Reid and Ensign to testify at stalking trial

Michael McCusker's frustration at being bilked out of $23,000 in a Mexican land scam sent him from outrage into despair and finally to a public but unsuccessful suicide attempt.

His frustrations also prompted him to write letters and make calls to public officials in fruitless attempts to regain what had been much of his life savings.

The problem, Deputy District Attorney Abbi Silver told a jury as McCusker's trial began Tuesday, developed when some letters and calls were considered to be threats and were focused at Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev.

Both are scheduled to testify later this week and Silver said both have indicated they felt terrorized by McCusker's actions. He was caught with a pistol in front of Ensign's office and months later shot himself in the chest in front of Reid's office.

Deputy Public Defender Patricia Justice conceded that McCusker's letters "say bad things" but she described the 55-year-old defendant as "pretty much a broken man."

She denied that his frustration was leading toward violence aimed at the elected officials, their staffs or families.

"He was saying he wanted to commit a dramatic public suicide to get out his story," Justice told the jury. "This is not stalking. This is a broken- down man who is suicidal, not homicidal."

"He had been done wrong and wanted his money back," the defense attorney said.

McCusker, whose self-proclaimed motto is "justice or death," had gone to Reid and Ensign to muscle reparations from Mexican authorities after years of being unable to recover the thousands of dollars he lost a decade ago.

McCusker is charged with felony aggravated stalking, which alleges a pattern of conduct designed to terrorize his victims.

Reid ranked the threats from McCusker as among the "top five" he had ever received.

Silver said Ensign, who is challenging Reid for his Senate seat in this year's elections, considers McCusker's actions toward him "the No. 1 threat of all."

The trial is being taped for gavel-to-gavel coverage on Court TV, although the cable channel is not broadcast in Las Vegas.

While McCusker is charged with two felony counts of stalking between December 1995 and July 1997, court documents indicate that he had not used his .22-caliber pistol to threaten the legislators or their staffs.

In fact, the only time he pulled the weapon was when he fired a single bullet into his own chest on March 18, 1996, outside Reid's office at Las Vegas Boulevard South and Charleston Boulevard.

Silver said the bullet passed through his body and he recovered.

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