Courthouse security increased for Bellagio heist hearing

Aaron Clemens

Tuesday, July 11, 2000 | 11:12 a.m.

A SWAT team in military fatigues stood guard with M-4 automatic weapons just inside the Clark County Courthouse this morning.

Six bailiffs and three undercover police officers guarded Oscar Sanchez Cisneros, 23, and Jose Manuel Vigoa, 40, who are charged in a June 3 armed robbery at the Bellagio hotel-casino and are suspects in a string of violent armed robberies.

They appeared before Justice of the Peace Deborah Lippis Monday for a preliminary hearing that will determine whether they will stand trial for the early-morning heist at the Bellagio. They have been identified as suspects but not charged in a string of armored-truck robberies, including one in Henderson March 3 that left two security guards dead. Testimony continues today.

Witnesses identified Cisneros and Vigoa as two of three men who invaded the Bellagio June 3 and described how they feared for their lives during the five-minute robbery.

Brian Zinke, the surveillance supervisor on duty when the robbery occurred, testified that he watched Vigoa stand lookout while two other suspects jumped over a counter and raided the main casino cage.

"My eyes never left the video," he said when questioned by defense attorneys. "It's pretty much etched in my mind."

Vigoa, who is also accused of endangering his 12-year-old daughter while evading police at speeds up to 100 miles per hour, sat stoically through the entire proceeding.

Cisneros bit his lower lip, furrowed his brow and grimaced as he listened through an earpiece to a Spanish translator relaying the testimony of Bellagio cage cashier Teri Potter. The cashier said Cisneros was the one who jumped over the handicapped counter that morning.

"Get inside," she remembered him saying softly and repeating as he pointed a gun at her from just a few feet away.

She said the trio got away with several hundred thousand dollars.

The defense questioned Potter's certainty after she admitted she recognized Cisneros from television reports.

Former UNLV Police Officer Troy Blundell said he watched three suspicious men exit an emergency door and jog across the grass to within six feet of him as he waited to pick up some guests in his limousine.

"I got a pretty good look," Blundell said. He described seeing the three men carrying bags, and one held a four-foot, red-handled pry bar. He said it appeared another wore a bulletproof vest, and he suspected they all did.

He immediately wrote on his hand the California license plate number of the van as they drove away, then called 911.

During a lineup at the jail on Friday, he identified Cisneros, and he identified Vigoa in court Monday from the witness stand. But defense attorneys questioned him closely about his incorrect identification of a second man as Cisneros' accomplice in the seven-person lineup Friday and questioned his credibility.

Blundell said he wasn't sure of the second man's identification at the time, but he didn't tell police.

Pedro Durazo, Vigoa's federal probation officer since 1996, testified that he called the FBI after seeing the Bellagio robbery videotape on television news shows June 5. Vigoa is on probation from a 1991 conviction for cocaine trafficking and assaulting federal officers.

Durazo had twice been shown videotape in October and November of an armored truck robbery outside the MGM Grand hotel-casino in September 1998.

Durazo said he recognized Vigoa's distinctive walk and posture in the MGM Grand videotape, but he could not make a positive ID of Vigoa until he saw the Bellagio tape, where he could clearly see his face.

"I'm 100 percent sure that was Mr. Vigoa," Durazo said. He testified he was told by the FBI that Vigoa was driving a car registered to Cisneros.

Although Vigoa and Cisneros were represented at the preliminary hearing together, Deputy District Attorney Tom Leen said that they will ask that the cases be separated before they go to trial in District Court, because Cisneros has made statements to authorities that are not admissible against Vigoa.