Ex-congressional candidate suspected in Vegas killing

LAS VEGAS — A retired professional wrestler and former congressional candidate surrendered to police 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.

Tapp, 47, was treated 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.

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 Nov. 22 about the injuries Tapp had suffered “as a result of a purposed accident.”

“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, 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.