Governor, wife have 3-hour divorce hearing

Gov. Jim Gibbons and first lady Dawn Gibbons spent about three hours in a closed-door Reno courtroom Thursday going over issues to be resolved in their pending divorce case.

The status conference before Family Court Judge Frances Doherty resulted in some progress but the process has been complicated because the first-term Republican governor broke an agreement to not talk publicly about the case, Dawn Gibbons' lawyer, Cal Dunlap, said Friday.

Gary Silverman, the governor's attorney in the divorce case, didn't immediately return calls seeking comment. Gibbons told reporters Thursday as he left the courtroom that he would have no comment about the proceedings. Dawn Gibbons also didn't comment.

Dunlap said Gibbons' breaking of the agreement to not talk means the governor can no longer have the case sealed. After Gibbons filed for divorce in May, citing incompatibility, Dawn Gibbons moved for public proceedings, saying the governor was involved with another woman and relied on an unconstitutional law in getting a Carson City judge to seal the case.

Gibbons, 63, has denied having any romantic involvements with other women, although he has been seen in public with two women who he has described as friends.

In June, Gibbons apologized for using a state-owned cell phone to send more than 860 text messages over several weeks last year to one of the women, the estranged wife of a Reno doctor. He denied that the messages were "love notes."

In July, Gibbons, who has been married to Dawn Gibbons for about 22 years, also told an interviewer that he doesn't want to be "a lonely governor" and plans on dating " but didn't have a girlfriend.

Dawn Gibbons, 54, is staying in a guest house on the grounds of the governor's mansion in Carson City. Gibbons has asked for a court order awarding him sole occupancy of the taxpayer-supported mansion and awarding his estranged wife occupancy of their Reno home.