorney's office says they "lack prosecutorial merit."

"We can only request charges," DeMeo said.

"So we need new DA's," said one member of the audience.

To laughter DeMeo responded quickly: "I'm not saying that."

He did say he is working on a system that will allow him to determine how many cases are effectively pursued.

In one period, he explained, 1,800 cases were filed but the sheriff's department was unable to determine how many had been prosecuted.

"We're always going to fight the court system," DeMeo said. "We see the victims."

Asked how best residents can help the sheriff's office, he spoke simply: "Report suspicious activity ... The most important asset we have is you guys."

DeMeo said he could make work for a whole unit focused solely on warrants. In a recent effort by what was called the Falcon Task Force, Nye County produced the largest percentage per capita of arrests of any county in the nation.

He said there is some anecdotal evidence that people tend to move to Pahrump and Nye County because they believe "the judges will release them anyway."

DeMeo spoke out about the union that represents his own deputies and its lack of backbone.

"Harley Kulkin," he said, "spoke publicly more about giving us more money than the union did ... They've been silent ... The last time they wrote a letter of support, it was for a deputy we had arrested for sexual assault."

The union needs to speak up, he said.

DeMeo said the new automatic license plate readers are proving their worth. The department is making arrests, he said, and the readers "save us a lot of time. It's a tool that actually helps us quite a bit."

He also said the 10 canines employed by the department seem sufficient but that an effort by one party to purchase armored vests for them won't help. The dogs, he said, really can't operate to the highest degree if they wear the vests -- and the canines operate to a very high level.

Judges will allow "hits" from canines that have an 80 percent rate for correctly making determinations, but the Nye County canines "need to hit 100 percent." They are better than their handlers, he said.