Trial set for 2 accused in shootings, kidnapping of Hooters server

By Tiffany Gibson

Wednesday, June 2, 2010 | 12:57 p.m.

A trial date has been set for two men who could face the death penalty for the January murder of a Hooters casino waitress.

Gregory Lee Hover, 38, and his alleged accomplice, 19-year-old Richard Freeman, will stand trial beginning March 7, 2011, on counts of murder, sexual assault, robbery, kidnapping and burglary, all enhanced with a deadly weapon, as well as arson, burglary and several counts of conspiracy.

District Court Judge Ken Cory set the trial date during a Wednesday hearing. The men are alleged to have kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered 21-year-old Prisma Contreras of Las Vegas, a waitress at the Mad Onion restaurant at Hooters.

Boulder City Police officers found Contreras’ body Jan. 15 inside her blue 2006 Jeep Liberty, which had been burned. Contreras was reported missing by her family Jan. 14 after she failed to return home from her shift.

The men were indicted by a Clark County grand jury in April. Their arraignment was delayed several times after Hover in April attempted suicide while incarcerated at the Clark County Detention Center and spent several weeks at University Medical Center recovering.

Cory will hear arguments from Freeman’s attorneys to dismiss some of the charges next week.

The men are also facing multiple felony counts in connection with a violent home invasion that left a man dead and the man’s wife with a gunshot to the face, also in January. A preliminary hearing in that matter is scheduled to resume July 14 in front of Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Joseph Sciscento.

In that case, Hover, a process server, is accused of returning to the house of Roberta and Julio Romero on Jan. 25, which he had visited earlier in the day looking for a man Hover said owed $10,000 in a civil matter.

The husband and wife were both shot. Julio Romero died and Roberta Romero was shot in the face and left for dead, but survived.

Roberta Romero testified at the first portion of the preliminary hearing and identified Hover as the man who shot her and stole valuables from her home. Police say Freeman was waiting for Hover in Hover’s car.

Prosecutors have said elements of that case could also lead them to pursue the death penalty but no formal decision will be made until after the preliminary hearing.

Separately, Hover is also charged in a case that developed during his incarceration in connection with the other two cases. He is accused of slicing another inmate across his back with a pair of scissors while cutting the man’s hair at the jail and is facing a felony count of battery by a prisoner with a deadly weapon in that case. Hover is set to be arraigned on the charge June 8 in front of District Court Judge Kathy Hardcastle.

Both men are being held without bail.