By Rio Yamat
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS — At first, Josiah Rogers said he thought his older brother, a Las Vegas police officer, was joking when he brought up the idea of robbing a casino. But then the conversation took a turn, and soon they were putting a plan together for a heist in November 2021, he said.
Rogers revealed details of the extensive planning that went into the robbery when he took the stand Thursday and testified for several hours against his brother, Caleb Rogers, who was on trial this week over a trio of casino heists in late 2021 and early 2022. The jury began deliberating Thursday afternoon and will resume Friday morning.
Caleb Rogers, 35, could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of brandishing a department-issued weapon in one of the robberies. He was employed as an active-duty patrol officer at the time of the heists.
Josiah Rogers said his role in the scheme was the getaway driver. To prepare, he said, he drove to the Red Rock Casino off the Las Vegas Strip to find the best escape route. They also purchased a gray cover for his pickup truck and cut out holes so he could see out the windows while driving.
Jurors were captivated by his testimony, scribbling down notes and darting their eyes back and forth between the brothers in the courtroom. But Caleb Rogers avoided eye contact with his brother, who was granted immunity from prosecution for sharing details about how they carried out their robbery.
“Caleb told me that it was gonna be his operation and when it was happening, I had to do everything he said because he had the knowledge and the skill,” Josiah Rogers said, referring to his brother’s experience in law enforcement.
The plan for the robbery, Josiah Rogers told the jury, was to leave the apartment where they lived together in his pickup, then pull over and quickly disguise the truck using the car cover. Josiah Rogers said they rehearsed placing and removing the cover in the days leading up to the heist.
On the way back from the casino, they would stop on a dark stretch of highway, rip the cover off before anyone noticed them, and return home.
When the day of the robbery arrived, Josiah Rogers said he parked outside the casino near a loading dock like they had rehearsed, and his brother crawled out of the passenger-side window, returning minutes later with a trash bag stuffed with cash.
At home, the brothers splayed their earnings across the dining room table, counting more than $73,000, according to prosecutors. Josiah Rogers said he took his cut of $30,000 and moved back to their hometown of Columbus, Ohio, a week after the robbery.
For Caleb Rogers, prosecutors said, it was just the first in a string of heists targeting casinos off the Strip that would end only after he was arrested in February 2022 during an armed robbery at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino.
Throughout trial, which began Monday, jurors also heard from casino employees who shared how they are still haunted by their encounters with the robber. There was the security guard who said he couldn’t stop thinking about how he might not make it home to his family while he was wrestling with the suspect for his weapon outside the Rio hotel-casino. And then there was the 63-year-old cashier who said she still looks over her shoulder anytime she handles cash at work.
Assistant U.S. attorney David Kiebler said in his closing argument Thursday that the evidence in all three robberies points to the same man: Caleb Rogers.
Brian Walter, the lead detective on the case, said in each heist, the thief used the same “unique” method — down to the type of clothing he wore to conceal his identity, to the way he would keep his hands in his jacket pockets until he had the cash to “avoid spreading forensic evidence.” Then, Walter said, the robber would unzip his jacket and place the money inside a drawstring bag hidden underneath his clothing.
The way he ran with a limp in his left leg also gave him away, Walter said. Internally at the police department, they had nicknamed the case the “Kangaroo Bandit” investigation for the suspect’s gait.
But Richard Pocker, the officer’s lawyer, called the government’s evidence convenient for a police department that already had been working for months to no avail to solve the first two robberies when Rogers was arrested.
“They tried too hard here,” Pocker said in his closing argument. “It’s just too coincidental.”
When Josiah Rogers learned that his brother had been caught, he said he set the last of his money from their robbery together on fire.
“The reality of everything kind of crashed down,” he said.
The two brothers had been close all their lives, Josiah Rogers said. They shared a room throughout childhood and in adulthood had lived together twice, in South Carolina and Las Vegas. But in the courtroom Thursday, as he walked off the stand and past his brother, who has been in custody since his arrest, Josiah Rogers stared straight ahead.
Caleb Rogers snuck a quick glance, and then his younger brother disappeared behind the courtroom doors.