Daniel Rodimer, a former congressional candidate and ex-WWE wrestler, turned himself into Las Vegas police Wednesday night after a murder warrant was issued earlier in the day.
Rodimer, 45, was wanted in connection with the death of Chris Tapp, who died last year from a head injury at a Las Vegas Strip hotel.
Tapp—who himself served two decades in prison for a murder he did not commit—reportedly knew Rodimer through the classic car and racing circuit.
The alleged altercation stemmed from Tapp offering Rodimer’s stepdaughter cocaine.
According to the arrest warrant obtained by a CBS Las Vegas affiliate, a witness heard Rodimer tell Tapp, “if you ever talk to my daughter again, I’ll [expletive] kill you,” followed by two loud banging noises.
Investigators also found that his wife, Sarah Rodimer, wrote that she “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.”
A separate witness said Tapp fell and hit his head on a coffee table during a party.
News of the arrest warrant quickly spread on social media due to Rodimer’s past as an unsuccessful Republican congressional candidate.
He ran in 2020—with the backing of former President Donald Trump—but lost to Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nevada) by 3%. He also ran in the 2021 special election in Texas, where he came in 11th place. Rodimer did not receive Trump’s endorsement in that race.
Some social media users promoted old footage of Trump’s endorsement in the wake of the news, in which he said “Dan Rodimer, we’re with you all the way, Dan.”
“Trump picks the ‘best people,” quipped one Democratic user about the news of the arrest.
“Trump surrounds himself with ‘only the best,'” another person similarly wrote.
“Only the best people!” said someone else. “Dude really has a knack for endorsements!”
“I’m starting to re-think his ‘only the best people’ promise,” wrote another.
The quips references a 2016 comment from Trump that he would “surround myself only with the best and most serious people.”
Wednesday’s arrest doesn’t mark Rodimer’s first run-in with the law. In 2011, he faced misdemeanor battery charges for assaulting a man at a Florida Waffle House after the man asked Rodimer to leave his female friends alone.
Lawyers for Rodimer said in a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal that Rodimer was “voluntarily surrendering” and “intends on vigorously contesting the allegations and asks that the presumption of innocence guaranteed all Americans be respected.”
