Probation revoked for drug trafficker

Staff Reports

Probation was revoked Tuesday for a 20-year-old drug trafficker with multiple violations.

District Judge Dave Gamble ordered Casey W. Smith to serve up to 10 years in Nevada State Prison stemming from a February, 2007, crime in which he sold cocaine to a confidential informant.

Gamble gave Smith credit for 539 days in custody in Douglas County and Carson City.

Smith failed to appear for drug court on Dec. 22, walked away from an in-patient treatment program before completion and was arrested Dec. 25 in Carson City for possession of drugs.

Smith was jailed in Carson City until March 25 when he was returned to Douglas County.

His lawyer, Tod Young, said drug court officials agreed to keep him in the program if his probation was reinstated.

Smith said he walked away from the program because he wanted to be home for Christmas.

He said he got in an argument Christmas Day with an older sister who was going to take Xanax tablets, and Smith confiscated the pills.

He said his sister called Carson City deputies who arrested him later that day with the prescription drugs.

"If any of that's true, wasn't there a toilet at your mother's house and you could have flushed those pills away?" Gamble asked. "You had every opportunity not to be in possession of those pills."

Smith asked to be placed back on probation.

"Prison will not do me any good," he said. "I will not be around good people."

He told Gamble that ever since his twin sister Carey died in an accident in September, 2007, "everything's been so difficult."

"Before Carey died, you were already way down that road you're on," Gamble said. "The only thing Carey's death did " besides make us all sick " was to give you another crutch."

Gamble said Smith was eligible for parole after 24 months.