Jurors to be told of casino heist

Kim Smith

Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2000 | 9:39 a.m.

Jurors who will decide if a Las Vegas man is part of a crew of home invaders will be informed of his guilty plea in a casino robbery.

District Judge John McGroarty ruled Monday that jurors in the Draketonial Macon case should know that Macon, 30, pleaded guilty in the Oct. 26 robbery of Harrah's.

Deputy District Attorney Phil Brown had asked McGroarty for permission to present evidence about that robbery because of similarities between it and four home invasions that took place last fall.

In each of the cases, three men wearing dark clothes, gloves and masks forced the victims to the ground and robbed them at gunpoint. Two of the men were described as short and heavyset and the third tall and thinner.

Macon and two other men are scheduled to go on trial next week. A fourth man who prosecutors say fenced the stolen items is also supposed to go to trial next week before McGroarty.

Prosecutors allege that Macon, 31, Nahum Joshua Brown, 24, and Tyrone Walker, 35, committed a series of home invasion robberies between Sept. 29 and Dec. 9, 1999.

In the first incident on Sept. 29, prosecutors say, three men entered a home on Cochise Lane, near Eastern Avenue and Desert Inn Road, through an unlocked sliding glass door and duct-taped a 48-year-old woman who was home alone. Police say they then stole money, a laptop computer, jewelry and other items.

Two weeks later two men confronted a 40-year-old man as he drove into his driveway on Huntington Hills Drive, north of Vegas Drive and west of the future western leg of the Las Vegas Beltway. They forced the man inside his home and then duct-taped him, his wife and his 13-year-old nephew.

The robbers loaded the victim's pickup with his wide-screen TV, jewelry, video games, stereo and computers. They then forced the three victims into the woman's car, drove them to an ATM machine, forced them to withdraw some money and later dropped the victims off after duct-taping them again, Deputy District Attorney Brown said.

At one point during the ordeal, one of them men tried to sexually assault the 35-year-old woman, court documents say.

Three days later a 70-year-old man and his 67-year-old wife were duct-taped and robbed after three men walked through an unlocked sliding glass door at their home on Painted Dunes Drive, near Lone Mountain Road and Buffalo Drive.

On Oct. 26, 10 days later, prosecutors believe Macon and two men matching the descriptions of Nahum Joshua Brown and Walker rushed into Harrah's and demanded money from change personnel at about 4 a.m.

Macon, who once worked at Harrah's as a security guard, was arrested a few days later and released on bail.

Shortly thereafter, prosecutors allege, Macon planned another home invasion to pay for his attorney in the Harrah's case.

Prosecutors say on Dec. 8, Macon and his two friends entered an open window of a home on Canyon Cove Way, near Alexander Road and Rainbow Boulevard. The 35-year-old homeowner, a woman and the man's two daughters, ages 4 and 11, were home.

Police say the homeowner, who had a pillowcase placed over his head, was branded with a soldering iron, stabbed in the buttocks and repeatedly threatened with a knife while the men ransacked the home. The men also allegedly threatened to cut out the tongue of the older girl because she couldn't stop crying during the six-hour ordeal.

Macon was arrested within hours after the 11-year-old identified him as an acquaintance of her father, Brown said.

Macon's arrest led to the arrests of Brown, Walker and eventually Edward Bonsor, 30, who is charged with numerous counts of possession of stolen property.

When Macon is sentenced Dec. 20 in the Harrah's case, he could get as much as 25 years in prison.

Deputy District Attorney Brown said Walker was released from prison shortly before the home invasions began. He once shared a cell with Nahum Brown at the Southern Desert Correctional Center near Indian Springs, where both were doing time for robbery. Bonsor was at the prison around the same time on property crime convictions, the prosecutor said.

In all, Macon faces 21 criminal counts. Brown and Walker have been charged with 31 counts each, and Bonsor faces four counts of possession of stolen property.