On Friday morning, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department announced in a press release that it had arrested eight “child sex predators” as part of a multiagency undercover operation over the last two weeks.

But the arrest of 38-year-old Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, a senior official for Israel's National Cyber Directorate, quickly overshadowed the news, especially after news outlets reported that he had returned to Israel last weekend. 

Questions over how an alleged child sex predator could so quickly leave the country have swirled in the days since, leading to rampant online rumors, an official denial by the U.S. State Department of interfering in the case and a war of words between top government officials including acting U.S. Attorney for Nevada Sigal Chattah, who cast the blame on a “liberal district attorney and state court judge” in a post on X.

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, who is responsible for prosecuting the case against Alexandrovich, told The Nevada Independent that the “handling of this case was extremely typical.” 

When it comes to allowing the release of a person charged with a crime before a trial, courts in Nevada are required to impose the least restrictive means necessary to protect the safety of the community and ensure a person appears in court.

Except under special circumstances, courts allow “standard” bail for people charged with a crime before they’re brought before a judge on criminal charges, meaning the amount of money required to leave detention is preset by the court and requires no additional release conditions. 

Several other people caught in the sting along with Alexandrovich, including a local pastor, were also released on bail, while others remain in detention.

While legal experts echo Wolfson’s assessment that the case followed standard procedures, many contend that it highlights fundamental flaws in the state’s bail system. 

Rob Langford, a longtime private defense attorney and civil rights lawyer based in Las Vegas, called the case the “perfect example” to highlight inequities in the state’s bail system. 

“Anybody can do what this guy did, anybody who has enough money,” Langford, who previously ran for district attorney against Wolfson, told The Indy.

After posting bail the day after he was charged, Alexandrovich returned to Israel. Foreign nationals are often deemed a flight risk in criminal cases, but Wolfson said that law enforcement didn’t raise any red flags that would lead the office or police to believe that Alexandrovich was either a flight risk or danger to the community.

“This happens every day in America, where people that live within this country and outside the country post bail and get released, and in almost all of the cases, they return to face the charges,” Wolfson said. 

Langford said that in an “ideal world,” Alexandrovich would have had to go in front of a judge before leaving the country to review if any additional conditions needed to be set. 

Alexandrovich's next court date is set for Aug. 27. Alexandrovich’s attorney, David Chesnoff, confirmed via text message that his client “will attend all court dates he is required to be at.” In another statement to The Indy, he said the bail process used in this case was routine. 

“I have been a practicing attorney in Nevada for 45 years and have seen our bail system work effectively throughout my career and nothing happened here that was out of the ordinary,” Chesnoff said in the statement. 

How does bail work in Nevada?

After a defendant in Nevada is arrested, booked and charged, they are typically held in custody until their first arraignment (a court hearing where a person formally faces charges and enters a plea) or bail hearing in front of a judge. 

However, defendants have the option to pay a set standard bail price in lieu of an initial bail hearing, where a judge can raise or lower the bail amount based on conditions laid out in state law. 

Nevada and many other states including California, Texas and Florida rely on a system of “bail schedules” which sets predetermined bail amounts for various categories of criminal charges. Bail schedules usually vary by county and township — a justice court in Churchill County set bail for lewdness with a minor at $150,000. 

Eve Hanan, a UNLV law professor, said the bail schedule system is common, though not without flaws. 

“Bail schedules result in special treatment for people who can afford bail,” Hanan said. 

The amount of bail can increase after a defendant sees a judge. Alexandrovich, who paid bail immediately, paid the standard amount of $10,000. John Charles Duncan, a former Las Vegas Metro police officer, who was also in the sting and waited for an arraignment hearing in court, had his bail upped to $15,000, according to local records. 

Alexandrovitch was charged with soliciting a minor using an electronic device, a Class B felony that carries a maximum 10 year sentence. Outside of unusual circumstances, defendants are not monitored after posting bail and do not require release conditions, according to Wolfson. 

“The court sets what is called standard bail for every charge, with the exception of murder or sexual assault on a minor, or felony DUI, death or kidnapping. Other than those serious crimes, every other charge has what is called a standard bail,” Wolfson said. 

According to Hanan, the bail schedule is designed so that people could leave jail without having to wait to see a judge. Before standard bail schedules were adopted, Hanan said people could potentially be held in jail for days under charges as minor as traffic offenses. 

For more serious crimes, higher bail amounts can sometimes serve to prohibit defendants from being released, though Alexendrovich had the financial means to circumvent this barrier. If Alexandrovich appears again before a court, a judge is likely to increase his bail, according to Hanan. 

“The expectation is that people are not incarcerated until they're found guilty of a crime,” Hanan said. “[A later bail hearing] is really about imposing conditions of release that ensure they come back to court and that they do stand trial, or that they do go through the court process.” 

If defendants post bail prior to an arraignment or a bail hearing, monitoring of the defendant may occur, but usually only in special circumstances. Wolfson said that Alexandrovich was “detained, interviewed, and cooperative.”

Bail in Nevada and the U.S.

Some states have decided to do away with the cash bail system entirely. In 2017, New Jersey eliminated cash bail in favor of a system that calculates the risk of recidivism when making pretrial release decisions. Illinois has also eliminated the use of cash bail. In these states, defendants are either imprisoned or released depending on their crime. In states such as New York, defendants can be released without bail under electronic monitoring or other supervision. 

Despite a gradual movement to eliminate cash bail nationwide, bail reform efforts in Nevada made little headway in the Legislature until the Nevada Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in April 2020 finding the state’s existing law on pretrial bail to be unconstitutional. 

Among other requirements, the Supreme Court’s order in the Valdez-Jimenez case required defendants get an individualized and adversarial court hearing — one that can involve cross-examining witnesses — promptly after their arrest to consider whether they should remain behind bars. It also required that judges must take a person’s background into consideration before setting cash bail, including if a defendant has a prior criminal history, is able to afford bail, or is likely to be convicted. 

In 2021, state lawmakers passed a bill complying with the court’s order in the form of AB424, which also required bail hearings to be held within 48 hours.

“[Valdez-Jimenez] is designed to make sure that a lower-income person isn’t held simply because they can't afford bail,” Hanan said. “It also means that a judge could take into consideration that somebody has a lot of money and set them to a higher bail.” 

Although the Alexandrovich case has shed additional light on bail and pretrial release issues, Langford isn’t optimistic that reform will come any time soon. 

“Not a snowball's chance in hell,” Langford responded to a question if he could foresee any changes coming.