Bail set at $500,000 for Red Rock Resort stabbings suspect
August 20, 2024 - 12:41 pm
Updated August 21, 2024 - 8:51 am
A judge set bail at $500,000 for a man accused of stabbing Red Rock Resort employees in a drunken rampage.
Shayne Sussman, 25, is accused of stabbing one casino worker in the shoulder and back and another in the shoulder and bicep at the Summerlin casino. The confrontation happened around 1:20 a.m. on Aug. 3. Sussman was shot in the abdomen by a security guard before he was arrested.
He faces charges of attempted murder and battery with use of a deadly weapon.
At a hearing Tuesday, Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Diana Sullivan said she was concerned about community safety and the fact that Sussman seemed to have no motive. Sussman needs to be monitored 24 hours a day and electronic monitoring cannot satisfy that need or ensure community safety, she said.
But Sullivan said she had no legal ability to hold him without bail given the circumstances of the allegations.
She set bail at $500,000, an amount she and prosecutors said they did not think Sussman could afford. If he is released, he will be on high-level electronic monitoring with house arrest and will have to use a device to make sure he doesn’t take substances.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Schwartzer requested that bail amount and the house arrest condition.
“Clearly this individual represents a danger to our community,” he said. “We don’t know when he’ll do something like this again.”
Defense attorney Thomas Ericsson requested $25,000 bail with electronic monitoring and monitoring for intoxicants.
One victim lost four pints of blood. He was left with a collapsed lung and what he reported as the most pain he has ever suffered, Schwartzer said.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Dickerson played videos of the confrontation that were hard to see from the courtroom gallery.
Sullivan said that based on the footage, prosecutors had a high chance of getting a conviction on at least some criminal charge.
The judge said Sussman appeared to be hiding behind a pillar and waiting for someone to attack.
“Right now I have specific surveillance that shows an attack on multiple people that could have very well died,” she said.
Ericsson said that there was no excuse for his client’s behavior, but that Sussman had been drinking before, during and after a concert he attended with a friend.
Schwartzer said Sussman had a .25 blood alcohol level. Dickerson said that while Sussman’s arrest report mentioned Sussman using ketamine and cocaine or trying to sell those drugs in a bathroom, there was no indication of them in his toxicology report.
“He gets so plastered that he clearly loses control of his mind,” Ericsson said.
Sussman has lots of support from family and friends, he added.
“To a person, they cannot believe that their family is in this situation,” he said. “By all accounts, he is a good young man and this night of wild drinking has led to something that will change his life and obviously the gentlemen who were stabbed, their lives as well.”
Sussman’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for Sept. 4.
Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.