Wife testifies against husband in fatal Las Vegas Strip stabbing case

By Dave Toplikar

Published Thursday, Aug. 4, 2011 | 4:41 p.m.

Updated Thursday, Aug. 4, 2011 | 8:12 p.m.

A man accused of stabbing a rival gang member during the early hours of July 4 near the Cosmopolitan on the Las Vegas Strip will be arraigned later this month on a gang-enhanced murder charge in Clark County District Court.

Following a day-long preliminary hearing, Pedro Carlos Robledo, 28, was bound over Thursday by Justice of the Peace Melanie Andress-Tobiasson on a charge of murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang in the death of Javier Medrano-Padilla.

When first arrested, Robelo was charged with murder with the use of a deadly weapon. Prosecutors now allege Robledo is a member of the Nevada Trece and/or Brown Pride Locotes gangs, also known as BPL, and that the stabbing was done as a way to promote the gang.

Medrano-Padilla was stabbed early in the morning on July 4 on the pedestrian walkway between the Cosmopolitan and Planet Hollywood.

Officers responded to the scene at 1:52 a.m. and found Medrano-Padilla with multiple stab wounds. He was taken to University Medical Center’s trauma unit, where he was pronounced dead.

Andress-Tobiasson set Robledo’s arraignment date in District Court for 10:30 am. Aug. 15.

During the lengthy hearing, the judge heard testimony from Robledo’s estranged wife, Patrisia Amezcua, who testified that her husband phoned her and texted her during the early morning hours of July 4 that he had “stabbed somebody” in self-defense and needed her to come pick him up.

Amezcua testified she didn’t believe Robledo at first when he told her he had stabbed someone multiple times, but he then told her she should look at the news reports. She said he asked her to take him to California.

When she refused to help him, Robledo texted her that he would kill her son, Amezcua testified.

Amezcua, who had a court advocate sit next to her on the witness stand, seemed afraid to look at her husband during her testimony. She said she had broken up with him five times because of domestic violence.

At one point as she spoke, Robledo began muttering loudly and then told the judge, “She’s lying on the stand!”

Robledo was taken outside the courtroom for about 15 minutes to calm down.

Later, Amezcua testified that Robledo had been stabbed in the past and carried kitchen knives under his clothing.

Robledo had a second outburst later in the day, while a Metro detective was testifying about the rival gangs police think were associated with the death. He told the judge he didn’t like the way Public Defender Norman Reed was representing him.

Before Amezcua took the witness stand Thursday morning, Reed filed a motion to try to keep Amezcua’s testimony out of the proceeding, saying Nevada law protected private conversations between married couples.

Deputy District Attorney Ravi Bawa, however, said Amezcua has had several restraining orders issued against Robledo and he knew she would go to police if he contacted her with text messages because she had done so before.

The judge allowed her testimony and the transcripts of text messages she said she received from Robledo’s phone between about 2 a.m. and 5 p.m. July 4.

The judge said she didn’t believe the spirit of the legislation protecting such private conversations applied in the case and allowed Amezcua to testify.

Reed indicated that her testimony might be motivated by jealousy because Robledo had been dating someone else.

Some of the text messages allegedly sent by Robledo made references to gangs, Bawa said.

Robert Price, a Metro officer who specializes in street gangs, testified that Nevada Trece was a rival of the Southsiders, a southern California gang also known as Surenos. The Nevada gang had split off from the Surenos, he said.

He said Nevada Trece was an umbrella gang formed in prison, which recently spread to the streets and has about 200 members in the Las Vegas Valley.

In his closing statements late Thursday afternoon, Bawa said the evidence showed that Robledo armed himself with at least one steak knife and started a fight with some men who appeared to be members of Surenos, who often wear blue.

Bawa said Robledo started a fight, created a diversion, then stabbed Medrano-Padilla with the knife.

A surveillance video showed Robledo running away with another man then stopping at a spot where the steak knife was found, Bawa said. The knife had blood and clothing fibers on it, Bawa said.

Bawa said Robledo was “clearly riding with” Nevada Trece, according to the texts he sent to his wife, which included derogatory messages about Surenos.

“This is all in the same conversation with “I just killed a guy,’” Bawa said. “You can’t start a fight and then declare self-defense.”

Bawa said the stabbing was gang-related in that Robledo was trying to enhance the image of the new Nevada Trece and send a message to the California gang to “stay out of our state.”