Celebrity-backed bail bond organization closes after man who shot waiter released

UPDATED with statement from The Bail Project: A bail reform group backed by celebrities such as Danny Glover, John Legend and Richard Branson has closed its Las Vegas chapter after helping free a man who shot and nearly killed a Las Vegas waiter.

Rashawn Gaston-Anderson, who was arrested for burglary and robbery in November 2021, was released by The Bail Project after posting his $3,000 bond. Six days later, Gaston-Anderson reportedly opened fire at a Las Vegas restaurant, shooting 11 times and nearly killing waiter Chengyan Wang. Wang is now suing The Bail Project, which denies the closure is related to the lawsuit.

“The Bail Project closed its Vegas facility earlier this month, but it was unrelated to the lawsuit,” a spokesperson for the organization said in a statement to Deadline. “As an advocacy group that is also a service provider, The Bail Project seeks to maximize the number of people we can help each year with our limited resources. We monitor the number of staff served from our local offices and regularly review staff- and bond capital allocations across the country accordingly. As part of this ongoing recalibration, we closed our Vegas facility earlier this month.”

Gaston-Anderson pleaded guilty in October to attempted robbery with a deadly weapon and mayhem involving the use of a deadly weapon and was sentenced to seven to eighteen years in prison.

On its website, The Bail Project says it is “fighting mass incarceration by disrupting the bail system, one person at a time. We restore the presumption of innocence, reunite families and challenge a system that criminalizes race and poverty. We are committed to ending cash bail and creating a fairer, juster and more humane system of judicial investigations.”