Wednesday, June 5, 2002 | 11:18 a.m.
Jose Vigoa, alleged leader of a deadly robbery gang who faces the death penalty if convicted, is accused of methodically chipping away at the window in his Clark County jail cell, creating a small hole in an attempt to escape, Clark County jail officials told the Sun.
Corrections officers discovered the hole about 4:30 p.m. Monday and charged Vigoa with attempted escape -- two years to the day after the last alleged casino heist he is charged with, when almost $200,000 was taken from the Bellagio.
Deputy Public Defender Drew Christensen said he learned Tuesday that Vigoa, 42, has been charged with attempted escape. Although he didn't know details of the alleged event, Christensen said, he was told Vigoa altered his Clark County Detention Center cell in some way.
"An attempted escape sounds huge, but they've got my client in a cell where he's locked down 23 hours a day. I can't imagine what he could've done," Christensen said.
What Vigoa is accused of doing was called ingenious by corrections officials. A window in Vigoa's fifth-floor cell had a metal plate bolted over it from previous damage. Vigoa, who has been in that cell for four months, is accused of somehow loosening the plate and working to make the hole, then putting the plate back in place each day, Capt. Mike Holt said.
"It was difficult to detect," Holt said. "The hole was the size of a fist, but once you can get your head through something, you can get the rest of your body out."
The window is not made of glass but Plexiglas between two layers of polymer and is about three to four inches wide and about three feet high. Vigoa's cell is about 30 feet from the roof of a sallyport, where police bring suspects into the jail, then another 20 feet to the ground, Holt said.
Corrections officials started to suspect something may be occurring in the pod of cells where Vigoa was held a few weeks ago, when the metal frame around a mirror in another cell was discovered missing.
Every cell was searched, but the metal framing was never found. Officials suspect Vigoa may have used that framing as a tool to chip away at the window. Vigoa has denied any knowledge of the hole, Holt said.
Vigoa, who has been held in the maximum security area of the jail, was moved to another pod of cells, Holt said.
Holt would not say how they learned of the hole behind the metal plate but said, "We knew we needed to take a serious look at" his cell. The rest of the jail was locked down Monday and a search is being done of every cell and common area.
Vigoa is scheduled to make his first court appearance on the new charge Thursday morning before Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Nancy Oesterle. Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger declined to comment Tuesday.
Vigoa is scheduled to go to trial July 8 on 46 felony counts pertaining to a double homicide in Henderson in March 2000 and a series of casino heists.
The Cuban native is charged with murder in the slayings of armored truck guards Richard Sosa, 47, and Gary Dean Prestidge II, 23, who were killed while being robbed outside the Ross Dress-for-Less store in Henderson.
Vigoa could receive the death penalty if convicted on the murder charges.
Police also believe Vigoa robbed the Bellagio, MGM Grand, Desert Inn and Mandalay Bay between June 1998 and June 2000 with the help of his two brothers-in-law and a fourth man.
Vigoa's brothers-in-law, Pedro Duarte and Luis Suarez, will be tried separately after Vigoa's trial.
Duarte, 37, faces seven counts in connection with the June 28, 1999, robbery of the Desert Inn, and Suarez, 37, faces 14 counts in connection with the robbery at the Bellagio.
The fourth suspect in the case, Oscar Sanchez Cisneros, 23, committed suicide in the jail four months after his arrest in June 2000.
Defense attorneys for Vigoa, Duarte and Suarez have long complained about the extraordinary security measures taken when the three men make court appearances.
Citing rumors of a potential escape plot, a large number of specially trained, heavily armed corrections officers have accompanied the men into the courtroom over the past two years.
On occasion hearings have been held via video conference, with the defendants appearing from the jail.
Defense attorney Michael Cristalli, who represents Duarte, said jail officials have been "vindicated to a certain extent with Vigoa, but it doesn't vindicate them as far as my client."
Duarte is the only one of the three who has been placed in general population after officials deemed he wasn't a danger to other inmates or corrections officers, Cristalli said.
Defense attorney Peter Christiansen, who represents Suarez, said he would like to see proof of the alleged escape plot. He said if there is proof of a Vigoa escape attempt, he hoped that it would not affect Suarez's jail conditions.
"Luis Suarez has offered no signs of violence or made any attempt to escape," Christiansen said. "It baffles me as to why he's being kept in a hole."
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