Casino robbery suspect charged in jail fight

Kim Smith

Tuesday, March 19, 2002 | 9:21 a.m.

A Henderson man facing seven charges in a series of casino heists now faces a battery charge.

According to Metro Police reports, Pedro Duarte, 38, was charged with battery by a prisoner after a fight at the Clark County Detention Center Jan. 30.

The report alleges Duarte began fighting with corrections officers when they sprayed him with pepper spray as he fought with 23-year-old Johnny Ashby, another inmate.

Duarte is suspected of robbing the Desert Inn in June 1999 along with his brothers-in-law, Jose Vigoa and Luis Suarez.

Vigoa is scheduled to go to trial July 8 on charges of robbing Bellagio, MGM Grand, Desert Inn and Mandalay Bay between June 1998 and June 2000. He is also facing charges in the March 2000 slayings of two armored guards at a Henderson Ross Dress-for-Less store.

Suarez, 37, faces 14 counts in connection with the robbery at Bellagio.

Ashby, who calls himself Sozay Feddi, made the news in mid-January when he shot a videotape of two men being beaten with bricks during a confrontation at the Sundance Village Apartments near Rainbow and Charleston boulevards. One of the men, Kris Gregory, 21, was beaten to death.

At the time of his fight with Duarte, Ashby was in jail on an unrelated battery charge.

Usman Sadiq, 19, faces an open murder charge in Gregory's death.