Man held in machete threats case

A 41-year-old Dayton man is to appear Tuesday in district court on charges he threatened a half-dozen people with a machete.

After a day-long preliminary hearing Friday, East Fork Justice Jim EnEarl bound James Preston over to district court on three of four felony aggravated stalking reports.

Preston's lawyer, Kris Brown, argued that the case should have been charged as harassment rather than the more serious stalking.

"Mr. Preston never denied his behavior, very serious threats were made, but there has to be proof of each and every element has been met. This is not aggravated stalking," Brown said.

Prosecutor Laurie Trotter said Preston "took it upon himself to get in his car, drive all the way from Dayton to Gardnerville and caused all these people to feel terrorized, threatened, intimated and harassed.

"The state has proved a reasonable person would feel these individuals (the victims) felt one or more of these emotions," she said.

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 taken for treatment to West Hills Hospital in Reno for four days. He was diagnosed with a bipolar disorder and began a treatment regimen included medication and therapy.

He was incarcerated in Douglas County Jail on Feb. 1 where he remains on $25,000 cash bail.

"If this were a harassment case we wouldn't be having this conversation," Brown said. "We have to have a course of conduct directed to one person and show a continuity of purpose."

Trotter argued that Preston began his behavior in May at a birthday party at Centerfield when he got into a fight with the brother of one the victims.

Brooke Thompson testified that she and her family were at the party for her father-in-law when an argument broke out. The two men got into a fistfight.

She said Preston told her "you better watch out. I am coming to get you. Tell your mother to sleep with one eye open."

Thompson said Preston did yard work for her mother.

"I was terrified," she said. "My mom lived alone."

EnEarl denied Brown's renewed request to have Preston released on his own recognizance.

She said he was not a flight risk, and had lived in the area his whole life.

She said in the two weeks before he was incarcerated Feb. 1, he sought treatment for the behavior which alarmed him and had no additional criminal contacts.

Trotter said the alleged victims feared Preston, and that he had contacted them after the incident.

She said he also presented a threat to law enforcement based on his wife's statement that he was suicidal and had talked about "suicide by cop," by deliberately acting in a threatening way in an attempt to provoke a lethal response from law enforcement.