Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Former Nevada lawmaker could be released soon from Las Vegas jail

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Steven Brooks is shown in an Aug. 5, 2014, Metro Police booking photo.

A former Nevada state lawmaker was poised to be freed from a Las Vegas jail after pleading guilty Thursday to felony charges in separate criminal cases dating to the days before his expulsion from the Legislature and his arrest that same day in California.

Steven Brooks' family planned to post his $10,000 bail, defense lawyer Adam Gill said, after the 42-year-old former Democratic assemblyman pleaded guilty in separate cases to possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and resisting a public officer with use of a deadly weapon.

"I'm guilty, ma'am," Brooks said as he stood in custody before Clark County District Court Hearing Master Melisa De La Garza on the resisting charge.

Clark County District Judge Abbi Silver accepted Brooks' plea several hours earlier in the firearm case. That plea included a legal acknowledgment that Brooks used marijuana when he was an elected official.

Prosecutor Richard Scow agreed to drop lesser assault on an officer, battery constituting domestic violence and obstruction charges.

Gill told De La Garza his client was "a man who has had everything taken away from him and wants to start over."

The pleas avoided trial and made Brooks eligible for freedom after 17 months in California and Nevada jails.

His charges could be reduced to one misdemeanor resisting arrest conviction if he completes three years' probation and undergoes a mental health evaluation and treatment.

Both judges ordered close supervision until Brooks, a father of four, is evaluated in coming days for eligibility in a Clark County mental health court program.

Brooks was returned to Las Vegas in custody after pleading no contest in California to felony evading a peace officer and resisting arrest stemming from his March 2013 arrest after an Interstate 15 chase from Barstow to Victorville. A San Bernardino Superior Court judge sentenced him to time already served.

The California arrest came the same day Brooks was expelled from the Nevada Legislature as a security risk, and followed his arrests in January and February 2013 amid a series of sometimes bizarre events.

Brooks was first arrested while driving a state-issued car with a .357-caliber revolver in a shoe box after North Las Vegas police were told he threatened to harm Marilyn Kirkpatrick, the Democratic Assembly leader.

He was arrested again a few weeks later for fighting with and trying to grab the gun of a Las Vegas police officer called to a domestic argument involving Brooks and his estranged wife.

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