$3 million bail for CCSD bus driver
Banco charged with sexual assaults of ‘very small children’
A veteran Clark County School District special education bus driver accused of sexually assaulting “very small children” was ordered to be held on $3 million bail Thursday.
Michael Banco, 55, was arrested at his home last week and booked at the Clark County Detention Center on 19 felony counts: three counts of sexual assault against a child under the age of 14; eight counts of lewdness with a child under the age of 14; four counts of first-degree kidnapping and four counts of first-degree child abuse or neglect.
Banco’s Las Vegas defense attorney, Robert Draskovich, asked Justice of the Peace Conrad Hafen to set his client’s bail at $100,000 bail and to put him under house arrest.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Sam Martinez countered. Martinez detailed one of the incidents he said was caught on bus surveillance cameras in which he said Banco could be seen molesting and assaulting a 3-year-old child with special needs.
Those details brought the girl’s grandmother, Cherine Archer-Tyler, to tears in the courtroom.
Martinez called the video “nauseatingly clear,” and asked Hafen to set Banco’s bail at $2.5 million
Calling the charges “some of the most serious allegations” he’s seen in his career, Hafen took it a step further and slapped the $3 million bail.
Martinez said that several potential victims have come forward since Banco’s arrest, adding that they have 11 interviews scheduled over the weekend.
On three separate days, Banco was seen on a surveillance camera molesting and assaulting “very small” children on the back of a bus before dropping them off at home after school, police said. Other kids were seen on the bus.
A parent of a student on Banco’s route tipped authorities about “inappropriate conduct by a bus driver,” Metro Lt. Dan McGrath said Friday.
Banco, a bus driver for special education children who has been with CCSD since 1995, according to Transparent Nevada, was responsible for 20 students on his route throughout the Las Vegas Valley.
Hafen had ordered Banco to be held without bail Tuesday.
Draskovich said Banco was interrogated for eight hours without being allowed to meet with an attorney.
Parents were instructed to contact authorities if they suspect their child was assaulted.
Banco is scheduled to be back in court on June 18 at 9 a.m. Reporter Ricardo Torres contributed. Contact Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com or 702-3834638. Find him on Twitter: @coltonlochhead.