Shooting suspect has long criminal history

A Carson City man with questionable immigration status and multiple run-ins with the law - including two previous shootings - was jailed again Thursday in connection with a shooting investigation.

Rigoberto Vega-Aguilar, 29, was booked Thursday night on suspicion of felony and misdemeanor drug charges and possession of a firearm.

According to the arrest report, officers went to Vega-Aguilar's North Edmonds Drive apartment about

8 p.m. to serve a search

warrant after investigators received information that he was allegedly involved in a shooting. Deputies allegedly found marijuana, a glass pipe and other drug parapher-

nalia, a hydrocodone pill and a loaded .22 caliber revolver.

On Aug. 14, members of two rival gangs exchanged gunfire outside an apartment complex at Menlo Drive and Lompa Lane. No one was injured. Vega-Aguilar is the eighth person arrested in the course of the shooting investigation. No one yet has been charged.

Court records indicate Vega-Aguilar has been jailed on at least seven occasions in the past decade.

He served a year-long jail sentence for shooting Gabriel Bobby Munoz in the leg and back on Airport Road in 2001. When Munoz failed to appear in court to testify, the prosecutor reduced the charges to a gross misdemeanor conspiracy to commit battery with a deadly weapon.

Two years later, Vega-Aguilar was arrested for shooting Gabriel's brother Cesar Munoz in the stomach on Edmonds Drive. Again thanks to an uncooperative victim, charges were dismissed.

In 2000, he was convicted of domestic battery.

In 2005 he was acquitted on a domestic battery charge and found guilty of misdemeanor lying to obstruct an investigation.

Also in 2005, Vega-Aguilar was indicted by a federal grand jury for having a firearm after a conviction of domestic battery. The indictment was later dismissed after Vega-Aguilar's attorney argued that the circumstances of his domestic violence conviction did not meet the legal requirements to prevent him from owning a firearm.

In 2006 Vega-Aguilar had charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and failure to wear a seat belt dismissed and he was acquitted of a charge of petty larceny.

In August that same year he pleaded guilty to driving on a suspended license.

And federal court filings indicate Immigrations and Customs Enforcement had Vega-Aguilar in its sights. Online court records show he was denied an appeal by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Court on a ruling he be deported.

So why he remains in the country is unknown, said Sheriff Ken Furlong.

"It seems like we just cannot get immigration to deport him. Once they got him all the way down to Arizona and then sent him back," said Furlong.

Furlong said in addition to a $12,000 bail, I.C.E. has placed a hold on Vega-Aguilar.

"He'll be up for deportation again," said Furlong. "We are not letting up."