News briefs for May 3, 2004

Monday, May 3, 2004 | 1:35 a.m.

Homes evacuated during standoff

Twenty homes were evacuated during a standoff in a Henderson neighborhood Sunday afternoon after a man fired shots inside his home during a domestic dispute.

Henderson Police responded to 108 W. Victory Road, near Lake Mead Parkway and Water Street, around 4 p.m., after a woman reported that her husband, 47-year-old Ronald Posell, had fired shots during an argument inside their home.

The woman was unharmed and escaped the home to a nearby business to call police. There was no telephone inside the residence, police said.

The Henderson Police Special Response Team was called in and convinced Posell to exit the residence peacefully, police said. He was booked into the Henderson Detention Center, charged with four felony counts of firing into an occupied structure and four gross misdemeanor counts of firing where a person could be endangered, police said.

Political corruption trial set for 2005

The earliest that Clark County Commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey and former Commissioners Lance Malone and Dario Herrera will go to trial on charges that they traded political influence for money and gifts from a local strip club owner will be early 2005.

U.S. Magistrate Lawrence Leavitt reset the trial date in the case for March 8, 2005, to allow defense attorneys time to review nearly 120,000 intercepted communications from telephonic and body wire recordings.

Last week defense attorneys for Kincaid-Chauncey, Malone and Herrera told Leavitt that they would not be ready to go to trial until sometime in 2005.

Kincaid-Chauncey, Malone and Herrera have all pleaded not guilty in the case, while former strip club owner Michael Galardi and former Commissioner Erin Kenny have entered guilty pleas and are cooperating with authorities.

Federal prosecutors allege the politicians took thousands of dollars in exchange for their votes and use of their influence to help Galardi's Las Vegas strip clubs Jaguars, Cheetahs and Leopard Lounge.

Charge changed in jewelry killings

A grand jury returned an upgraded indictment Friday charging a man accused of robbing a downtown jewelry store with a second count of murder with use of a deadly weapon.

Avetis Archanian, 46, had previously been charged with the attempted murder of Elisa Del Prado, 65, who died in early March. Archanian had already been charged with the murder of Del Prado's mother, Juana Maria Quiroga, 86.

Archanian, who will be arraigned on the new charge Thursday before District Judge Donald Mosley, is accused of beating the women last September as he robbed their jewelry store, World Merchants-Importers in downtown Las Vegas.

Archanian is being held without bail in the death penalty case.