North Las Vegas may settle gun case with man, now a murder suspect

North Las Vegas might pay $300,000 to settle a federal lawsuit filed by a man now accused of murder in which he alleged police conducted a warrantless search of a pickup he was driving during an unrelated investigation.

That search then led to a gun being found that he wasn’t allowed to possess, according to records.

Raymond Padilla’s conviction for ownership or possession of a firearm by a prohibited person was later reversed in the appellate process, according to the lawsuit.

Padilla — who hand wrote the complaint from the Clark County Detention Center — is facing a murder charge in connection with a slaying that occurred three months before he was pulled over in North Las Vegas.

The possible settlement for the gun case will be considered by the North Las Vegas City Council Wednesday.

“In order to eliminate any potential risk of an adverse verdict and to save money on further defending this matter, it is recommended that the City Council approve the proposed settlement,” city staff wrote in an agenda item.

The $300,000 would be paid from a self-insurance fund, according to the city.

Search of vehicle

On July 26, North Las Vegas police were investigating a 911 call that reported gunshots in a neighborhood near Martin Luther King and Pecos Road, according to an arrest report Padilla included in his complaint.

The witness said he saw three vehicles “leave in a hurry,” according to police.

One of the vehicles was an orange Chevrolet Avalanche with chrome rims, which Padilla was driving.

Padilla told police he didn’t have a driver’s license, so they ordered him to step out, cuffed and searched him, police said.

They then searched the vehicle where they found a handgun in the center console, the report said.

Padilla alleged in the complaint that police tampered with evidence to make him look guilty.

“By placing the weapon in plain sight officers robbed the plaintiff of his defense that it was not his vehicle and he had no knowledge the weapon was in the vehicle,” he wrote.

The Nevada Supreme Court said officers were justified in searching Padilla, but not the vehicle.

“Once the officers conducted the ‘Terry frisk’ of Padilla and discovered no weapons on his person, however, any reasonable suspicion that Padilla was dangerous no longer existed,” justices wrote in a 2019 conviction reversal order.

The order, which Padilla included in the lawsuit complaint, noted that he wasn’t going to be allowed to get back into the vehicle because he wasn’t licensed to drive.

That took away a danger element, the order said.

“Accordingly, we conclude that the protective sweep of the vehicle was unjustified because law enforcement no longer possessed a reasonable articulate suspicion that Padilla was dangerous, nor was officer safety or the safety of others a concern,” the order said.

Added the order: “We conclude that the officer’s intrusion into the center console of Padilla’s vehicle was not a protective sweep, but an unconstitutional warrantless search and the district court erred in failing to suppress the firearm evidence.”

Unrelated killing

Padilla was later linked by the Metropolitan Police Department to the killing of Mark Santee, 48, who was shot during a robbery at a construction site at 5175 S. Jerry Tarkanian Way on April 26, 2016.

Santee, a security guard, had been trying to thwart the crime, police said at the time.

Police released a photo of a vehicle they had been searching for in connection to the killing, which they described as a red or orange Avalanche or Cadillac Escalade.

Padilla’s murder case is ongoing, and trial dates have been pushed back for years.

Padilla, 51, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in late March, but quickly thereafter indicated he wanted to withdraw the agreement, according to District Court records.

A status check hearing was slated for Tuesday, the day he was scheduled to be sentenced.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.