Friday, June 19, 2009 | 5:18 p.m.
CARSON CITY – Joseph Antonetti, serving a life term without the possibility of parole for the murder of a 21-year-old woman in Las Vegas, is persistent.
The Nevada Supreme Court has rejected his latest appeal on his conviction of trying to escape from the Clark County jail while awaiting trial.
The Nevada Supreme Court turned down Antonetti’s claim he received ineffective assistance of an attorney at trial. He was sentenced to an additional five years in prison on the escape charge.
He and three other inmates smuggled in rope, wrenches, hacksaws and hacksaw blades into a cell on the ninth floor of the county jail. But the escape effort failed.
The Supreme Court previously rejected the petition of Antonetti on his first degree murder conviction in the shooting death of Mary Amina.
But the court ordered District Judge Kenneth Cory to hear the petition of Antonetti, convicted of wounding his roommate, Suzanne Smith, in 2003. The 16-40 year term for the shooting of Smith is on top of the life sentence and the five years for escape.
Antonetti, 33, is serving his consecutive sentences at the High Desert State Prison in Clark County.
This story has been edited to correct the nature of the association between Smith and Antonetti.
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