Corrections officer charged with robbing store — twice

By Mary Manning

Thursday, Oct. 8, 2009 | 4:43 p.m.

A Nye County police dog named Tommy stopped an alleged robber who held up the same gas station in Pahrump twice. Turns out he was a Nevada corrections officer.

The first time the man allegedly robbed a Rebel gas station at 820 S. Highway 160 in Pahrump was 1:24 a.m. Sept. 21, the Nye County Sheriff's Office said.

The man, dressed in black, pointed a gun at the clerk and demanded money. The clerk gave him the money from the cash register and the man fled on foot, the sheriff's report said.

At that time, a police dog named Bowie tracked the man's scent from the gas station to the rear of the building, where the dog lost the scent after the man had gotten into a vehicle, the report said.

Then at 12:26 a.m. Wednesday a man walked into the same gas station, dressed in black, and pointed a gun at the clerk and a customer, demanded money from the clerk. The clerk gave the man cash and he left.

Nye County sheriff's deputies were in the area and as they searched for the man, then saw a vehicle sitting in an intersection without its lights.

The vehicle sped away as deputies tried to stop it, leading deputies on a pursuit in the area of Honeysuckle Park. The vehicle pulled into the park's playground and as deputies approached, the driver sped toward the deputies. The deputies then fired two shots at the man to avoid being struck by the vehicle, the sheriff's report said.

The driver then left and ran north of the park when the police dog took up the chase and caught the man. A gun, clothing and money from the robbery were recovered at the scene.

The sheriff's investigation identified the man as 24-year-old Vincent Matthew Czechorosky of Pahrump. He was identified as the person involved in both gas station robberies.

Czechorosky is a corrections officer with the Nevada Department of Corrections, the report said. Czechorosky has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of his trial, a spokesman for the Nevada Department of Corrections said.

He has been charged with two counts of burglary, two counts of grand larceny, four counts of assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, one count of attempted murder on a peace officer and failure to stop on signal of a peace officer.

He is being held without bail at the Nye County Sheriff's Office jail.