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Former professional wrestler Dan Rodimer, who is running for a U.S. House seat in Nevada, has been accused of assault three times. The image in a screen grab from YouTube.
Tuesday, July 28, 2020 | 7:06 p.m.
Las Vegas police responded twice to 911 calls from Republican congressional candidate Dan Rodimer's now-wife in 2018 alleging domestic violence and that Rodimer had stolen guns and jewelry belonging to her, according to police records.
In neither case did police arrest or detain Rodimer. No charges were filed. In the initial incident July 20, 2018, police wrote “there was no crime, just a verbal argument and we did not want to embarrass them or make them any more upset.”
The second incident occurred on Nov. 30 of the same year. Rodimer's then-girlfriend, Sarah Duffy, called 911 saying Rodimer took $200,000 in cash, jewelry and guns from their house before leaving five days earlier, later sending her photographs of what he took. Duffy said she thought Rodimer had spent the days since then at a casino, but police couldn't find him there.
“I advised (Duffy) to give a 1 week ‘cooling period’ to see if male returns home and they can resolve this matter without police involvement as this is largely a civil matter,” the responding officer wrote. He listed the stolen goods as $20,000, a Rolex watch, an engagement ring from a former relationship and two handguns.
On the 911 call, Duffy can be heard sorting through several objects trying to determine which guns were missing. “There are so many in here, I’m trying to see,” she tells the 911 operator.
“Dan and his wife have five kids and like every couple, they have had some verbal disputes over the years. They are happily married with a new baby on the way," Rodimer's campaign manager, Alex Melendez, said in a statement.
Melendez added that Rodimer and Duffy went to dinner after the police left following the first call. In the second incident, Melendez said “no items ever left the residence. Some items were moved to another location in the house and the firearms remained locked in a safe.”
The 2018 calls aren't Rodimer's only brushes with law enforcement. A former WWE wrestler who was known as “Big Dan” Rodman, he was accused of assault in three incidents in Florida from 2010 to 2013. In one case Rodimer pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor battery charge for a 2010 confrontation at a Waffle House and completed a six-week anger management course in exchange for the charge being dropped.
Records also show that in 2006 a neighbor called police to the wrestler’s apartment in Dunedin. Rodimer and his girlfriend were arguing loudly over another man having called the girlfriend. Both Rodimer and his girlfriend told police the argument escalated and got loud but nothing physical occurred.
Rodimer is challenging Democratic Rep. Susie Lee in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District, a swing area that stretches from southwest Las Vegas through Henderson, Boulder City and rural areas to the California border. Rodimer ran as a populist candidate in a three-way Republican primary to secure the nomination to face Lee in November.
