http://www.rgj.com/article/20090507/NEWS/90507048/1321/newsReno car salesman arraigned on charges of threatening to kill troopers after DUI arrest
By Jaclyn OMalley • jomalley@rgj.com • May 7, 2009
A 33-year-old car salesman was arraigned Wednesday for what his attorney said was being a “jerk” and an “obnoxious drunk” when he was arrested last week on charges of drunken driving and threatening to kill two Nevada Highway Patrol troopers.
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During a bail hearing on Thursday in Reno Justice Court, Robert Adam McGuffey told Justice of the Peace Barbara Finley that “I apologize. I am guilty of being an idiot.”
She ruled that McGuffey remain held in the Washoe County Jail on a $75,000 cash bail to protect public safety. He is charged with two counts of intimidating a witness, two counts of intimidating a public officer, DUI, driving on a suspended license and speeding.
Trooper Matt Kaplan testified Thursday that he pulled over McGuffey sometime after 3 a.m., May 1, on North McCarran Boulevard near Lawlor Events Center and arrested him for DUI. On the way to the jail, he said McGuffey claimed that he was a top salesman at Jones West Ford, and that within 30 minutes of his boss bailing him out of jail, he was going to run a credit check on the trooper.
McGuffey had asked him his name and how to spell it. He said the credit check would tell him where the trooper and his family lived and shopped, and that he would hunt them down and kill them. McGuffey also threatened to sabotage the NHP vehicles that are serviced at the dealership, and gave specific ways he was going to do it.
The incident in Kaplan’s patrol car was video recorded.
Jones West Ford officials declined to comment.
Kaplan testified that McGuffey continued threatening him and another trooper while at the jail. McGuffey, Kaplan said, boasted that he was proficient at shooting and had already killed a police officer. He told the trooper he was lucky he didn’t have a gun.
“He said I wouldn’t be the first or the last,” Kaplan said of McGuffey’s threat to kill a police officer. McGuffey has prior arrests for resisting arrest, along with several other misdemeanors that date back to 1998, officials said.
The troopers said they took the threats seriously because McGuffey was thinking clearly and was specific in his threats. His blood alcohol level registered 0.11, Kaplan said, while the legal limit is .08. McGuffey’s attorney, Justin Champagne said the threats were “empty” and that McGuffey was an “obnoxious drunk.”
“You are not a kid anymore,” Finley told McGuffey. “You were not drunk out of your mind. You were thinking clearly and were trying to impress and intimidate the troopers with the things you were threatening.”
Several times throughout the hearing McGuffey apologized for making the threats, and blamed it on having a “bad day” and family problems.
