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LAS VEGAS (AP) — North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee said Wednesday he did nothing wrong asking city police to remove what he thought were images of child pornography from his tablet computer.
Lee said he didn't want to comment further until he had a chance to view a police report that had been released to him and to media, including The Associated Press.
"I emphatically deny all allegations," Lee said.
Lee told the Las Vegas Review-Journal last week the images began popping up on his iPad after someone sent him an email, and he asked police in October to clear them because he worried they showed children being harmed.
The reporting officer, North Las Vegas police Detective Mark Hoyt, said a search using an FBI-owned computer using data recovery programs didn't find the email Lee referred to.
Police did find browser links on Lee's tablet to at least one website displaying possible child pornography originating from another country.
The investigation ended because investigators couldn't immediately verify the age or identify the location of the children, according to the document.
"Based on the fact that no illegal images were located and the email that sent the images was not located, no law enforcement action was taken," Hoyt wrote.
Officer Aaron Patty, a North Las Vegas police spokesman, said Wednesday that new city Police Chief Alexander Perez asked the FBI in Las Vegas to review Hoyt's report, but didn't expect a new investigation.
"We're requesting that they take a look at the case and decide where to go from there," Patty said.
Patty had said Tuesday that federal involvement prevented the police department from making the investigative report public.
FBI Las Vegas spokeswoman Bridget Pappas declined Wednesday to comment.
The Review-Journal report about the police investigation came a day after Joseph Chronister retired as North Las Vegas police chief and Perez, his former assistant chief, was promoted.
Chronister, who retired after more than 25 years in the department, has told reporters the police investigation should have been more thorough and he should have taken its findings to the Clark County district attorney.
Attempts by AP to reach Chronister weren't immediately successful.
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