Judge Says He Also Was Target of Smears

Judge Chuck Weller was told weeks ago that the man now suspected of shooting him had launched a campaign to ruin the judge’s career, a spokesman for Weller said Wednesday.

Police focused on Northern California as they searched for Darren Mack, a wealthy Reno pawnshop owner wanted in the slaying of his estranged wife and for a sniper attack that wounded Weller, who was handling the couple’s contentious divorce.

Investigators said Mack, 45, may be armed with a high-powered semiautomatic rifle, has a student pilot’s license and might try to flee the country.

“Our understanding is that he would not be able to rent an aircraft by himself, but obviously that’s a concern that he could try to make a short hop out of the United States,” Reno Police Lt. Ron Donnelly said.

Police issued a murder warrant Tuesday for Mack in the stabbing death of his wife, Charla Mack, 39, and declared him a suspect in the shooting of Weller, a family court judge whom a gunman shot through the window of Weller’s third-floor office at the Washoe County courthouse complex. Police aren’t sure which of the Monday attacks occurred first.

Weller, 53, who was shot once in the chest, was released from Washoe Medical Center on Tuesday to an undisclosed location, police said.

A spokesman for Weller said in a statement that the judge had been harassed before the shooting.

A member of a fathers’ advocacy group told Weller that an “angry man” he identified as Darren Mack was starting a campaign against Weller, using friends, associates, the media and anonymous Internet blogs to try to ruin his reputation, said Jim Denton, a Las Vegas political consultant.

Mack was reportedly upset by how Weller was handling Mack’s divorce case.

Because of the harassment, Weller called out as soon as he was shot for someone to warn his wife, Roza, to get the family out of the house and to safety, Denton said.

Weller told paramedics that Mack was the man he’d been told had started the blog attack on him four to six weeks ago, Denton said.