In a story reminiscent of a Liam Neeson action movie, a 61-year-old pastor from North Carolina was recently arrested at the Strat Hotel, Casino & Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada, on gun and drug related charges.
David McGee is a senior pastor at various Christian organizations in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was arrested late last month in his Strat hotel room, where he was allegedly found with an AR-15 rifle and a large quantity of the potent synthetic opioid fentanyl.
Reports of the August 20 arrest only emerged this week. In social media posts prior to his arrest, McGee claimed he was heading to Las Vegas to find his daughter, Ashli McGee. He believed she was possibly living among the infamous homeless community in the extensive system of flood tunnels underneath Sin City.
Legal documents say he missed a late August appearance date, and has a new court date set for December. He has not yet been charged with any criminal offense. A Facebook post from his wife Nora claims McGee did find his daughter while in Las Vegas.
The Arrest
McGee was reportedly arrested after calling police over a dispute about belongings missing from his room.
Police said hotel staff informed them they had already marked McGee as suspicious, as he reportedly told workers at the Strat that he had a shotgun in his baggage when checking in. Police have tended to be on high alert when it comes to guests with guns on the Las Vegas Strip in recent years after the 2017 mass shooting which killed 61 people.
Upon arriving at McGee’s room in the Strat, police say McGee admitted possessing the assault rifle and the fentanyl.
He allegedly told officers he brought $1,000 worth of the potent drug into Las Vegas on his private jet. Police also found several other firearms in his room.
“McGee stated that he was a user of fentanyl and intended to distribute the fentanyl to his daughter when he locates her,” court documents said.
The police response was so forceful, reports circulated on social media on the day that a terror plot had been foiled at the Strat. Police were forced to publicly denounce that information as false. Information on the actual incident that led to the police’s heavy prescence was not forthcoming until this week.
The Backstory
McGee is a senior pastor involved with several prominent churches in North Carolina. He was the head preacher at the now-closed Bridge Fellowship Church near Winston-Salem, which continues services and church functions online.
Under the page name Cross the Bridge with David McGee, the pastor posts regularly on Facebook. Before his trip to Las Vegas, he updated his 23,000 followers with his reasons for taking the trip.
He claimed to be visiting Las Vegas to rescue his daughter, whom he feared was living on the street in Sin City while addicted to drugs.
“Pls pray for me as I go get my daughter from the worst [and] scariest place for my daughter in America… the Las Vegas tunnels,” he wrote on August 17.
The pastor is set to appear in a Clark County Court on December 20. It is unclear if the prosecution will have pressed charges by that date. A post on his Facebook page made by his wife on August 29 claimed that McGee had found his daughter while in Las Vegas.
“David is asking for prayers for his health, wisdom, safety [and] discernment,” she wrote.
David is an online casino expert who specializes in online slots and boasts over 10 years experience writing about iGaming. He has written for a wide range of notable publications, including eSports Insider and WordPlay Magazine.
David graduated Derby University with a BA Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing.
