One takes plea deal in murder-for-hire
One of the five defendants accused of killing a former strip club employee in a murder-for-hire plot took a plea deal Wednesday.
Jayson Taoipu, 17, the only defendant in the case who was not facing the death penalty, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter with use of a deadly weapon and conspiracy to commit murder for his involvement in the 2005 slaying of Timothy Jay Hadland, 44.
In court Wednesday, Taoipu named Kenneth Counts as the shooter and Counts and Deangelo Reshawn Carroll as co-conspirators in the plot to kill Hadland.
Prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo declined to comment on whether Taoipu would testify against any or all of the other people charged in the slaying.
Luis Hidalgo III, who is the son of the former Palomino Club owner Luis Hidalgo Jr., and Anabel Espindola also are charged with murder.
Homicide detectives believe Espindola and Hidalgo III wanted Hadland, a former Palomino employee, killed because he was bad-mouthing the club to cabbies. Taxi drivers are crucial to strip clubs because they steer customers to them.
Hadland was camping with his girlfriend at Lake Mead on May 19 when he got a cell phone call at about 11:30 p.m. from Carroll, who worked at the club passing out fliers to cabdrivers and potential customers.
Carroll arranged a meeting with Hadland on North Shore Road and brought Taoipu and Rontae Zone, who helped Carroll pass out fliers for the club, authorities said. They also brought Counts, who had agreed to kill Hadland for $6,000, which he received afterward at the Palomino, according to police.
Zone was never charged in relation to the slaying. “There’s no information we have received that Mr. Zone is anything more than a passive witness,” DiGiacomo said.
Zone testified during the preliminary hearing that when Hadland met with the four men along North Shore Road near Lake Mead, Counts ambushed Hadland and shot him twice.
DiGiacomo declined to comment on the specifics of the case.
Counts’ trial was in the second day of jury selection Wednesday, but District Judge Valerie Adair delayed the trial after Counts’ attorneys Bret Whipple and Kristina Wildeveld announced a potential conflict they have with a recently added state witness.
The two defense attorneys declined to disclose the potential conflict to Adair or the Review-Journal. Presiding Judge Stewart Bell is expected to hear about the potential conflict and determine whether Counts needs new representation.
The trials of Counts, Hidalgo and Espindola are now scheduled for January 2008.