Doctor's parole denied by board

Parole was denied for a former Carson City emergency room physician serving a prison sentence for kidnapping and drugging his ex-wife.

Richard Conte, 58, will have his next hearing before the parole board in 2011, said David Smith of the Nevada Board of Parole and Probation on Monday.

Conte's victim, Lark Gathright-Elliott, and her daughter Ashley Elliott appeared before the board in Carson City on June 17.

Conte, suffering from multiple sclerosis, appeared via closed-circuit television in a wheelchair at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center.

He has served 72 months in prison on a charge of administering a drug in the commission of a felony.

At the same time, he's also served the minimum of 72 months on a charge of kidnapping. The kidnapping sentence expires in nine years.

He was sentenced in February 2003.

Conte was a Carson-Tahoe Hospital emergency room doctor when he was arrested in 2002 after kidnapping Gathright- Elliott, his estranged wife, from her Salt Lake City home.

The couple had married in December 2001, but Gathright-Elliott filed for divorce 90 days later.

He then drove her, handcuffed in the back of a van, to his home on Clear Creek Road, where he held her chained to a bed for at least two days.

At the time of his arrest, Conte became a suspect in the Conway, Ark., murders a month earlier of Gathright-Elliott's ex-husband, Carter Elliott, and Carter Elliott's employee, Timothy Robertson.

At his home, police found an online map to Carter Elliott's home on Conte's computer and a list of Conway, Ark., police scanner frequencies.

No charges have ever been filed against Conte in the case, but Conway Police Major Mark Elsinger said at the time that Conte was the prime suspect.

Contact reporter F.T. Norton at ftnorton@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1213.