FILE – Republican congressional candidate Daniel Rodimer speaks at the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, Aug. 18, 2020, in Las Vegas. The retired professional wrestler and former congressional candidate is being sought in the death of a man injured in 2023 at a Las Vegas Strip hotel, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said Wednesday, March 6, 2024.
A retired professional wrestler and former congressional candidate surrendered to police in Nevada on Wednesday after a warrant was issued for his arrest in the death of a man who died last year from a head injury at a Las Vegas Strip hotel, his lawyers said.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said earlier in the day that a warrant had been issued for the arrest of 45-year-old Daniel Rodimer on a charge of open murder in the death of Christopher Tapp.
KSNV, the NBC affiliate in Las Vegas, said Rodimer was freed after posting a $200,000 bond and was expected back in court on April 10.
Tapp, 47, was treated on Oct. 29 by medical personnel responding to a call for help after he was found at the hotel and taken to a hospital, where he later died.
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Rodimer's Las Vegas lawyers, David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press that Rodimer was “voluntarily surrendering to authorities and will post a court-ordered bail.”
“He intends on vigorously contesting the allegations and asks that the presumption of innocence guaranteed all Americans be respected,” they said.
Police said detectives opened a suspicious death investigation after they received new information on Nov. 22 about the injuries Tapp had suffered “as a result of a purposed accident.”
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“Through the course of the suspicious death investigation … detectives have learned Tapp was in an altercation inside a room at the resort before being located and transported to the hospital,” police said
The Clark County Coroner’s Office subsequently ruled it a homicide as a result of blunt force trauma to the head.
Rodimer, a Republican, was endorsed by President Donald Trump when challenged Democratic Rep. Susie Lee for her seat in Nevada's District 3 in 2020. He lost by around 13,000 votes.
He later moved to Texas, where he was among 23 candidates who ran in a special congressional election in 2021 to fill the seat of Republican Ron Wright, who was the first member of Congress to die after contracting COVID-19. He finished in the middle of the pack, getting less than 3% of the vote. The race went to a runoff between Susan Wright and Jake Ellzey who went on to win the seat.
