Sentencing in sexual assault case postponed for Strip shooting suspect
A judge agreed Wednesday to postpone sentencing until Feb. 26 for a self-described pimp who was convicted of sexual assault last September in one case and is due to stand trial later this year in a Las Vegas Strip shooting and fiery crash that left three people dead.
Ammar Asim Faruq Harris’ defense attorney, Robert Langford said he and attorney Thomas Ericsson needed six weeks to review trial transcripts they received less than two weeks ago following Harris’ conviction in September.
Langford has said they may appeal on grounds that Harris didn’t receive a fair trial.
Harris, 27, said nothing as he stood in shackles flanked by five heavily armed jail guards, with his hands in orange protective mitts.
He remains jailed, facing a possible sentence of life in state prison after a jury found him guilty in the June 2010 sex attack on an 18-year-old woman at a Las Vegas condominium.
Separately, Harris has pleaded not guilty and faces a death penalty trial later this year in the Strip shooting and crash last Feb. 21 that killed an aspiring rapper, a cab driver and taxi passenger.
The sentencing delay was the second since Langford and Ericsson were appointed in November at county expense to replace a team of special public defenders who withdrew from Harris’ cases citing conflicts about defense strategy.
Prosecutor David Stanton opposed the postponement, and Clark County District Court Judge Kathleen Delaney said she didn’t intend to grant another.
The stakes for Harris are high, because Stanton has said he’ll present the sex assault conviction for consideration as an aggravating factor by a jury mulling the death penalty if Harris is convicted in the shooting and crash case.
Harris is accused of shooting from a black Range Rover at an aspiring rapper who was fatally wounded and crashed a Maserati sports car into a taxi, igniting a fireball that killed a cab driver and passenger.
Another man in the Maserati suffered gunshot wounds and survived. Five other people in several other vehicles suffered lesser injuries.
In the months before the shooting, Harris posted videos of himself fanning a big handful of $100 bills and boasting about luxury cars, prostitutes and living in a house full of women who paid him. Records showed he lived in Miami, Atlanta and Las Vegas.
He has never been convicted of pimping. But he was convicted in South Carolina in 2004 of felony possession with intent to sell a stolen pistol and in Atlanta of misdemeanor marijuana possession.
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