Reid, Ensign describe stalker threats

Bill Gang

Friday, May 29, 1998 | 4:58 a.m.

A District Court jury began deliberations late this afternoon into the fate of the man charged with stalking Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev.

Reid and Ensign told the jury earlier today that their lives were threatened by a man who had wanted his office to help recover $23,000 lost in a Mexican land scam.

It was outside Reid's office on March 18, 1996, that Michael McCusker fired a bullet into his chest during a dramatic if unsuccessful suicide try.

McCusker's letters and calls to the offices of Reid and Ensign resulted in felony stalking charges being filed and this week's trial in District Judge Joseph Bonaventure's courtroom.

Ensign testified that his fear of McCusker was heightened after the suicide attempt and the defendant's subsequent statements that next time his acts would be more dramatic.

Ensign said the thought of a murder-suicide situation crossed his mind.

"It escalated past the point where you feel you are dealing with a rational individual," the congressman said.

Despite his concerns about McCusker's potential for violence, Reid emphasized that he didn't want his position to influence the jury's decision in the trial.

"I want the jury to convict him because he threatened my life, my staff, Congressman Ensign, Sen. (Richard) Bryan (D-Nev.) and Gov. (Bob) Miller," Reid said. "No matter who I am, he should be convicted."

Reid characterized McCusker's contact with his office as "one of the most direct threats" he has ever received.

Ensign said he "never had someone come close to this type of dissatisfaction."

Reid said McCusker's suicide attempt, "threatening" voice mail messages and notes prompted him to move his office from a free-standing building at Las Vegas Boulevard South and Charleston Boulevard to the federal courthouse, where there are armed U.S. Marshals.

"This hasn't been pleasant," Reid said of the incidents that spanned a year and a half. "It's been very upsetting to my staff. He kind of lurked around, either on the phone or in person."

Unlike Reid, Ensign actually had talked to McCusker and explained to him that there was nothing the U.S. government could do to help with business problems three years before in a foreign country.

Ensign said he noted that if McCusker had gotten a job, he would have recouped the losses during that time, but the defendant "felt like such a victim that he felt the world owed him something."

McCusker suggested that Ensign organize some of his wealthy colleagues to simply reimburse him, the congressman said.

Although Deputy Public Defender Patricia Justice had indicated McCusker would testify in his own defense, she rested her case without calling any witnesses.

During closing arguments, Justice characterized McCusker as "a desperate individual who wanted to kill himself" and not someone who posed a threat to others.

But Deputy District Attorney Abbi Silver told the jury that McCusker "engaged in pure terror and violence" and should be convicted of the felony counts.

During the trial, witnesses told how McCusker was caught with a pistol -- but not arrested -- in front of Ensign's office several months before the shooting incident in front of Reid's office.

Justice, however, said the 55-year-old defendant was "pretty much a broken man" who only posed a risk to himself.

McCusker, whose self-proclaimed motto is "Justice or Death," had gone to Reid and Ensign for help in muscling reparations from Mexican authorities after years of being unable to recover the thousands of dollars he lost a decade ago.

McCusker is charged with felony aggravated stalking between December 1995 and July 1997, which alleges a pattern of conduct designed to terrorize his victims.