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Former professional wrestler and congressional candidate Daniel Rodimer was arrested on a charge of open murder in Nevada on Wednesday.
Rodimer, 45, surrendered to police at the Clark County Detention Center at around 6 p.m. Wednesday after police had issued an arrest warrant for him.
The warrant was issued in relation to the death of Christoper Tapp, 47, of Idaho, who died on Oct. 29 of last year from a head injury suffered while at a Las Vegas Strip hotel.
Tapp, who served two decades in prison for a murder he did not commit, died from “injuries as a result of a purported accident,” according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
Police say they received new information on Nov. 22 about Tapp’s injuries that caused them to open a suspicious death investigation.
“Through the course of the suspicious death investigation, LVMPD Homicide Detectives have learned Tapp was in an altercation inside a room at a resort before being located and transported to the hospital,” LVMPD said in a statement.
“The Clark County Coroner’s Office has since ruled Tapp’s death a homicide as a result of blunt force trauma to the head.”
In the arrest warrant, it is claimed that Rodimer became upset after Tapp offered Rodimer’s stepdaughter cocaine.
“If you ever talk to my daughter again, I’ll [expletive] kill you,” the warrant said a witness heard Rodimer tell Tapp. “Immediately after hearing Dan say this to Christopher, [the witness] heard two loud banging noises.”
Another witness claimed she saw “Dan knock Christopher to the ground, at which time Christopher’s head hit a small table. Dan proceeded to punch Christopher throughout his head and body.”
Multiple other witnesses claimed that several people in the group had been using cocaine.
In a text message between Rodimer and his wife Sarah Rodimer, she wrote, “I watched you nearly murder somebody and I had to take your [expletive] hands off from his neck as he laid there and you ran away and I spent the next two hours trying to take care of him. Nobody should have to watch their husband murder somebody.”
She then texted, “I watched you murder somebody like let that sink in your psychopath.”
Rodimer, who went by the ring name Dan Rodman while wrestling, was a contestant on the WWE reality TV show Tough Enough in 2004.
In 2006, he signed a developmental contract with WWE, appearing three times in matches on the company’s show Heat. He also worked in Deep South Wrestling, Ohio Valley Wrestling, and Florida Championship Wrestling before being released in 2007.
In 2020, Rodimer won the Republican primary for Nevada’s 3rd congressional district with the help of an endorsement from Donald Trump.
“Dan Rodimer will be an incredible Congressman for Nevada!” Trump tweeted, according to KLAS News. “A former professional wrestler, he will fight for Lower Taxes, Better Education and More Jobs, and he will always support our Brave Law Enforcement. Dan has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”
Rodimer’s lawyers David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld said in a statement about the murder charge that “he intends on vigorously contesting the allegations and asks that the presumption of innocence guaranteed all Americans be respected.”