Suspected heist leader has history of violence

Keith Paul

Friday, June 16, 2000 | 10:56 a.m.

The leader of a suspected robbery crew accused in a series of Strip heists has a history of resorting to violence when trying to escape police.

Jose Vigoa, 40, was the head of a Las Vegas drug distribution organization that was busted up by federal investigators in 1990, according to retired FBI agent George Lyford.

When confronted by two FBI agents in 1990 in Las Vegas, Vigoa gunned the engine on his pickup truck and headed right for the two federal officers, according to court records.

Agents were searching a storage unit in 1990 when Vigoa pulled up in his truck. When the agents went to talk to him, he threw the truck into reverse but backed up into an alley.

"There was only one way out of the alley and we were in the way," said Lyford, who was the supervising agent for the FBI's local drug unit in 1990. "We had to jump out of the way. There is no doubt in my mind he would have run over us."

Vigoa and Oscar Cisneros, 23, were arrested last week on a host of robbery, kidnapping and attempted murder charges connected to brazen holdups in the Bellagio and New York-New York and armored car robberies outside the MGM Grand, Desert Inn and Mandalay Bay hotel-casinos over the past two years.

The pair are also the suspects in the March 3 armored car heist that escalated into a shootout, leaving Armored Transport of Nevada guards Richard F. Sosa and Gary Dean Prestidge II dead outside a Henderson shopping center, police said. The guards were killed by 7.62 caliber rounds fired from an assault rifle.

During the search of the storage unit in 1990, agents found two assault rifles -- one with the serial number obliterated.

Lyford said while guns commonly are involved in the operation of the drug trade, assault weapons are not normally the weapons associated with dealers.

Vigoa was sentenced to 86 months in a federal prison for the conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, assault on a federal officer and several other drug-related convictions. He was released on Dec. 12, 1996, and returned to Las Vegas.

There was no other record of Vigoa being arrested in Metro Police's database. Authorities believe he is from Cuba. Immigration records are not released by the federal government, as the U.S. Department of Justice has ruled that information is confidential, said Virginia Kice, regional spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Cisneros is believed to be from Mexico and his local arrest record does not show a pattern of violence. Metro officers cited him in 1998 for soliciting for the purposes of prostitution and in 1995 for minor consumption of alcohol.

Vigoa and Cisneros are being held without bond in the Clark County jail; both declined a request for an interview.

In the Bellagio caper, the three robbers were all armed and wearing body armor. As they were fleeing, two shots were fired at pursing casino security guards. No one was injured. In the botched robbery outside the Desert Inn, two armored car guards were hit by bullets fired from an assault rifle.

Ballistics tests confirmed shell casings found at the Desert Inn and casings found at the Henderson slayings came from the same assault rifle.

"In my opinion, anyone who uses an assault weapon to commit a robbery has no respect for life and is intent on committing murder and escaping at all costs," Lyford said.

Metro Police didn't think they would run into that escape-at-all-costs attitude when they arrested Vigoa on the afternoon of June 7. After all, he was driving with his wife and young daughter.

But when police tried to stop his truck, Vigoa sped off, reaching speeds of more than 100 mph on U.S. 95 into Henderson. He drove on Sunset Road -- right past where the two armored car guards were killed -- and crashed into a tree. Then he fled the truck, leaving his wife and daughter behind.

"I was involved in that chase and there was nothing he wouldn't do to get away from the police. If he'll risk the life of his wife and child, he'll put anyone's life at risk to elude the police," said Lt. John Alamshaw of Metro's robbery unit. "To put his child's life at risk, to me that shows him to be a real coward."

Detectives believe Vigoa was the leader of the robbery crew, with the surveillance video at the Bellagio showing him directing the actions of the other two robbers, Alamshaw said.

Vigoa also showed his attitude in a court hearing this week when he appeared to mouth obscenities at the detectives and flashed obscene an gesture as best he could with his hands cuffed and linked to other prisoners by a chain.