Bail $1.47 million for shooting suspect
Bail was set at $1.47 million Tuesday for the man accused of shooting four people on the New York-New York casino floor last week.
Prosecutor Ravi Bawa told Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Karen Bennett-Haron that she should not set any bail for 51-year-old Steven Francis Zegrean, because “he went out with the intent to kill.”
“I don’t know of anyone who’s more of a threat to society,” Bawa said.
Police had noted that in addition to being armed with a loaded 9 mm semiautomatic handgun, Zegrean had at least five loaded magazines with him and dozens of extra cartridges. Zegrean was suicidal and told police he had hoped to provoke them into shooting him, according to his arrest report.
Zegrean participated in the hearing by closed-circuit video from the Clark County jail. The only thing he said was that he understood the charges against him, more than 25 felony counts, including at least four charges of attempted murder.
Zegrean’s court-appointed public defender, Lynn Avants, said Zegrean would not be able to post bail.
“In this case, any bail is going to be too high for him to meet,” Avants said.
According to police, Zegrean lost his job two months ago and was depressed. They had been sent to his Las Vegas home on the afternoon of July 4 regarding a possible suicide attempt, but Zegrean told those officers he did not want to commit suicide.
Later that night, about 11 p.m., he donned a trench coat, armed himself and took a cab down to the Strip, police said. Zegrean gambled away the last of his money, then spent the next day, Thursday, wandering the Strip, police said.
About 10:30 p.m., he entered New York-New York from the second-floor pedestrian walkway but saw too many children in the vicinity to carry out his plan to start shooting people, police said. So he waited around the food court.
About 12:45 a.m. Friday, when he no longer saw children walking by on the casino floor below him, Zegrean fired 16 rounds from a mezzanine, wounding four people in their arms or legs, police said.
Zegrean had reloaded and was trying to shoot a person who was lying on the floor when his gun jammed and he was tackled by Justin Lampert, a 24-year-old off-duty North Dakota National Guardsman, police said. Other bystanders then jumped in to help hold Zegrean until police arrived.
Police said they found a suicide note in Zegrean’s pocket.
Bennett-Haron scheduled Zegrean’s preliminary hearing for July 24.
