Burglary is latest chapter in chapel wars

Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2007 | 7:03 a.m.

With more than 120,000 weddings performed every year, there should be more than enough business to spread among the various Las Vegas wedding chapels.

And, likewise, more than enough money for a successful chapel to pay for a new high-tech device able to print photographic images on garments.

But the alleged theft of such a printer has the owner and employee of the Las Vegas Garden of Love wedding chapel facing burglary charges and other counts.

The bizarre case involving an embroidery-photographic machine and police surveillance of the chapel was outlined in a search warrant served on the chapel in late August.

Metro Police's strange trip down the relatively hallowed halls of quick-and-cheap weddings began Aug. 16, when Fernando Padilla, owner of Stitch City Industries in Southern California, returned from dinner to the Sands Convention Center, where he had a booth at an industry convention, to find almost $30,000 worth of high-tech equipment missing.

As he and his employees looked around, outside next to a curb, they found the custom-made carts that held the equipment. Then, as Padilla talked to security guards and two Metro officers, two men got out of a pickup truck and walked over to the carts.

What happened next is detailed in a search warrant filed in District Court last week.

The pickup truck was registered to Craig Luell, co-owner of the Garden of Love wedding chapel. Cheryl Luell, Craig's wife, was driving the truck .

Cheryl Luell, who could not be reached for comment Monday, told police she had purchased the carts for $40. She acknowledged that earlier in the day, she had met Padilla and expressed interest in his garment printer, a 220-pound machine, because she thought it would make nice wedding picture T-shirts.

She was allowed to leave, andPadilla got his carts back. But his machine, computer software and other equipment still were missing.

In the search warrant, police say convention center surveillance video showed a woman loading what looked like Padilla's property into a silver sport utility vehicle .

Padilla told police he had met Cheryl Luell a day earlier. He said she insisted on bargaining for a cut-rate price for his machine, but he wouldn't sell the $20,000 device for the $15,000 she offered. He and his employees later "received multiple calls" from Luell trying to make a deal, Padilla said.

The convergence of the three events - the negotiations gone bad, the missing equipment and Luell's claim that she had bought the carts - got police more interested.

Police put the Garden of Love under surveillance five days later, and four days after that, served a search warrant .

Confiscated from the chapel, according to court documents, were miscellaneous paperwork, an employee phone list and copies of various driver's licenses.

A few days later the $20,000 piece of machinery was found, apparently dumped in the desert. Its condition has not been assessed.

Officers arrested Luell on Sept. 1, charging her with two counts of felony burglary, two counts of grand larceny and one count of conspiracy to commit grand larceny. Metro also arrested Garden of Love employee Jesse Daniels on Sept. 6 on charges of attempted grand larceny and grand larceny , and two counts of burglary.

Even before this incident, the Garden of Love had become something of a pariah among Las Vegas chapels since getting into the business five years ago.

It does a booming business: A survey of five days in 2006 by the Nevada Wedding Association found Garden of Love performed 263 weddings, the second - highest in that period.

Other chapels, however, say it's not the competition that bothers them, but the unsavory way it is being conducted. They talk of intimidation tactics of Garden of Love handbillers outside the Regional Justice Center, where couples must go for a marriage license.

In March a Garden of Love employee was arrested on an accusation of attempted murder, alledgedly trying to stab another chapel's employee near the Justice Center. The charges were dropped when the alleged victim failed to show up in court.

It's gotten to where many chapel owners, fearful that bad press for one is bad press for all, have formed a group. They have met with police and other officials, hoping to hash out disputes and prevent problems among chapels and their employees.