Court upholds sentences in kidnap of casino executive’s daughter

Monday, June 29, 1998 | 3:59 a.m.

Ray Cuddy of Las Vegas was sentenced to 24 1/2 years and Jacob Sherwood of Sacramento to 19 years. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had previously ordered a federal judge to reconsider the sentences, ruled Monday that the terms were properly reimposed.

Kevyn Wynn, then 26, was abducted from her Las Vegas home in July 1993. She was freed unharmed several hours later after her father, Steven Wynn, chairman of Mirage Resorts Inc., paid $1.45 million that he got from the casino cage at the Mirage Hotel. Prosecutors said about $1 million was recovered.

She said her kidnappers taped her eyes shut and made her strip down to her underwear and pose for pictures, which they said would be made public if her father went to the police.

Cuddy, 51 at the time of the crime, and Sherwood, 19, were convicted in federal court of interfering with interstate commerce through threats or violence.

The appeals court upheld their convictions in 1996 but told U.S. District Judge Lloyd George to reconsider about three years of each man's sentence, which was imposed for threats made during the kidnapping. The court said George hadn't specified which threats he meant, and added that the record did not show a threat to Ms. Wynn's life.

George then reimposed the sentence increases and said they were based on a threat to Ms. Wynn's life. On Monday, a new panel of the appeals court agreed with George and disagreed with the previous panel's assessment of the evidence.

The court cited Steven Wynn's testimony that a caller told him after the kidnapping to follow instructions "if you want to see her alive again."

"This testimony was apparently overlooked" in the 1996 ruling and was enough to establish that Ms. Wynn's life was threatened, said Judge Harry Pregerson in the 3-0 ruling.

Daniel Albregts, Sherwood's lawyer, declined comment, saying he had not seen the ruling.

The case is U.S. vs. Cuddy, 97-10064.