Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Sentencing delayed for ex-CSN construction chief found guilty of theft

Gilbert’s attorney has until Jan. 31 to file motion for new trial

Gilbert

Gilbert

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CSN official William Gilbert is accused in the theft of college property in the building of this home on Mount Charleston.

Sentencing has been delayed until next month for Bob Gilbert, the former construction chief at the College of Southern Nevada who was found guilty by a Clark County jury in August on 11 counts of theft.

Gilbert, who was to have been sentenced Monday, is now scheduled for sentencing at 9 a.m. Feb. 16 before Judge Donald Mosley.

Mosley delayed the sentencing at the request of Gilbert's attorney, Brent Bryson, who was given until Jan. 31 to file a motion for a new trial.

Gilbert, who could face years of prison time on the theft counts, is currently free until sentencing.

Charges against Gilbert stemmed from a Sun investigative story in 2007, which looked into allegations by CSN employees that Gilbert has used his position to divert building materials, equipment and CSN employees to build his dream home on Mount Charleston.

At the time, Gilbert told the Sun there was no wrongdoing and nothing had been stolen from the college for his personal use on his 4-plus acres home in Kyle Canyon.

He told the Sun the complaints had come from disgruntled employees and that the college's own investigation had cleared him.

However, the Nevada attorney general's office followed up on the Sun's investigative series and brought charges against Gilbert.

During the trial in August, the state laid out its case against Gilbert in thefts from 2002 to 2007, stressing to the jury that he controlled the equipment, manpower and material going in and out of the college in his former position of associate vice president of facilities, operations and maintenance at CSN.

The jurors found him guilty of having pallets of cinder blocks bought by CSN delivered to his property; taking a man-lift that had disappeared from the college; stealing an electric chain hoist, a paint sprayer, 12-foot lengths of lumber, bags of thin-set mortar, door handles and door locks; stealing the use of a fork lift and a scissors lift that had been rented to CSN, and using the services of several CSN construction employees to work on his home while they were on the clock and being paid by the college.

The jury, which listened to three weeks of testimony from some 20 witnesses, heard Gilbert’s attorneys try to discredit the state’s investigation and poke holes in the state’s evidence, much of which was circumstantial.

Gilbert’s defense team relied on only one witness — Ron Remington, CSN president from 2001 to 2004.

Remington backed up Gilbert’s assertion that he had permission to have the building material and equipment on his property and that some college work was done there, including welding.

Three days before the trial started, three of Gilbert’s co-defendants — Matthew Goins, George Casal and Thad Skinner, all of whom worked under Gilbert in CSN’s facilities management department — made agreements to plead guilty to lesser charges.

Each pleaded guilty Aug. 5 to two gross misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit theft. Each received a sentence that amounts to a year of informal probation.

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