Rich lifestyle key to evidence in Strip robberies

Kim Smith

Thursday, May 10, 2001 | 10:14 a.m.

Jose Vigoa likes to pay in cash. In fact, prosecutors allege, he likes to pay with $100 bills.

They hope that fact just might be his downfall.

Vigoa, 40, is sitting in the Clark County Detention Center on charges relating to the June 2000 robbery of the Bellagio. Authorities also suspect him in a string of other holdups and in the slaying of two armed security guards.

Investigators and prosecutors have spent the last 11 months gathering evidence they hope will conclusively tie Vigoa and a man named Luis Suarez to the events, which go back as far as September 1998.

As prosecutors get close to pursuing additional charges against the suspects, evidence pertaining to a robbery at the MGM Grand has come to light.

According to police, three men held up an armored truck near the valet entrance of the MGM on Sept. 20, 1998, and made away with $180,000.

According to a search warrant affidavit, Vigoa and one of his alleged partners in the Bellagio heist, Oscar Sanchez-Cisneros, 23, began a number of expensive purchases shortly thereafter.

The affidavit states that a man matching Vigoa's description and named "Jose" reeled off $19,000 in $100 bills to make a down payment on a house near Windmill Lane and Eastern Avenue in early October 1998.

The owner of the home told police that Jose asked him to put the name in Sanchez-Cisneros' name because he was having problems with the Internal Revenue Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Officers also discovered that on Sept. 30, 1998, Sanchez-Cisneros purchased a new $35,000 Nissan Pathfinder from Towbin Nissan and made a $9,000 down payment in cash.

The vehicle's registration showed Vigoa's address.

The affidavit further states that in March 1999, Vigoa bought a 1992 Chevrolet pickup for about $12,000 and paid the owner in $100 bills.

Metro Police have been able to tie Vigoa to the MGM heist in another way as well. According to the affidavit, witnesses provided police the license plate of the getaway car and that led to a man who said the plates should be on his Mazda, which was in storage.

Police found that the plates had been stolen and that Vigoa worked as a security guard at the storage facility.

Vigoa was arrested a few days after the Bellagio robbery when a police officer and parole officer recognized him from surveillance tapes of the robbery.

Currently, Vigoa faces 19 criminal charges in connection with the Bellagio robbery ranging from robbery and attempt murder to possession of a stolen vehicle and burglary.

Cisneros-Sanchez was charged with 16 counts, but committed suicide in the Clark County Detention Center in October.

Luis Suarez, 36, is scheduled to go to trial with Vigoa in July on 14 counts stemming from the robbery.

Should additional charges be filed against Vigoa and Suarez, the trial date will likely be postponed so the cases can be tried at one time.

The other events in which Suarez, Cisneros-Sanchez and Vigoa are considered suspects include armored car heists at the Desert Inn hotel-casino on June 9, 1999, and at the Mandalay Bay on Oct. 11, 1999.

Police say they suspect that Suarez, Cisneros-Sanchez and Vigoa are also responsible for the March 2000 deaths of Armored Transport of Nevada guards Richard F. Sosa, 47, and Gary Dean Prestidge II, 23.

The two guards got into a gun battle with three men in the parking lot of the Stephanie Road Ross Dress For Less store when the men tried to rob their armored vehicle.

Blood found in a getaway car matched that of Cisneros-Sanchez and he implicated the two other men in the robbery before he hanged himself.

Ballistic tests have also determined assault rifle shell casings found at the Henderson scene match casings found after the Desert Inn heist.