Height of safety
State mandates rise above feds’ for crane work
This month, 16 cranes stretching as high as 350 feet are hoisting 65-ton canopy trusses atop the massive Las Vegas Stadium now under construction.
Along the Strip and in downtown Las Vegas, nine more cranes are lifting construction materials as high as 600 feet into the air as tourists and taxis pass by below.
The towering machines are a familiar sight across Southern Nevada’s skyline, and construction experts say strict protections are in place to prevent a crane collapse like the one that killed four people in downtown Seattle last week.
“Nevadans can feel pretty safe about tower crane use because of the (safety) requirements we have,” said Jess Lankford, chief administrative officer for Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “Here we make an extra effort to understand how it’s going to be put up, who is going to put it up, what’s the plan for the erection.”
Nevada requires operators of all tower cranes, which are stationary and must be assembled and disassembled for use, and some mobile cranes to hold a national certification for the equipment they are using, Lankford said. Becoming certified typically requires hundreds of hours of supervised training on the machine.
In the Seattle accident, a crew was disassembling
Lewis, who is on parole in an unrelated case, and set bail at $100,000 for Ornelas, who remains in the Clark County Detention Center.
Lawyers for Lewis and Ornelas said they were unaware of the indictment and declined to comment.
Lewis’ 15-page arrest report includes details of a thorough investigation.
When Metro learned what had been stolen, it enlisted at least 23 people on the property crimes case, including seven officers, eight detectives, five crime scene analysts, two forensic scientists and a sergeant.
Detectives believe Lewis and Ornelas lived in a dirt lot near the facility and learned that no one patrolled the area at night, when the gates were locked, according to Chief Deputy District Attorney David Stanton.
They’re accused of climbing over the wall of the facility in the predawn hours of Dec. 8 and prying open the rolling doors of three units.
In the first, they found nothing, Stanton said.
In the second unit, a victim reported missing a Mickey Mouse collector doll, a Louboutin collector doll, a Madame Alexander doll, a green Barbie doll, a black briefcase, Thomas the Tank Engine toys, a green Army jacket and a chess board, though “nothing of any great value.”
The third belonged to Falcone, who had rented four units.
“Then they hit the mother lode,” the prosecutor said.
An investigator asked Falcone why he kept such valuable jewelry in storage.
“He said he just did not have the space for all of those items at the home he was currently staying in,” Lewis’ arrest report said.
Lewis and Ornelas are accused of
loading up duffel bags and a wheelchair with the loot: three Greubel Forseys worth $300,000 apiece, a $185,000 Richard Mille/felipe Massa, a $150,000 Vacheron, a $150,000 Audemars Piguet, several Panerais, a couple of Pateks and at least one Rolex.
A couple of days later they located cousins Tyree Faulkner and Thomas Herod and offered $500 for a ride in Faulkner’s matte black 1998 Lincoln Navigator, the police report said.
Police said they happened to be in the area Dec. 11, when the four returned to the storage unit and set off an alarm.
When Faulkner was arrested, he told police he had been in Las Vegas for about a month. He and his cousin were paid to drive the couple to “a jewelry store,” where the woman tried unsuccessfully to sell a watch, Faulkner said.
As she walked out of the business, Faulkner told investigators, one of the employees chased after her, telling her he wanted to buy the watch, but Lewis didn’t want to sell it.
Faulkner and Herod were approached again and offered watches in exchange for rides.
“He said they looked plastic and told them they were not interested,” the police report said. So Lewis offered $1,000, which they accepted.
Later, when detectives searched Faulkner’s SUV, they found two watches, a Greubel Forsey, model 14, and a Panerai, PAM 767, T005/11, Tourbillon.
Another detective wrote that two more Panerai watches and an Audemars Piguet also had been recovered, with miscellaneous jewelry and baseball cards, credit cards and identification cards that did not belong to Falcone.
On top of the burglary and conspiracy charges, Lewis could face several years in prison as a habitual criminal.
Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.