LAS VEGAS – The man accused of molesting a little girl in an explicit sex videotape hid out last month in a short stay apartment where authorities have found a video camera and a quarter-pound of cocaine, a detective said Friday.
Chester Arthur Stiles, 37, stayed for several days at the Suites Weekly Apartments in a room registered under the name Bill Richardson, Las Vegas police Sgt. Dave Stansbury said.
An inventory of items seized from the room at the weekly apartments in a gritty casino and motel corridor southeast of Las Vegas, and the receipt from another motel near downtown, helped authorities fill in some of the blanks about where Stiles was hiding while he was the focus of a massive nationwide manhunt.
"I don't think anybody was really trying to keep him from us," Stansbury said. "I don't think he was living out of the car. We don't know what was keeping him here. But he never left."
Stiles was arrested Oct. 15 in a routine traffic stop in Henderson after being named Sept. 28 as a suspect in the videotaped sexual assault of the young girl, who is now 7 and lives in Las Vegas. The girl's mother told authorities she believed the attack occurred in 2003, before the girl's third birthday.
Also found in the apartment were a still camera, pills, strainers, crack pipes, baking soda, a pressure cooker, digital scale and paperwork, according to search warrant documents.
Stansbury said investigators were checking the items for Stiles' fingerprints.
"If his fingerprints are on the bag, it would show the cocaine was his," Stansbury said. No drug charges have been filed against Stiles.
"As with all accusations against Mr. Stiles, these will be aggressively defended," said his lawyer, Jeff Banks.
Stiles faces 23 felony counts, including lewdness with a child under 14 and sexual assault of a child under 14. Three charges are related to a separate alleged molestation of a 6-year-old girl in December 2003.
He is being held in isolation at the Clark County jail pending a Nov. 19 preliminary hearing and faces multiple terms of life in prison if convicted.
Stiles also was indicted by a federal grand jury in Las Vegas on a charge of producing child pornography, which could carry a sentence of 15 to 30 years in federal prison. Officials said Stiles will be tried on state charges first.
In the video, Stiles is identified as the man shown committing sexual acts on the young girl, who was found after sheriff's detectives in nearby Nye County circulated her photo and asked for help finding her.
The man who gave the videotape to Nye County authorities, Darrin Tuck, 26, remains in custody on a probation violation charge. He is due for a preliminary hearing Nov. 6 on a felony pornography possession charge.
Tuck said he found the tape in the desert, and his lawyer has said Tuck had no involvement with Stiles.
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