Plea in works for owners of school
Judge reluctantly continues drawn-out case against husband, wife
BEATTY — An attorney for the married owners of a now-shuttered private boarding school at the center of a child abuse case said they are “on the doorstep” of a plea agreement with Nye County prosecutors.
Details of ongoing negotiations between the defendants and the Nye County district attorney’s office were disclosed Monday in Beatty Justice Court during a brief pretrial hearing, which had been continued numerous times over nearly two years.
An announcement was expected during Monday’s hearing about whether they had struck a deal, a decision that could have eliminated the need for a trial in the case, first filed against Marcel and Patricia
Chappuis in August 2019.
But instead, their attorney, Thomas Gibson, asked Justice of the Peace Gus Sullivan for more time.
“I believe if we get one more pretrial hearing, we’ll have a deal down, because right now we’re on the doorstep of an agreement,” Gibson said.
In response, the judge expressed frustration about the case, which has moved slowly through the court system.
“Let’s set a date. Let’s get it done. Let’s just be over with this. It’s been going on and on and on,” Sullivan said. “You know, I’m really having a tough time swallowing this, but I am going to go ahead and do it in the interest of justice and fairness to them. Just try to make this the last time.”
The defendants were in court
Monday but did not speak during the hearing. Afterward, they rushed out of the courthouse as they hid their faces from a Las Vegas Review-journal photographer.
Marcel and Patricia Chappuis are expected back in Beatty Justice Court in February. They have been free on bail since Valentine’s Day 2019 following their arrests on 45 counts each of child abuse or neglect. Their school, Northwest Academy, closed the day after their arrests.
No other details about the possible deal were revealed in court Monday, although John Friel, a deputy district attorney, told the judge: “There’s 2,300 pages of discovery, which is a lot, and there’s like 45 charges. So we
disease.
The surge is also being felt in the state’s hospitals, which reached a new high Monday of 2,025 suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients, the state data showed.
Hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients rose in Clark and Washoe counties over the weekend.
In Clark County, about 25 percent of licensed intensive care unit beds were empty, according to an update from the Nevada Hospital Association. About 41 percent of the remaining beds were occupied by COVID-19 patients and 34 percent with other patients.
About 78 percent of all hospital beds in Clark County were occupied, according to data from the association. COVID-19 patients made up about 31 percent of the total, while 47 percent were filled by individuals with some other ailment.
There was one seeming bright spot in Monday’s data: The two-week positivity rate calculated by state health officials dipped 0.2 percentage points from the preceding day to 21.3 percent. It was the fifth straight daily decrease in the rate.
But Caleb Cage, Nevada’s COVID-19 response director, said that while the positivity rate in Northern Nevada is decreasing, Southern Nevada is experiencing an uptick in cases.
“What we’re not seeing is a trend that’s going down nearly as rapidly as it was trending up,” he said.
The state is also not yet seeing the full impact from the Thanksgiving holiday, Cage said.
Julia Peek, deputy administrator for the state health department, said people need to keep up mitigation measures such as mask wearing and social distancing.
A statewide positivity rate over 20 percent is still “extremely high,” she said