Release denied for Floyd witness

The pregnant outcall entertainer who said she spent a terror-filled hour with Zane Floyd before a deadly shotgun assault at a supermarket had hoped to be freed from jail into a halfway house.

But it appears that won't happen.

At this point, there is no halfway house available to take 21-year-old Traci Carter while she awaits her time to testify against murder defendant Zane Floyd, according to her attorney, Chip Siegel.

He said she will have to stay in the Clark County Detention Center at least until Feb. 24 when District Judge Jeff Sobel is scheduled to rule on a motion by Floyd's attorneys for a postponement of the March 6 trial.

Sobel has been open to an alternative placement for the material witness, but prosecutors want to keep a short leash on her because they have lost track of her twice before. After she stopped contacting prosecutors in November, a material-witness warrant was issued for her arrest, and Metro Police had to hunt her down.

Being eight months pregnant also complicates her situation. Siegel complained that she wasn't getting prenatal care in the county jail -- although she is now.

Authorities had explored the possibility of housing Carter at the women's prison in North Las Vegas, but District Attorney Stewart Bell -- who is personally prosecuting Floyd -- conceded that is an inappropriate setting.

A complicating factor in Carter's dilemma is that she is also being held in jail on probation violation charges from Oregon, where she was convicted of a drug offense.

Siegel said that if Sobel delays Floyd's trial, there will have to be a new look at Carter's housing situation and the expected birth of her child in March.

At that point, Siegel said it is likely that Sobel will authorize the taking of a videotape deposition of Carter, and arrangements will be made to release her into a setting that will let her care for her newborn.

Carter has told authorities she was lured to Floyd's apartment through her outcall entertainment service. She said she was raped repeatedly by the man, who threatened her life and told of his plan for mass murder.

While there was speculation the child she carries is Floyd's, she said in an exclusive Sun interview that she is sure the baby was fathered by a former boyfriend.

Stating that Carter wants to help authorities and testify against Floyd, Siegel has consistently complained that jailing the woman as a material witness has turned her into a victim.

Siegel had sought her release on house arrest pending Floyd's murder trial in the shotgun slayings of four people and wounding of a fifth at the Albertson's supermarket at Sahara Avenue and Valley View Boulevard.

But Sobel rejected that option after prosecutors opposed that much freedom and the potential for another disappearance.

Carter is considered a key witness because she is the only person who can talk about Floyd's state of mind in the hour before the June 3 shooting at the market.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Floyd, an ex-Marine and nightclub bouncer whose activities in the market were captured on surveillance videos and who was arrested as he walked from the store carrying his shotgun.

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