At the trial of a Las Vegas police officer accused of a trio of casino heists, an employee said Tuesday that in her 40-year gaming career she had never been more afraid for her life than when she came face to face with the robber.
"All I kept thinking in my head was: I could die today," said Sherry McGrath, who was supervising the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino's sportsbook the day that authorities said Caleb Rogers robbed while armed with a weapon issued by the police department.
Prosecutors for the federal government are expected to paint Rogers, 35, as a gambling addict whose debts were snowballing when he allegedly stole nearly $165,000 from casinos off the Las Vegas Strip between November 2021 and February 2022.
Since 2015, and at the time of the heists, Rogers was employed by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department as an active-duty patrol officer. A department spokesperson said last week that Rogers has been on unpaid leave "without police powers," pending the outcome of the trial, which began Monday and is expected to last through the end of the week.
Dressed in a gray suit with his hair pulled back into a low bun, Rogers showed no emotion Tuesday as prosecutors revealed details of their case to the jury for the first time.
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His attorney, Richard Pocker, has said the government's evidence in two of the robberies is weak, saying the FBI and Las Vegas metro police detectives had pressured two people, including Rogers' brother, into identifying him as the suspect to close out the cases.
In his opening statement Tuesday, Pocker asked the jury to give less weight to what he called "so what?" evidence expected to be presented throughout trial, like the color of the vehicles used in the robberies. These are "minor details which aren't as conclusive as the government would like," he said.
"Without more," Pocker said, those details don't "mean a darn thing."
On the stand, McGrath said she and her coworker, 63-year-old Priscilla Dougherty, were getting ready to open the sportsbook on the morning of Feb. 27, 2022, when a man jumped behind the counter and announced he had a gun. She said he grabbed Dougherty by the shoulders "and threw her down" to the floor.
When McGrath crouched over to check on her coworker, the robber told them guarding the casino's money wasn't "worth losing your life over."
To demonstrate for the courtroom how she reacted to the threat, McGrath threw her hands into the air and leaned back into her chair.
"I wouldn't want to take a chance," she said. "I'm not gonna question it."
Prosecutors also played a series of surveillance videos captured by security cameras at the casino that showed the suspect shoveling money into his jacket before jumping over the sportsbook's counter and running. In his trail, he left behind a pile of loose bills that had fallen to the casino floor, the videos showed.
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Just past the casino's exit, assistant U.S. attorney Daniel Cowhig said in his opening statement, the robber was confronted by security guards and drew a revolver. During the struggle, Rogers' hat and a wig he had been wearing flew off his head, Cowhig said.
The cash taken from the sportsbook was recovered and returned later that day to McGrath and her colleague, who counted the bills, learning they had nearly lost $78,898.
