News briefs for April 1, 2003

Tuesday, April 1, 2003 | 11:28 a.m.

Man sentenced in fatal stabbing

A Las Vegas man who pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in the stabbing death of his roommate last year was sentenced to prison Monday in District Court.

Noel Cobette, 57, pleaded guilty in February to one count of voluntary manslaughter with use of a deadly weapon in the April 2002 death of Thurman Taylor, 47.

In exchange for the guilty plea, Chief Deputy District Attorney Vickie Monroe dropped a murder charge against him.

District Judge Kathy Hardcastle sentenced Cobette to four to 12 years in prison, a sentence stipulated in the plea agreement.

Cobette, who was in a wheelchair Friday, attended the hearing with his attorney, Deputy Special Public Defender Alzora Jackson. Jackson said her client suffers from kidney problems and a brain aneurism.

Authorities claim the men were arguing over rent in a home in the 900 block of Bonanza Road near Martin Luther King Boulevard. Taylor, who was a tenant of Cobette, was taken to University Medical Center that night and later died of his injuries.

Ex-DMV worker charged with theft

A former Department of Motor Vehicles employee has been arrested on allegations that he falsified accounting records to take vehicle registration fees.

Ethan Z. Weeks, 29, who formerly worked at the Carey Avenue DMV office in North Las Vegas, was arrested on Thursday and charged with one count of felony theft, five counts of misappropriation and falsification of accounts and five counts of unlawful use of public money.

If convicted, Weeks faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of $10,000 for the theft charge. Each of the other charges carries a maximum sentence of four years in prison and a fine of $10,000.

Power line topic of meeting

The Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Western Area Power Administration are asking the public for comments on an analysis for a proposed Nevada Power Co. transmission line running along the eastern Las Vegas Valley.

The federal agencies are hosting an open house from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Henderson Convention Center, 200 S. Water St.

The 500-kilovolt transmission line would begin at the Harry Allen substation near the Apex industrial area north of Las Vegas and run south to an existing substation near Boulder City.

The line would be built on land designated as a utility corridor in the BLM's Las Vegas Resource Management Plan. It would parallel two existing 500-kilovolt transmission lines for all but four miles at the north end and another four miles at the south end of a 48-mile right-of-way.

State plan covers 520 physicians

The Medical Liability Association of Nevada, created by the state in March 2002 to help with the medical malpractice insurance problem, now covers 520 doctors.

Gov. Kenny Guinn said today that passing the 500 mark is a milestone and the association has received $10.4 million in premiums.

Guinn created the association in March last year and it got started in April with a $125,000 infusion from the state. The nonprofit association has since repaid the state.

Guinn said the association was the first joint underwriting association of its kind in the nation to obtain reinsurance. The reinsurance represents the industry confidence in the association's operation, the governor said.

The system was started after the St. Paul Cos. announced it was pulling out of the malpractice insurance business nationwide. It covered about 40 percent of Nevada's doctors.