Las Vegas [lvrj.com]- Playboy model Monica Chairez said Thursday that her father, Nevada Supreme Court candidate Don Chairez, was aware that she was posing for the magazine and supported her decision.
The 21-year-old UNLV journalism graduate appears nude in a Playboy.com pictorial titled "Playboy Coed of the Week" for the week of June 26.
Her Playboy photo shoot was April 30, and "my family has always known about this and are 100% supportive of me."
Her father is a former Clark County District Court judge who unsuccessfully ran for state attorney general in 1996. He is one of four candidates seeking the seat of retiring state Supreme Court Justice William Maupin.
As a district judge, Chairez became known as "Maximum Don" after ruling that smut peddlers had no First Amendment protection when they trespassed on private property along Las Vegas Boulevard.
Monica Chairez, in an e-mailed response to an article that appeared here Thursday, said, "My parents raised me with the highest standard of values. Posing in Playboy does not compromise what my morals and beliefs are. It's 2008 and this is Las Vegas. Our own Oscar Goodman shot a Playboy pictorial."
She was referring to the mayor's 2005 stint as a guest photographer for Playboy. He photographed 19-year-old Las Vegas model Destiny Davis, who was Playboy's Miss January that year.
Monica Chairez said her father is her No. 1 fan, "always teaching me that beautiful women can be brilliant." An honor student at Bishop Gorman High School, she completed her UNLV studies in three years.
She said she was angry at Pauly Howard, talk show host at local ESPN affiliate KWWN-AM, 1100, because a blog item by one of his former colleagues was headlined "Talk Show Host Has Sex with Playboy Playmate."
"I've never had sex with him (Howard)," she said. "Our relationship was strictly platonic. And I'm not a Playmate."
