61-year-old pastor arrested in Las Vegas hotel room with guns and drugs by anti-terrorism officers

An evangelical pastor has been arrested in Las Vegas on drug and gun charges after counterterrorism police were called to his hotel room.

David McGee, 61, senior pastor of the shuttered Bridge Fellowship Church outside Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was arrested Aug. 20 at the Strat Hotel Casino & Tower.

Drug and counterterrorism detectives responded to the hotel after McGee reported property missing, according to documents obtained by KLAS.

McGee told police he had flown to Las Vegas from North Carolina and arrived on a private jet to find his missing daughter. When asked if he had any weapons in the room, he allegedly told police he had a gun hidden in his guitar case.

Hotel employees had previously warned McGee about their gun policy after he allegedly brought a shotgun into his room days earlier, KLAS reported.

The presence of firearms, including an AR-15 with a scope, led responding officers to suspect McGee was planning a shooting similar to the one that occurred in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, 2017, the documents say.

In that incident, Stephen Paddock, 64, opened fire on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip from his suite at the Mandalay Bay hotel. Paddock fired more than 1,000 shots, killing 60 people and wounding at least 413, before turning the gun on himself.

Since the 2017 mass shooting, the Metropolitan Police Department has said it has investigated “suspicious situations where multiple firearms are located inside hotels on the Las Vegas Strip.”

However, police issued a press release on the day of McGee’s arrest, saying reports of a “terrorist plot” were false.

In addition to the weapons, officers found suspected fentanyl pills and powder, LVMPD said.

“McGee informed (the detective) that he had brought the fentanyl from North Carolina on his private jet to Las Vegas and had paid approximately $1,000,” KLAS reported, according to arrest documents. “McGee stated that he was a fentanyl user and intended to distribute it to his daughter when he located her.”

Before his arrest, McGee posted on a public Facebook page that he was traveling to Las Vegas to reunite with his daughter, who he said was living in a flood control tunnel.

Although he has not posted since then, a message in his name on August 29 indicated that he had been in contact with their daughter and was “asking for prayers for her health, wisdom, safety (and) discernment.”

According to KLAS, McGee failed to appear for his probable cause hearing in Las Vegas Justice Court on August 21 due to medical issues.

McGee is reportedly due back in court on December 19.