Man faces prison term in subsequent DUI

A Gardnerville man is facing a mandatory prison sentence after he admitted he’d been drinking and driving last spring, just over three years since he’d graduated from DUI diversion.

Jarl Gene Klockars, 61, admitted that he had a .118 blood alcohol content on May 3 when he was arrested.

Under an agreement with prosecutors, Klockars faces 38-96 months in prison. The maximum sentence for a subsequent instance of felony driving under the influence is 2-15 years and a $5,000 fine.

Klockars is scheduled to appear on Jan. 16, 2024, for sentencing.

While he completed the diversion on a third instance of driving under the influence from June 10, 2016, any second felony DUI results in the enhanced penalty.

Klockars is free on bail pending his sentencing, which prompted District Judge Tod Young to caution him against partaking in any intoxicants over the holiday.

“I’ll be fine, your honor,” he said. “I promise.”

He was represented by attorney Maria Pence.

• A 2019 drug deal that occurred in Stateline came back to haunt a Sacramento man who dodged a warrant for failing to turn up at court for the last four years.

Jean Claude Rocha, 41, was the bag man in a cocaine sale that occurred right in front of a patrol car on Dec. 22, 2019.

A deputy watched as three men participated in the sale. Frank Dennis Riley took the money and Rocha admitted on Tuesday that he handed the buyer a 1.25-gram bag of cocaine. After the arrest, deputies found 13 bags amounting to 12.9grams.

Rocha posted $20,000 on Christmas 2019 but failed to appear in Justice Court in February 2020. He was arrested in Carson City on a trafficking charge, though that was later dropped.

Attorney Max Stovall said Rocha thought the notice that the Carson City charges were dropped reflected the Douglas charges, as well.

Meanwhile the warrant for Rocha’s failure to appear was for within 200 miles of Douglas County, which he managed to avoid until October when he was arrested in Placerville on a charge of driving under the influence.

District Judge Tod Young ordered Rocha be held without bail pending his Jan. 16 sentencing.

Rocha faces 1-6 years in prison and a $20,000 fine, since the deal occurred before the Legislature modified Nevada’s drug laws.

• A man who gave a friend’s name after a deputy responded to a report of a pickup on fire in a neighbor’s yard admitted to using a fraudulent identity to try and avoid prosecution.

Derek Ryan Peterson, 33, was working landscaping at a Gardnerville Ranchos address when his pickup caught fire on July 14. He went into the backyard and a neighbor put the fire out with a garden hose.

Peterson gave the friend’s name to the deputy, and Peterson’s girlfriend backed him up, so the deputy released him.

He was arrested on Aug. 9 after another deputy spotted him driving near Arrowhead. He had Xanax and methadone in his possession at the time.

Under an agreement with prosecutors they won’t oppose probation on the charge, which carries an up to five-year sentence and a $10,000 fine.

He also has a felony warrant for failure to appear in Texas that was nonextraditable.

His sentencing was scheduled for Jan. 30, 2024, to give him time to clear up the matters in Texas.

“I’ll listen to arguments, but I’m unlikely to put somebody on probation if they’ve absconded from another jurisdiction,” District Judge Tod Young said.

• An Indian Hills man began a long road through the legal system with guilty pleas to drug felonies on Tuesday.

Nicholas Joseph Piasentin, 38, may qualify for diversion on the cases if he applies.

He admitted to two cases on Tuesday, one where he had 2 grams of cocaine on Oct. 13 and another where he had 13 grams of cocaine, psilocybin mushrooms, heroin and alprazolam pills in a backpack on Aug. 12.

Deputies contacted him after receiving a report of a shirtless man wearing a backpack looking in mailboxes on his street.

He was detained while deputies learned that he lived on the street, but taken back into custody after they found drug paraphernalia in the back seat of the patrol car. The drugs, along with a bong, were found in his backpack. He failed to appear in East Fork Justice Court on Sept. 27, but was arrested two weeks later.

Attorney Ken Stover said Piasentin was arrested after he got his truck and some cocaine after his release in Carson City and hit a car. He faces charges in East Fork Justice Court.

He’s also facing a felony drug charge in Carson City and a second and third driving under the influence in Washoe County.

Stover was hopeful the drug charge would be reduced to a misdemeanor in Carson City.

There is a bed awaiting Piasentin in Scottsdale, Ariz., for treatment, but District Judge Tod Young said he would be surprised if Piasentin was allowed to go to Arizona under the circumstances.

Piasentin was released on his own recognizance on the Carson City charges and a Washoe County hold.

Young set a Jan. 30, 2024, review date to consider any diversion petition filed in the case.

A man who received a suspended sentence in August 2021 for possession of stolen catalytic converters is in custody facing a probation violation.

Nathaniel Anthony Corona, 25, was arrested in April 2021 after allegedly taking a key from an Indian Hills business.

The converters were cut from people’s cars in Reno. In addition to a 12-30-month sentence, he was also ordered to pay $1,878.50 in restitution.

On Tuesday, Corona denied a violation that could result in his probation being revoked. A hearing on the violation was set for Dec. 21.

Corona has been in custody since Nov. 8 on a warrant.