Las Vegas waiter almost killed by shooter sues celebrity-backed bail fund

A Las Vegas waiter who was nearly killed by a gunman out on bond is suing the celebrity-backed bail fund that helped secure the shooter’s release.

Chengyan Wang filed a lawsuit against The Bail Project after he was shot 11 times by Rashawn Gaston-Anderson, 24, in December 2021, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The lawsuit was filed in September but first reported last week by KLAS-TV.

“He’s got scars all over his body,” Kory Kaplan, Mr. Wang’s lawyer, told the Review-Journal. “He can’t move his shoulder over a certain height. I don’t know how [the bullets] missed a vital artery.”

Mr. Kaplan added that Mr. Wang has suffered lifelong, permanent injuries and still requires medical treatment.

Gaston-Anderson was sentenced to seven to 18 years in prison for the shooting this month. 

Mr. Wang is seeking $15,000 from The Bail Project which has celebrities such as Danny Glover, John Legend and Richard Branson sitting on its advisory board.

He is also seeking $15,000 from Gaston-Anderson and U.S. Hui De Real Estate Investment Corp., the owner of the shopping plaza where Mr. Wang was shot.

Gaston-Anderson opened fire on Mr. Wang when holding up the ShangHai Taste eatery on Dec. 20, 2021.

Six days earlier, The Bail Project paid the $3,000 bond to release Gaston-Anderson after he had been arrested for burglary and theft. His burglary arrest came just days after being arrested for pandering and carrying a concealed weapon, for which he was released without bail. 

Cameron Pipe, a spokesman for the bail fund, told KLAS earlier this year that the shooting of Mr. Wang was an “absolute tragedy” and that Gaston-Anderson was vetted by “the exact same thorough review” the group uses for all its fund recipients.

Mr. Kaplan, the attorney for Mr. Wang, told the Review-Journal that “[The Bail Project is] going around as a bailing agency bailing people out with no or little due diligence.”

The Bail Project, which is a California-based nonprofit, no longer has a Las Vegas location listed on its website. 

Its stated goal is to “combat mass incarceration by disrupting the money bail system — one person at a time.”  The group has covered bail for more than 27,000 people to date.