The thief apparently used several different means of entering the hotel rooms – from air-conditioning vents to gaining room keys from unsuspecting housekeepers and front-desk employees. None of the victims ever saw the thief, who came in after they had gone to sleep. A police source said the thief may have monitored his targets through hidden cameras but would not elaborate.
Karch stopped reading. Because it was the first article on the incident, it had the least information, the writer having woven several paragraphs out of a handful of facts. He went on to the next day's story.
ACCOMPLICE CHARGED IN
"HIGH-ROLLER" DEATH
BY DARLENE GUNTER
Sun Staff Writer A woman police say was the lookout for the so-called High-Roller Robber was charged Thursday with homicide in his death from a fall from the penthouse of the Cleopatra Resort and Casino.
Cassidy Black, 26, of Las Vegas, was charged under Nevada's felony-homicide law, which holds anyone who takes part in a criminal enterprise responsible for any death that occurs during the commission of the crime.
Although Black was waiting for Max Freeling in the lobby of the Cleopatra when he crashed through a penthouse window twenty stories above, she is still legally responsible for his death, said Clark County District Attorney John Cavallito.
Cavallito said Black, who was also charged with burglary and criminal conspiracy, could face 15 years to life in prison if convicted of the charges. She was being held without bail at the county jail.
"She was just as much a part of this incident and this crime spree as Freeling was," Cavallito said at a press conference. "She was a coconspirator and deserves to be and will be hit with the full weight of the law."
Freeling's death was ruled an accident and not suicide. He reportedly crashed through one of the windows of the penthouse suite in an effort to avoid capture.
More details on the dramatic events of early Wednesday morning were revealed by Cavallito and police investigators on Thursday.
The so-called High-Roller Robber had struck at Strip resorts eleven times in seven months, prompting the Las Vegas Casino Association to put up a $50,000 reward for the capture and conviction of a suspect.
Police said the thief had allegedly been targeting high rollers who took their winnings in cash with them to their rooms at the end of the day.
On Tuesday a private investigator hoping to claim the reward money contacted officials at the Cleopatra and told them he believed the High-Roller Robber was currently targeting a guest in the hotel and casino.
The investigator, Jack Karch, then agreed to serve as a decoy. When the target gambler, whose name was not released, retired for the evening, a switch was made and it was Karch – disguised as the gambler – who went to the penthouse suite.
Two hours after Karch turned out the lights in the suite and feigned sleep, Freeling entered the room through an air vent he had accessed through the ceiling of the penthouse housekeeping station. As Freeling entered the suite's bedroom he was surprised by Karch, who held him at gunpoint and used a two-way radio to call for help from hotel security agents waiting nearby.
"Before those agents could get to the room, Mr. Freeling inexplicably made a run for the window," Cavallito said. "He threw his body into it and crashed through and fell."
Cavallito said there was a small ledge below the window and Freeling may have believed that he could escape on it by moving along the facing of the building to a nearby cable used to lower a window-washing platform down the side of the building.
However, the momentum of Freeling's body going through the glass carried him past the narrow ledge and down. He crashed through the casino's signature atrium window, creating a panic among the few gamblers in the casino at the time. No one else was hurt.
Following Thursday's press conference Cavallito answered few questions, citing the ongoing investigation and prosecution of Black. He refused to reveal how it was that Karch, the private investigator, learned that Freeling was targeting a gambler at the Cleopatra.
Efforts to contact Karch for comment were unsuccessful and messages left on his office answering machine were not returned. As a young child Karch performed on occasion with his father, the now deceased magician known as "The Amazing Karch!" who was a mainstay at Strip casinos and hotels from the '50s to the early '70s.
The younger Karch was called "Jack of Spades" because of an illusion in which his father placed him in a locked mail sack in a locked crate and he would disappear and be replaced by a playing card – the Jack of spades.
While Cavallito said Karch has been cleared of any wrongdoing in the death of Freeling, the district attorney did criticize the decision of Karch and Cleopatra officials to set up the sting operation without police involvement.
"We certainly wish that they had contacted the Metro Police Department before going ahead with this," Cavallito said. "Maybe then this whole incident could have been avoided."
Vincent Grimaldi, chief of security at the Cleopatra, declined to comment on Cavallito's criticism.
A spokesman for the Casino Association declined to say whether Karch could claim the reward in light of the death of the suspected thief and arrest of his accomplice.
More details about Freeling were emerging yesterday as well. Authorities said the suspect had twice before been convicted of burglary and had previously spent a total of four years in state prisons. Freeling was said to have grown up in Las Vegas and, like Karch, was the son of a figure of note. Freeling's father was Carson Freeling, who was convicted in 1963 of taking part in a daring armed robbery of the Royale Casino, a caper which many locals believe was inspired by the film Ocean's Eleven, starring Frank Sinatra and other members of the so-called Rat Pack.
Maxwell Freeling was three years old at the time of his father's arrest. Carson Freeling died in prison in 1981.
Karch studied the photo that accompanied the story. It was a mug shot of Cassidy Black taken on the day of her arrest. Her long blond hair was messy and her eyes looked red and sore from crying. He remembered that she had refused to say word one to the Metro cops, even through twelve hours of interrogation. She had stood up and Karch admired that.
During the investigation of the Freeling incident, Karch had never met her or even been in the same room with her. It was impossible to confirm that the woman in the photograph was the one he had watched on surveillance videos at the Cleo and the Flamingo but in his gut he knew it was.
He scanned through the remaining few clips until he got to the last story. This one had another photo of Cassidy Black running alongside the story. It showed her in a jailhouse jumpsuit and shackles being led from a courtroom by two bailiffs. There was something about the angle of her jaw and the focus of her eyes upward that he liked. It showed that she still carried her dignity, despite the cuffs and the jumpsuit and the situation she was in.
His eyes moved over to the story and he read it. It was the last story in the saga, the cleanup. It was short and had been buried inside the Sun.
HIGH-ROLLER ROBBER
BLACK ENTERS PLEA, GETS PRISON
BY DARLENE GUNTER
Sun Staff Writer Cassidy Black, one of the so-called High-Roller Robbers, pleaded guilty Monday to charges relating to the crime spree that included the dramatic death of her partner two months ago. She was immediately sentenced to state prison.
In a plea agreement negotiated with the Clark County District Attorney's office, the 26-year-old one-time blackjack dealer pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter and one count of conspiracy to commit burglary. She was sentenced by Circuit Court Judge Barbara Kaylor to serve five to fifteen years in prison.
Black, dressed in a yellow jumpsuit, said little during the courtroom hearing. She spoke the word "guilty" after each charge was read by Kaylor and then told the judge she fully understood the ramifications of her plea.