‘I’m the [expletive] sergeant,’ Las Vegas officers testify against one of their own

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Five Las Vegas Metro police officers testified against Sgt. Kevin Menon during grand jury proceedings, which led to Menon’s indictment, according to documents the 8 News Now Investigators reviewed.

A Clark County grand jury indicted Menon on 13 charges, including nine counts of oppression under color of office, records said. The charges stem from incidents during operations where plainclothes officers work with uniform officers to spot crime on the Las Vegas Strip.

“It sounded like the most illegal thing a sergeant could do,” Officer Justin Candolesas testified in reference to a May 3 incident. Members of Menon’s team told the grand jury that on that day, officers spotted a man in possession of a knife on a pedestrian bridge. As the officers walked toward him, Menon, dressed in plain clothes, “shoulder-checked” the individual, documents said. The officers described Menon’s physical contact with the individual as an action that would result in a citizen’s arrest, had they done the same thing.

Officers recalled the citizen becoming upset and said the situation could have escalated. Menon advised the officers on how to fill out their reports, according to the grand jury testimony.

“Sgt. Menon gave it back to us and said something along the lines of how we need to change like the story and say that the individual we arrested purposely bumped into another civilian and he was trying to articulate how the knife could have been used in the fight and the civilian that Sgt. Menon was referring to was himself but he didn’t want his name to be put in the report,” Candolesas said.

Officer Brett Flygare testified Menon shoved him on May 5.

“He shoved me with his hand and then said, ‘I’m the [expletive] sergeant, you idiot,’” Flygare recalled. Flyugare said he was dressed in his uniform acting as a “cover officer” while other officers were dealing with a man who was acting erratically.

Menon walked toward the area while dressed in plain clothes with no badge and while wearing a sling-style pack across his chest, according to Flyugare.

“My intentions were just to address him,” Flyugare said.

Flyugare testified if a civilian shoved an officer the way Menon did, they would have been arrested for battery on a protected person.

Menon spoke with Flyugare later that night, the officer said.

“He never explicitly apologized for his actions or addressed whether or not they were appropriate,” Flyugare said. “I interpreted as somewhat of an apology but not a sincere one.”

Officer Abbygail Armijo testified that she finished the police academy in May 2023 and despite her being on probation, Menon brought her to his specialized unit on the Las Vegas Strip making her the youngest and most junior officer.

She recalled a May 5 incident at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas where four individuals were taken into custody, without probable cause, after she followed orders from Menon who had claimed the men were making inappropriate comments to women near a restroom.
Armijo also provided testimony about directives from Menon.

“He did not want to be included in the reports and he would send our reports back to change them in our incident crime report system to essentially take his name and the lieutenant’s as well as the captain’s name out even though they would provide us with probable cause or reasonable suspicion,” Armijo said.

Armijo also said she considered transferring out of the unit.

“I didn’t feel like it was the right thing to do and I had a gut feeling that it was wrong and I just didn’t want to do it anymore,” Armijo said.

Officer Stephen Corsaro testified how the group used the application Signal, where messages can immediately disappear and where Menon would issue his directives, including to arrest him while he was dressed in plain clothes to help create a scenario for a citizen arrest.

Officer Erik Sanchez recalled how he and at least one other officer addressed their concerns with the union presenting officers, the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, rather than to superiors within the department.

“There’s a lot of places in this department you can test for and he always told us that he was one of the people that was sitting oral boards, so that was kind of like an intimidating factor knowing that if you were to test for narcs, gangs, vice, homicide, he’ll be the one like you guys right now sitting in front of me so if I did say something about him I felt that it was going to give me limited options to where I could test for,” Sanchez said.

The union drafted a letter to the department on behalf of four officers who were concerned Menon was using “possibly illegal tactics,” according to an arrest report first obtained by the 8 News Now Investigators.

The department placed Menon on leave with pay and suspended his police powers pending an investigation after his arrest. The department has since stopped paying him, a spokesperson said following the indicment.

Defense attorneys Austin Barnum and Dominic Gentile are representing Menon. Gentile sent the 8 News Now Investigators the following statement on Wednesday, the day the indictment against Menon was announced:

“The state filed a complaint in this matter on Sept. 9 and Sgt. Menon immediately advanced the initial appearance and demanded his statutory right to a preliminary hearing within 15 days. The hearing was set for today and we fully expected that the state would produce its witnesses for a public hearing and allow for us to cross-examine them. We were prepared to do so today.  Apparently the state chose to avoid having their witnesses confronted and cross-examined and decided instead to proceed secretly through the Grand Jury. It begs the question, “Why”? What is it about a public proceeding that the state is concerned will be revealed about their witnesses and the weakness of their case?”

Menon was due to return to court on Oct. 23. The 8 News Now Investigators asked Menon about the allegations after he left a courtroom Wednesday morning. He declined to comment.

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