BOULDER CITY, Nev. (AP) - A Henderson couple accused of helping a murder suspect hide in a motel room in this quiet Nevada town after he’d been mistakenly freed from a Los Angeles jail got a new court date Tuesday.
Bruce Randall Oliver and Lavera Deanna Wilson weren’t asked to enter pleas before Justice of the Peace Victor Miller. He set a July 12 preliminary hearing to determine whether they’ll stand trial on felony accessory to escape charges that could get them one to five years in prison.
Oliver, 40, and Wilson, 39, and the lawyer who represented them on Tuesday, Yi Zheng, declined to comment outside court. The couple remains free on bond.
Their attorney, Tony Abbatangelo, didn’t immediately respond to messages.
Police allege Wilson rented a room at the Nevada Inn in Boulder City, about 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas near the Hoover Dam, where police arrested Steven Lawrence Wright on Feb. 8. He had been set free Jan. 30 in what jailers later said was a paperwork error.
Wright, 32, has since been returned in custody in Los Angeles, where he had been jailed since April 2011 following his arrest in the shooting death of a man in Pasadena, California. A murder conviction in the case was overturned and Wright was awaiting a new trial.
Police and the FBI in Las Vegas reported that when Oliver said Wilson were questioned about renting the room, they said they hadn’t seen Wright.
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