Hearing no longer secret, but still under wraps

Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2001 | 11:28 a.m.

District Judge Kathy Hardcastle plans to give the public access to a hearing this week in the security-heightened Bellagio robbery case.

But it won't be in the usual setting.

Hardcastle scheduled a 2:30 p.m. hearing Wednesday for robbery defendants Jose Manuel Vigoa and Luis Suarez in Justice of the Peace Jennifer Togliatti's courtroom, which has an experimental video hookup to the Clark County Detention Center.

Hardcastle plans to conduct the hearing from Togliatti's courtroom and communicate with the defendants and their lawyers at the jail through television monitors.

The arrangement will allow the public to watch Vigoa and Suarez, as well, through the monitors in a safe environment.

Over the past year Togliatti regularly has been conducting video hearings in this manner under an experimental program.

Last month Hardcastle, concerned about courthouse safety because of the notoriety of the defendants, held a secret hearing in the high-profile case at the detention center without notifying the public.

Her last-minute decision drew courthouse criticism and prompted lawyers on both sides of the case to suggest that the public should have access at the next hearing.

Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger, who proposed holding Wednesday's hearing in Togliatti's courtroom, and Vigoa's attorney, Deputy Public Defender Drew Christensen, both said they were satisfied with the new arrangements.

Christensen, however, said he would have preferred the hearing be conducted in Hardcastle's courtroom.

"This is better than having a private hearing at the jail, but we're still being treated differently than any other defendant," Christensen said.

He added that jail officials have yet to formally explain why they consider Vigoa and Suarez security risks.

"They have to provide us with some evidence of why they're doing this," he said.

Jail officials have publicly declined to discuss their security concerns about the two defendants, who also are suspects in a string of other violent Strip heists and a botched armored truck robbery in Henderson that killed two guards.

But police reportedly received intelligence information early in the case that associates of the suspects might try to spring them during a court appearance.

A July preliminary hearing for Vigoa and another co-defendant Oscar Cisneros Sanchez, who later committed suicide in the jail, was held in Hardcastle's courtroom under some of the tightest security measures ever witnessed at the courthouse. Metro SWAT officers were stationed in the courtroom and officers with assault rifles roamed the courthouse as the hearing took place.

At last month's hearing SWAT officers were placed inside a fifth-floor conference room at the detention center, where the proceeding took place. Vigoa was escorted to the hearing wearing, handcuffs, chains, oversized mittens and a stun belt.

Christensen objected to the hearing, which was called to hear arguments on his writ attacking the Bellagio charges against Vigoa, according to a 24-page transcript obtained by the Sun.

"We were told to keep this a secret from the press and told not to let anybody know when it was to take place," Christensen told Hardcastle. "Obviously, this puts my client in a dim light. He is innocent until proven guilty. He has a right to make an appearance in an appropriate courtroom."

Wednesday's hearing has been scheduled on a motion by Roger to compel Vigoa and Suarez to have their faces photographed and videotaped.

The FBI has agreed to make high-tech comparisons of those images to those captured on surveillance videos during robberies at the Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, New York-New York and MGM Grand hotel-casinos.

Roger is trying to tie the suspects to the other Strip heists.