Developer Jim Rhodes, who bought more than 1,000 acres of prime state trust land in Apache Junction last December, is paying more than $200,000 annually to a former Nevada county official who admitted taking bribes, according to her testimony in a Las Vegas criminal court.

Erin Kenny testified that she has been on Rhodes’ payroll as a consultant since January 2003 — a few months before she was busted by federal authorities for taking bribes from Las Vegas strip club owner Michael Galardi. Kenny later cut a deal with federal prosecutors and pleaded guilty to taking payoffs from Galardi while she was on the Clark County Commission.

The Tribune reported on Rhodes’ relationships with Kenny and other Nevada politicians implicated in the federal investigation in a three-part series published in April.

Kenny testified Thursday in an unrelated trial involving a real estate consultant, who is charged with paying her $200,000 in return for favorable treatment while she was on the commission.

FUNNELING ACCUSATION

Rhodes also was accused Thursday of secretly funneling $100,000 in unreported campaign contributions to Kenny during her unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor in 2002, according to accounts of the trial published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The Tribune reported on Rhodes’ relationships with Kenny and other Nevada politicians implicated in the federal investigation in a three-part series published in April.

Last December, Rhodes was the successful bidder on the state trust land near Ironwood Drive and Baseline Road in Apache Junction.

Aside from the roughly 1,000 acres he bought, Rhodes won the right to master plan an additional 6,700 acres of state land in the area known as Lost Dutchman Heights. That is the first sale in a 275-square-mile swath of state land that extends as far south as Florence, considered among the most valuable holdings in the state’s portfolio.

The trust land is managed largely for the benefit of public schools and universities.

Kenny said she works on projects for Rhodes and provides him with advice on dealing with government agencies.

Lisa Urias, a public relations consultant for Rhodes in Arizona, said she did not have any comment on Kenny’s claims. Urias did say any donations made by Rhodes to Kenny’s campaign were “legal and proper.”

“I don’t know what she did or didn’t do, but anything that we donated we did it properly,” Urias said.

Chris Stephens, a vice president of Rhodes Homes in Las Vegas, would not comment.

There is no indication Kenny has any involvement in the Lost Dutchman Heights project, or in Rhodes’ efforts to build more than 130,000 homes in five city-sized subdivisions in Mohave County, according to company representatives and elected officials familiar with Rhodes’ efforts here.

But the revelations from Nevada will trigger efforts to reopen hearings on his applications to operate a water and sewer company to serve two of his developments in Mohave County.

CASE COULD REOPEN

For two years the Arizona Corporation Commission has been mulling whether to issue the permits to Rhodes. Commissioners are weighing whether he is of “fit and proper” character to operate a regulated utility in Arizona.

The portion of the case in which testimony is taken and documents are submitted to the commission has been closed. However, Commissioners Bill Mundell and Kris Mayes said Friday they will seek to have it reopened so they can investigate Kenny’s statements and perhaps call Rhodes to testify.

Rhodes voluntarily testified in April after Mayes threatened to have him subpoenaed.

Mayes said Friday she is again prepared to have him subpoenaed if he does not cooperate in a new round of commission hearings. Rhodes’ connections to Kenny have not come up in the commission’s case.

“I’m deeply troubled by these disclosures,” Mundell said when informed of Kenny’s testimony. “I believe we need to send our case back so that we can have additional questions of Mr. Rhodes under oath regarding his connections with Erin Kenny.”

Mayes called Kenny’s testimony “disturbing information” that warrants further investigation.

Kenny was elected to the Clark County Commission in 1994. The commission has jurisdiction over unincorporated areas that encompass most of the Las Vegas area. In the last two years of Kenny’s term alone, Rhodes had more than 20 items related to his developments in front of the commission.

Kenny did not seek re-election in 2002, but ran unsuccessfully lieutenant governor. The day after she left office in January 2003, Kenny was working as a consultant and lobbyist for Rhodes.

The federal investigation of strip club owner Galardi and his dealings with corrupt politicians became public in May 2003.

Kenny confessed when confronted by investigators that she had accepted bribes from Galardi and a developer unrelated to Rhodes.

She and Galardi, who also reached a plea deal, were the key witnesses against three other former commissioners.

During his interrogation by the FBI, Galardi alleged that Rhodes admitted to him that he had secretly been paying Kenny $20,000 per month while she was on the commission. When the Tribune asked Rhodes last April about that allegation, Rhodes replied, “he’s a bald-faced liar, Michael Galardi.”

PAYMENTS ALLEGED

In her testimony Thursday, Kenny said Rhodes began paying her $15,000 per month immediately after she left the commission, according to the Review-Journal. After she pleaded guilty to taking bribes and started cooperating with federal investigators, Rhodes raised the payments to $16,800 per month, about $201,600 per year.

In other testimony last week, Kenny’s former campaign finance manager and accountant said Rhodes secretly paid $100,000 into Kenny’s 2002 campaign for lieutenant governor, unreported donations used to cover her theft of campaign funds.

Kenny did report $110,000 in donations from Rhodes and his companies during the 2002 campaign.