Several months ago, Los Angeles defense attorney Brian Claypool was making his rounds on the national cable news show circuit, trying to convince anyone who would listen that Dalia Dippolito was the last person to deserve a lengthy prison sentence for the 2009 Boynton Beach plot to have her husband killed.

This week, he appeared on television screens across the country again — this time in tears as he wondered aloud how and why he survived the Las Vegas mass shooting that left 59 people dead and more than 500 more wounded.

RELATED: Complete Dalia Dippolito coverage in The Palm Beach Post

Claypool, who represented Dippolito through the last two of her three trials on a charge of solicitation to commit first-degree murder, said in interviews with CNN and Fox News Monday and Tuesday that he was sitting in the VIP section of the Route 91 Music Festival just to the left of where country singer Jason Aldean was performing when the shooting started Sunday night.

He said he initially thought it was fireworks but saw none when he looked up at the sky. He described in vivid detail how he turned his eyes to Aldean, who was onstage and by then had faltered on a few notes.

"The moment that will be in my mind forever is when he literally dropped his guitar," Claypool told Fox News. "And he rushed offstage."

Claypool said seeing the star running from the stage led everyone to follow suit. As the shooting continued, he saw a woman 15 feet away from him in general admission hit by the gunfire. Claypool did not identify the woman but told CNN that she did not survive.

He said the shooting continued for 30 seconds, then stopped for a short while. He said he assumes shooter Stephen Craig Paddock was reloading at that time.

In his Fox News interview, Claypool said he tried to pull a few people down as they stood frozen with fear. He told both FOX and CNN that he wound up in what appeared to be a small production room under the bleachers with several young women, who were crouched on their knees, crying.

At the time, Claypool said, no one knew how many shooters there were, where the shots were coming from or whether a gunman would find them under the bleachers.

"I thought, ‘Am I going to die in this room like the Orlando shooting?’ It was like pick your poison," Claypool told Fox News.

When he represented Dippolito in her Palm Beach County Circuit Court trials in December and June, Claypool blasted Boynton Beach police officials, who he said violated his client’s rights because of their lust for fame and notoriety from an episode of the television show COPS.

On Monday, Claypool described the actions of Las Vegas police on Sunday night as nothing short of heroic, noting in particular an officer he saw jump over a fence to head toward where the shooting was going on. Claypool said other officers told him and others in the area to run north, and they were all able to leave the area unharmed.

Because he had been staying at Mandalay Bay just a few floors down from Paddock, Claypool said he was among the hotel guests who have had to wait to collect their belongings. His room overlooked the concert venue, he said.

Claypool said that since the attack, he’s tried to avoid looking at the pictures of those who were killed.

"A lot of them, they’re a lot younger than me, and I get to go home today. I get to go home and see my daughter, but they don’t get to go home. I feel a little bit guilty," Claypool said.

Coincidentally, another of Dippolito’s attorneys, Greg Rosenfeld, was also in Las Vegas this past weekend for a bachelor party. He landed back in West Palm Beach late Sunday night and estimates he was just getting home when the shooting occurred. Rosenfeld told The Palm Beach Post Tuesday that he had no idea his colleague had also been in Las Vegas during the weekend until he saw one of his television interviews and has since reached out to him.

"I just missed being there, and I was a mess yesterday. So I can only imagine what he’s going through," Rosenfeld said. "It’s horrible all the way around. But I’m really glad that Brian’s OK."

Dippolito, who is two weeks from her 35th birthday, is expected to be headed to prison soon to begin serving a 16-year prison sentence.

Dippolito hired Claypool after her first conviction was overturned on appeal in 2014 and after she saw him provide commentary as a TV legal pundit. He and Rosenfeld got as close to a victory as they would get in Dippolito’s case in December, when a second jury split 3-3 on whether she was guilty.

That led Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley to declare a mistrial and paved the way for a third trial in June, when a new jury convicted Dippolito of hiring an undercover Boynton Beach police officer posing as a hit man to kill her then-husband, Michael Dippolito.