Lawyer in high-profile criminal cases moonlights as actor

Robert Langford performs many roles.

In the past four months alone, he's worked as a defense attorney in two of the highest profile murder trials in Las Vegas this year.

Meanwhile, he's serving as a special prosecutor in the case against a former valley pastor accused of raping underage girls.

He's also played Ben Weatherstaff, caretaker of The Secret Garden.

And on three weekends this month, he's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer's depressed and possibly alcoholic father.

Last month, just a few days after wrapping up a conviction for reputed pimp Ammar Harris, who killed three people on the Las Vegas Strip, prosecutor Pamela Weckerly took her children to see "The Secret Garden," a musical performance at the Summerlin Library Theatre.

She flipped through the program and noticed Langford's name.

The two had been adversaries in the monthlong capital murder trial. Weckerly knew of Langford's acting hobby but had no idea that he spent late nights during the trial rehearsing and performing.

"He was good," she said, "and the play was good."

Relaxing under the lights

Tom Ericsson, Langford's co-counsel in the Harris trial, said they often worked late nights on their defense strategy, and Langford's musical performance did not interrupt their work.

Langford was picked to help with the Harris trial because of his experience on death penalty cases, according to Ericsson.

In the end, Harris refused to attend a penalty phase in the Strip shooting trial, and jurors sentenced him to death.

Trying to spare Harris's life "was exceedingly difficult because he was very remorseful," Langford said. "But I couldn't show that to the jury."

"He's a great lawyer, a very thorough trial attorney," Ericsson said. "He works hard, and is very knowledgeable and very talented."

Langford, 57, takes his acting, which occasionally pays a small stipend, almost as seriously as his legal work.

"Some attorneys drink," he said. "I put on makeup and a costume and pretend. It's a great stress release. That's how I relax. It's a mental distraction."

Most recently, in his time away from the courthouse, Langford is taking one of the lead roles in "The Eight: Reindeer Monologues," a dark comedy about sexual assault at the North Pole. Somehow, wearing a costume of headband antlers, a gray sport coat, gray slacks and a black turtleneck, Langford manages to convince the audience that he's the father of Rudolph, now catatonic after witnessing the attack.

The play launched this weekend and runs every Friday and Saturday night through Dec. 19 at Onyx Theatre, 953 E. Sahara Ave.

"Everybody should have a hobby or an artistic outlet, and the theater is mine," said Langford, who earned a minor in acting from Grand Canyon University and his law degree from the University of Arizona in Tuscon.

Hobby worth diving into

Langford and Weckerly also sat on opposite sides of the courtroom in the trial of George Tiaffay, who was convicted of hiring a homeless man to kill his wife.

Meanwhile, Langford prepped for trial in the case of Otis Holland, who was once featured on the "America's Most Wanted" television program after he fled to Mexico while facing sex charges in Las Vegas. This time, though, the lawyer would be on the other side of the law, working as a special prosecutor.

It's a role Langford has played before. He spent the first 7½ years of his career as a district attorney, including a stint prosecuting sex crimes. Holland's trial is expected to start early next month.

In the past, Langford has defended such high-profile clients as Adam "Pacman" Jones, the NFL player charged for his role in a 2007 strip club melee, and Xiao Ye Bai, a Chinese assassin convicted of stabbing another man 32 times inside a crowded karaoke bar.

David Stanton, another prosecutor in the Ammar Harris Strip killings, said Langford works "ethically" and is respected among attorneys on both sides of the law.

"He's a professional to deal with," Stanton said. "And I mean that in the utmost kind of evaluation of someone you work with in an adversarial relationship. He has honesty and integrity in how he interacts with us."

Langford and Stanton also share a common hobby, and it's not acting. Both men enjoy scuba diving. In fact when Langford's not in the courtroom or onstage, he works as a master scuba diving instructor, which he admits pays a little better than acting.

He became an instructor after his sons, Jackson and Harrison, took interest in deep-water exploration.

"I decided I want to be proficient enough to supervise them properly in the water," he said. "And I discovered that I liked to teach.

"Most good teachers will tell you that they do a good deal of acting in teaching. Most litigators are also decent actors or decent teachers," Langford said. "They all three are intertwined. Those three professions have a great deal in common."

Contact reporter David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Find him on Twitter: @randompoker