OFF THE WIRE
By Conor Shine
A 2010 confrontation between Metro Police and a costumed Zorro
character in front of the Venetian hotel will cost the department
$105,000, after it agreed today to settle a lawsuit stemming from the
incident.
In their lawsuit against the department, brothers Jason
Perez-Morciglio and Sebastian Perez-Morciglio allege they were wrongly
detained by Metro Police officers, who did not arrest the pair but
allegedly placed them in handcuffs.
Members of Metro’s Fiscal
Affairs Committee, which oversees the department’s budget, voted
unanimously today to pay the settlement out of the department’s
settlement insurance fund.
Commissioner Steve Sisolak, a member
of the committee, said the decision was made to avoid future litigation
costs and the possibility of a large court judgment against the police
department.
“Our potential exposure could have been significantly
more,” Sisolak said. “You try to minimize it as much as you can, and we
have done a lot to minimize the claims...It’s a cost of doing
business.”
The Jan. 15, 2010, incident started on the sidewalk in
front of the Venetian, where Jason Perez-Morciglio was in costume, but
his brother was not, according to court records.
A Venetian security guard approached Jason Perez-Morciglio after allegedly seeing him sell a sword to a tourist.
Perez-Morciglio
denied selling anything but was asked to leave by the guard, who told
him soliciting was not allowed on private property, records show.
When
Perez-Morciglio insisted he was on the public sidewalk and refused to
leave, he was handcuffed by guards and taken to the hotel security
office, according to court documents.
Sebastian Perez-Morciglio was also detained after questioning what his brother had done wrong and refusing to leave.
Metro
Police officers arrived about 20 minutes after the brothers were
detained and briefly replaced the Venetian’s handcuffs with police
handcuffs. The brothers were searched and given a trespass warning
before being released without being charged, according to court
documents.
The suit, filed on the brothers’ behalf by the
American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, alleged the department
conducted an illegal search and violated the brothers’ First Amendment
rights.
The Venetian and its parent company were initially named
in the lawsuit but were dropped from the suit in March 2013, according
to court documents.
