OPINION: Why is this 2017 Las Vegas sexual assault case taking so long to come to trial?

Gang rape allegations at Cornell University have reverberated from the Ivy League campus across the nation and sparked a national conversation that's raising troubling questions about victims' rights, university policies and police investigations.

Closer to home, Nevada has spent years answering its own tough questions about the proliferation and investigation of such cases. The state ranks fifth in the nation in sexual assault rate and second in per capita domestic violence cases. Unlike the notorious case at Cornell, most sexual assaults attract little or no attention in the media.

Here's one of those that occurred in 2017. It's particularly egregious for the victim, not just for the usual ugly reasons, but also because of the length of time it has languished in police files and our court system.

At that time, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department was recovering from a scandal involving thousands of untested rape kits when Sexual Assault Unit detectives received a call on Feb. 2 from a local hospital. A woman said she had been raped the night before, and wanted to report it.

It was a call that nearly a decade later tests the credibility of a system designed to bring justice to sexual assault victims.

The victim in this story cooperated fully with police and prosecutors, according to court documents, including testimony before a Clark County grand jury. After a brief interview at a St. Rose hospital the day after the incident, police escorted the woman to University Medical Center, where she underwent a sexual assault nurse examination. In an interview, she told Detective Robert Garris that she had been raped after partying at Town Square, that she remembered little about the ordeal, but knew that her assailants videotaped it.

The detective worked quickly to secure a search warrant for a Haven Street residence owned by Christopher Reindl. There, police collected video and DNA evidence along with witness statements that led them to two additional suspects. For some reason, the hot case went cold and languished for several years.

It seems to have been reignited thanks in part to an investigative offshoot of Metro's rape test kit scandal. In its wake, the department created a dedicated sexual assault cold case unit with federal funding help. In ensuing years, millions more were poured into the effort. In 2021, U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) announced nearly $2 million in funding from the Department of Justice to help pay to process the rape tests.

It was only after the file was read by cold case detectives in 2022 that the wheels of the investigation started to turn again. Perhaps one day we'll learn if someone tipped off the detective, or if it was randomly unearthed.

Once again, the victim stepped up. That December, she testified before the grand jury, which returned an indictment in January 2023.

Nearly six years after that first call, and long after the three suspects' names had been recorded in the investigative file, Reindl (misspelled Riendl in court charging documents), Joseph Anthony Paterna and Christopher John Alloca (also spelled Allocca) were charged with more than two dozen counts of sexual assault and attempted sexual assault. Reindl and Paterna were also charged with first-degree kidnapping. Reindl and Alloca were released after posting bond.

Time was not kind to two defendants. Just months after the indictment, 47-year-old Reindl, a Las Vegas powerboat builder and racer well known in the sport, died in his sleep at a family member's Ohio home. Reindl's roommate Paterna spent a year in detention in Las Vegas before he was found incompetent to stand trial in 2024. After multiple continuances and an amended indictment that charges him with four counts of sexual assault, Alloca is now scheduled for a Feb. 22, 2027, jury trial.

Friends and colleagues remembered Reindl as a driving force in powerboat racing as a competitor, builder and innovator. One admirer told the offshore racing website Speedonthewater.com that Reindl "was an amazing person with a passion for his family, his team, and most importantly, the boating community."

Offshore Powerboat Association President Ed Smith called Reindl a colorful and passionate character, despite at times resisting the urge "to wring his neck. But he had that smile and attitude I could not resist." Another friend called him "the life of the party."

Calls to current and former Metro sexual assault detectives on the case were unsuccessful, with most either not returned or directing me to the department's public information officer. As of Friday, the department had no response.

In a brief exchange with a former Metro supervisor, I was reminded that the only media site to report on this case was a publication called The Baltimore Post-Examiner with an article by Doug Poppa.

Perhaps this column will generate a few more answers.

With one defendant dead, another declared incompetent to stand trial and a third who hasn't seen the inside of a jail cell, it only states the obvious that justice has been delayed in this case.

The real question is why?

In the wake of Metro's rape kit debacle and the millions spent to repair the self-inflicted damage to the department's credibility, what made this case different?

The victim deserves answers, and the public has a right to know.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family's Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in New Lines, Time, Reader's Digest, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Reuters and Desert Companion, among others.