FILE - Daniel Rodimer leaves court after his initial appearance on murder charges at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas, Wednesday, April 10, 2024. Rodimer, a retired professional wrestler and former congressional candidate in Nevada and Texas, has been indicted on a murder charge in the death of an Idaho man who suffered a head injury during a Halloween Party at a Las Vegas Strip hotel. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, File)
April 26, 2024 - 4:54 PM
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A retired professional wrestler and former congressional candidate in Nevada and Texas has been indicted on a murder charge in the death of an Idaho man who suffered a head injury during a Halloween Party at a Las Vegas Strip hotel.
Daniel Rodimer, 45, who now lives in Texas, is expected to appear before a Nevada judge May 8 following his indictment Friday in the death of Christopher Tapp.
His defense attorneys, David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, said Friday that Rodimer “maintains his complete innocence and looks forward to his day in court.”
Tapp, 47, of Idaho Falls, was injured Oct. 29 at the Resorts World hotel and taken to a hospital, where he died several days later, police said. He had served more than 20 years in prison in Idaho in a 1996 killing before receiving an $11.7 million settlement from Idaho Falls in 2022 in a wrongful conviction lawsuit.
Investigators initially believed Tapp had been fatally injured in a fall, but they later learned that he had been in an argument with Rodimer.
Rodimer, a Republican who lost bids for Congress in Nevada in 2020 and in Texas in 2021, surrendered to Las Vegas police for his arrest March 6 and remains free on a $200,000 bail.
News from © The Associated Press, 2024