Daveggio gets nearly 25 years for kidnap, rape of Reno college student

RENO, Nev. - A convicted kidnapper facing murder charges in another case was sentenced to nearly 25 years in prison Monday for the rape of a Reno college student he snatched from a city street.

Before giving James Daveggio the maximum sentence, U.S. District Judge David Hagen commented on the "depraved nature of the forcible sexual assault" of the student in the back of a van traveling on Interstate 80 in 1997.

He ordered Daveggio to pay a $500,000 fine in the event he ever profits from selling the rights to his alleged multi-state crime spree.

The judge refused a request by federal prosecutors to make a special exception to U.S. sentencing guidelines and give Daveggio an even stiffer penalty than the maximum 24 years and five months.

Daveggio's lawyer, Michael Kennedy, noted that the maximum already was harsher than the typical punishment for second-degree murder.

Daveggio, 39, and his ex-girlfriend, Michelle Michaud, 42, are expected to be extradited to California before the end of the year to face murder and sexual assault charges in Alameda County, prosecutors said.

Michaud, a former prostitute from Sacramento, Calif., was sentenced by Hagen to 12 years in prison last week after she pleaded guilty to being an accomplice in the Reno kidnapping and testified against Daveggio. She also has been cooperating with FBI agents who investigated the California murder case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden said federal prosecutors in Nevada have been working with prosecutors in California, who will conduct extradition proceedings through the California State Bureau of Prisons. He said that could take 30 to 60 days.

"A lot of stuff has already been turned over to California authorities," Bogden said.

"We're done with him now" in Nevada, he said. "It's a good sentence. He will spend at least 20 years and nine months behind bars."

Daveggio has indicated he will appeal his conviction.

Rock Harmon, Alameda County chief deputy prosecutor, said he expected to have both suspects extradited to face charges there "within a few months."

"I wish we could have had him a year ago. We have been ready to try them since they got indicted," Harmon said Monday.

"They are both going to be really surprised when they understand the nature of the evidence we have against both of them," he said. He declined further comment.

Daveggio declined the judge's offer to make a statement at his sentencing on Monday. In a gravelly voice that earned him the nickname "Froggy," he said that based on the advice of his lawyer, "I don't have anything to say, your honor."

A federal jury found him guilty earlier this year of plucking the young woman from a Reno city street, tossing her into a van and repeatedly sexually assaulting her while Michaud drove west on I-80 before the victim was dropped off near Auburn, Calif.

"It was almost a one-and-one-half to two-hour period where Mr. Daveggio satisfied his sexual lust to the extreme pain and humiliation of the victim," Bogden said.

An Alameda County grand jury earlier indicted Daveggio and Michaud in the strangling death of Vanessa Lei Samson, 22, of Pleasanton, Calif.

Her body was found Dec. 4, 1997 in a snow bank off Highway 88 in Alpine County - a day after Michaud and Daveggio were arrested at a casino in Stateline, Nev., in the kidnapping case.

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