Machete threats draw prison term

A 41-year-old Dayton man was sentenced Tuesday to six years in Nevada State Prison for threatening to kill a half-dozen acquaintances in a bar with a machete.

"I can't conjecture what would have happened if Douglas County Sheriff's officers had not stopped you," District Judge Dave Gamble told James Preston.

Gamble said he was moved by Preston's account of mental illness that was misdiagnosed, but he couldn't overlook the fact that the defendant was stopped before he got to the bar with a machete in his car.

He pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated stalking in connection with the Jan. 9 incident and faced up to 15 years in prison.

Gamble said he would be eligible for parole in two years and gave him credit for 112 days in Douglas County Jail.

Preston apologized to the victims, several of whom attended Tuesday's sentencing.

"I am sincerely, absolutely sorry. I never meant for all this to happen," he said, turning to face his former friends and co-workers. "I hope everybody can move on and live a normal life."

Preston told Gamble he wasn't a threat to the victims or the community.

"I can't get lower than this," he said. "I never felt lower in my life."

Preston was charged with leaving multiple cell phone messages Jan. 9 to potential victims that he was on his way from Dayton, where he lives, to the Centerfield Bar in Gardnerville to kill people with a machete.

When deputies stopped his vehicle at highways 395 and 88 near midnight, they confiscated a machete behind the driver's seat.

He was jailed on a mental health hold and admitted himself for treatment at West Hills Hospital in Reno for four days. He was diagnosed with a bipolar disorder and began a treatment regimen that included medication and therapy.

He turned himself in to Douglas County authorities on Feb. 1.

Preston's lawyer, Kris Brown, said before he went for treatment Preston had been misdiagnosed with attention deficit disorder. Once he was treated for bipolar disorder, his condition improved.

Preston said he was devastated by his behavior.

"I wasn't aware of it (bipolar disorder). I was taking the wrong medicine. I feel like I'm getting letdown here, too. It shouldn't have happened. If I were them (the victims), I would do what they're doing to protect my family," Preston said.

Preston's wife testified on her husband's behalf.

"I've never seen him like that before (Jan. 9)," she said. "It was scary. He was deathly afraid of what he did. That's why he went to get help."

She assured Gamble if Preston were on probation, he would follow through with treatment.

One of the victim's - Preston's former coworker at the Town of Gardnerville - said he sleeps every night with a gun by his bed.

"I'm 27 years old and I'm being treated for high blood pressure. This totally changed me. It totally changed my life. I will always be watching my back," he said.

Another man said he and the bartender at Centerfield were armed with bats awaiting Preston's arrival.

"The statement there was no physical harm to us is false. Me, my wife and our kids, we didn't sleep for a week. I've filed restraining orders against him. If he gets out, who's to say that he's not going to snap again?" he asked.

The man said he was a believer in rehabilitation, but called Preston's threat "a terrorist act."

"He put fear in the hearts of all these people," the man said.

Prosecutor Laurie Trotter said the victims had every reason to think Preston would carry out his threats.

"The crime is not that he cut them up with a machete. It's that he put them in fear for their safety. Thankfully, the Douglas County Sheriff's Office intervened," Trotter said.

Gamble said neither he nor the psychiatrist who examined Preston could say what would have happened, nor could the suspect's behavior be excused by mental illness or dismissed as a threat.

"Upon release from this institution, he should be strictly supervised and afforded extensive treatment for mental illness," Gamble said.