Man facing life in prison for Las Vegas slaying may be out in year
A man who faced life in prison without the possibility of parole in the slaying of a 30-year-old confidential Metro informant entered a plea Tuesday to a charge that could see him released within a year.
Christopher Weygant, 32, pleaded no contest to battery with use of a deadly weapon in connection with the April 2018 death of Bailey Beck, and prosecutors agreed to a sentence of two to seven years behind bars. Weygant has been held in the Clark County Detention Center since June 2018 on one count of murder.
His plea was entered through what’s known as the Alford decision, which meant he admitted only that prosecutors had enough evidence to prove the charge to a jury.
Given Weygant’s plea to a much less serious charge, District Judge Valerie Adair reduced his bail to $3,000 and set a sentencing hearing for November.
Defense attorney Abel Yanez said he was unsure whether Weygant could post the bail, but he could be a free man within a year of serving his sentence, since he would be given credit for the time he has already spent in jail.
After the plea, Yanez said Weygant has maintained “he was 100 percent innocent” in the circumstances surrounding Beck’s death.
“There was a lot of doubt,” Yanez said. “We could go hours about the evidence I think was doubtful as to Chris.”
Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo told the judge Tuesday that Beck turned police informant after she was arrested in March 2018 after being caught transporting drugs in a car owned by since-suspended Las Vegas lawyer William Gamage.
Weygant and other members of the gang he belonged to learned that Beck had been cooperating with authorities. At a house party in the 7400 block of South River Dove Court, near West Warm Springs Road and South Rainbow Boulevard, Weygant injected Beck with a “hot shot” of heroin and methamphetamine, which was meant “either to harm or kill her,” DiGiacomo said.
Beck crawled downstairs and locked herself in a garage, where she spent the next 48 hours before going to Spring Valley Medical Center where she died. Along with narcotics in her system, Beck had a head injury, but authorities do not know how it occurred. Her cause of death was ruled blunt force trauma.
“There’s no doubt that (Weygant) stuck her with the needle,” DiGiacomo told the judge. “The real question is whether that sticking with the needle ultimately resulted in her death.”
Outside of court, the prosecutor added: “There is fairly compelling evidence that something else happened in the intervening 48 hours. We just don’t know what.”
No one else had been arrested or charged with murder in Beck’s death as of Tuesday, though DiGiacomo said an investigation remains open.
Earlier this year, another Las Vegas judge issued an arrest warrant for Gamage, the lawyer tied to Beck, after he failed to show up for a hearing on one count of harboring, concealing or aiding a felony offender in connection with Beck’s death. Last month, Gamage’s law license was suspended for five years and a day, though two Nevada Supreme Court Justices recommended disbarring him.
Gamage, who also is accused of stealing nearly $200,000 from clients, remains at large.
Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.