Man accused of posing as cop to assault girl pleads not guilty

By Cara McCoy

Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009 | 4:43 p.m.

Phillip Taft

A man accused of impersonating a police officer, kidnapping a 17-year-old girl and sexually assaulting her pleaded not guilty today in district court.

Phillip Taft, 38, is charged with two counts each of first-degree kidnapping, sexual assault, impersonation of an officer and open or gross lewdness.

He allegedly committed the same string of crimes against a second woman, a prostitute who reported what happened to police after she recognized Taft at the Clark County Detention Center the day he was booked on the charges against the girl. The eight charges against him stem from the alleged crimes committed against the woman and the girl.

Taft, who remains incarcerated, appeared today before Judge Kevin Williams to enter his plea of not guilty and waive his right to a speedy trial.

On July 28, police released video surveillance images of a man wanted for questioning in the alleged assault the girl reported to authorities. Anonymous callers to Crime Stoppers identified the man as Taft, who worked at the Venetian as a floor supervisor, an arrest report indicates.

The first reported incident happened at about 9 p.m. on July 26, police said. The 17-year-old girl told police a man driving a gold, four-door vehicle approached her in the parking lot of her apartment complex in the 4200 block of Tropicana Avenue. The man told her he was an undercover police officer and showed her a gold badge, arrest records show.

Posing as an officer, the man asked a series of prostitution-related questions and the girl told him she wasn’t a prostitute, she told police. However, the man said he needed to take her elsewhere for more questioning and to meet with other officers, so she got into his vehicle.

The man drove to a gas station and asked the girl to enter the store with him, she told police. Video surveillance tapes show the girl and a man matching the description of her alleged attacker entering the store. The man told the girl to wait for him in the vehicle, so she returned and sent a text message to her boyfriend saying she was scared, the arrest report says.

A receipt from the gas station indicates the man paid in cash for chewing gum and a package of condoms, police said.

The man took the teen to a secluded location where the alleged sexual assault took place, authorities said, then drove her back to her home.

The victim told police the attacker told her he had committed the same acts against four other women.

Police interviewed Taft with his lawyer present. He told police the incident was “prostitution-related” and denied the allegations of sexual assault and kidnapping, according to the report.

A second woman, an inmate at the Clark County Detention Center, on Aug. 3 told a corrections officer she recognized Taft. She told the officer the man had pretended to be a police officer and had forced her to have sex with him.

The woman, who is a prostitute, said a man she identified as Taft picked her up at a business on Tropicana Avenue. As they were speaking in the man’s car, the man told her he was a police officer and had a gun and a badge under the seat.

The man then took her to an area near Sunset and Fort Apache roads and threatened her with jail time if she didn’t have sex with him, so she complied, the report says.

The man dropped the woman off at The Orleans after the alleged assault. He told her on the ride back that he wasn’t a police officer, but instead was a lawyer, the woman told police.

He gave her $10.

During an interview with detectives, the woman told police she didn’t report the crime because she was doing something illegal and didn’t know the man’s name. She also told police she had seen the man several times in the Tropicana corridor since the incident took place.

Court records indicate Taft has a prior arrest history, including convictions for stalking, drunken driving, passing bad checks and public nuisance.

He is facing the possibility of multiple life sentences if convicted. He remains in custody on a combined bail of $440,000 for all charges.

A trial date was set for May 10. Attorney Michael Cristalli is representing him in the case.