Carson City Olive Garden brandisher gets up to 11 years prison

A man who brandished a pistol at the Carson City Olive Garden last summer was sentenced to spend up to 11 years in prison.

David Paul Lane, 57, pulled a pistol and panicked the restaurant’s staff and diners on July 21, 2013, a Carson City jury determined.

District Judge James Wilson rejected defense arguments the former Indian Hills resident is a good candidate for probation and imposed 28-72 months on the conviction for assault with a deadly weapon when he put his semi-automatic pistol up beside chef Daniel Cewinski’s head, cocked it and asked if he wanted to die.

He received a 24-60-month sentence for carrying a concealed weapon.

But saying what he did was “an act of terror,” Wilson ordered Lane serve the sentences consecutively. And before he can begin serving those two sentences, Wilson said he must complete his current prison term for battery on a police officer committed that same night when a Douglas County deputy went to arrest Lane at his home.

“The people in that restaurant were terrorized,” Wilson told him.

Lane entered the restaurant that night demanding to see the manager. April Vlach tried to talk to him but said he just got more and more agitated and pulled the pistol.

He was tried on four counts of assault for allegedly pointing the weapon at several people. When he cocked the weapon, it ejected an unfired round that became a key piece of evidence in the case since marks on the cartridge matched the weapon.

Ryba managed to convince jurors there were many inconsistent and conflicting stories from the various witnesses that support their expert’s testimony that people’s memories embellish their stories over time and are often, albeit unintentionally, inaccurate by the time they testify.

She pointed out that the original accounts told investigators by Vlach and the others never mentioned having a gun pointed at them.

Jurors acquitted Lane on two counts. In Vlach’s case, the panel was deadlocked 7-5.

But he was convicted on the count involving Cewinski and on the charge of carrying a concealed weapon.

Lane is at Northern Nevada Correctional Center serving a 12-36-month sentence he received in Douglas County from District Judge Michael Gibbons.