The attorney for Vaughn Griffith, a former Summerlin private school student accused of recording a sexual assault, told a judge Thursday morning that he was appealing a Family Court judge’s decision to try the teen as an adult.
Griffith, 15, appeared before District Judge Christy Craig for a hearing in which his attorney, Joshua Judd, would challenge whether prosecutors had probable cause to charge the teen.
Craig continued the proceedings for two weeks, and interrupted Judd when he asked for even more time, pointing to his ongoing appeal of a family judge’s decision to try Griffith as an adult.
“Why would I care about that?” Craig asked.
Judd responded, “Those juvenile proceedings could render these proceedings moot.”
The defense attorney argued that the certification process in Griffith’s case was improper. He noted that Family Court Judge Linda Marquis, who certified the teen, recused herself in February from co-defendant Dominic Kim’s case, citing a conflict of interest with the civil attorneys who had recently joined to represent the alleged assault victim.
In October, Marquis certified Griffith as an adult, though Kim’s case was reassigned to Judge Dee Butler. Judd suggested that Griffith’s case might need to be sent back through the juvenile system for review by a different judge.
“He is entitled to a fair shot at those proceedings before we continue to push this case forward,” Judd said. “The appearance, at least at this point, of impropriety, causes great concern when we’re charging this 15-year-old as an adult.”
Griffith and Kim, who are both former students at The Alexander Dawson School, are accused of having child sexual abuse material linked to an April 2025 incident where authorities said a group of students sexually assaulted a classmate with various objects during a school trip to Costa Rica.
Authorities have said that Kim and Griffith recorded the assault on their phones. Kim, who is accused of sharing the video with other children while attending an event at The Meadows School, also faces two counts of child abuse or neglect related to the assault.
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson has said that this office would not prosecute two other boys involved in the assault because of jurisdictional issues.
‘He’d likely be back here anyway’
Along with the appeal in Griffith’s, court records show that Judd also filed a petition for a pretrial writ of habeas corpus in District Court, days after Marquis recused herself. Though the petition was sealed, these writs generally seek to challenge the evidence presented to a grand jury and to argue that prosecutors failed to provide probable cause to support the alleged offenses.
Judd declined to comment after Thursday’s hearing.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Parker Brooks wrote in court papers that probable cause, which is needed to support a criminal charge, may be supported by only slight or marginal evidence.
Brooks referenced multiple exhibits and other evidence presented to a grand jury. That included testimony from police and data associated with the Snapchat account, called “Vonissexy,” where authorities said Griffith stored the video of the assault. He took issue with an argument he said was in Judd’s writ that prosecutors had no evidence that Griffith knew about, accessed, manipulated, or shared the video.
“Defendant’s possession of the child sexual abuse material was presented, and the Indictment was returned based on the law in Nevada that enables, either actual or constructive possession, and sole or joint possession,” Brooks wrote.
State law does not require prosecutors to “prove that a given defendant ‘accessed’ or ‘viewed’ the visual presentation of a child. The crux of the crime is possession of child sexual abuse material.”
Craig ordered the teen back to court March 24. She said that she would not delay the hearing further on the grounds that Judd’s juvenile certification appeal was still unresolved.
“Practically speaking, it would just go to another judge, and they hold another hearing, and it’s likely he’d be back up here anyway,” Craig said, “I’m just not inclined to wait. So if it ends up not being necessary, and you win, then you just wasted some time doing a hearing.”
Craig added: “But if you don’t (win), then we will have done this timely.”
Contact Akiya Dillon at adillon@reviewjournal.com.
