Ex-Venetian dealer back in Las Vegas to face homicide charges

Anthony Wrobel booking photo. (Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department)

A former employee of The Venetian suspected in a deadly shooting at a company picnic in April has been transferred to Las Vegas police custody after fighting extradition from a Texas jail for nearly two months.

Anthony J. Wrobel, 42, was booked early Tuesday into the Clark County Detention Center, jail records show. He faces one count each of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon, attempted murder with a deadly weapon and battery with the use of a deadly weapon resulting in substantial bodily harm.

The former casino dealer is accused of shooting Mia Banks, vice president of casino operations at the Venetian, and Hector Rodriguez, executive director of table games, at close range during a company picnic April 15 at Sunset Park, near Eastern Avenue and Sunset Road. Detectives would later find a note left in his abandoned apartment detailing his anger toward his bosses.

Banks, a 54-year-old mother of two, died of gunshot wounds to the head and chest at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, and Rodriguez was seriously wounded.

The shooting sparked a dayslong nationwide manhunt, which ended April 19 with Wrobel’s arrest in the small town of Vega, Texas, after a sheriff’s deputy spotted a stolen license plate on his dark gray Cadillac. Police said that he stashed the vehicle in a parking garage at McCarran International Airport three days before the shooting.

The plate that tipped off the deputy to Wrobel had been reported stolen two days earlier from another car in Cedar City, Utah.

Police have called the shooting a targeted act of workplace violence and described Wrobel as disgruntled. He was an employee of The Venetian at the time of the shooting and had been working at the hotel-casino for 15 years.

Wrobel is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday morning for his return hearing, court records show.

Further details were not available Tuesday. Las Vegas police did not immediately respond to a request for a jailhouse interview with Wrobel.

The Review-Journal is owned by the family of Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson. Las Vegas Sands operates The Venetian.

Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.