Felon convicted in sex assault, murder-for-hire plan for victim

Bill Gang

Wednesday, Oct. 6, 1999 | 10:15 a.m.

Three-time convicted felon Todd Honeycutt has been convicted again, and this time he could spend the rest of his life behind bars.

A District Court jury on Tuesday found him guilty of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a tourist from Canada, whom he had met in May 1998 inside the Hard Rock Cafe and offered to give a lift to the Luxor hotel-casino where she was staying.

The jury in District Judge Michael Douglas' courtroom also convicted Honeycutt of trying to arrange to have the victim murdered so she couldn't testify against him.

Deputy District Attorney Teresa Lowry said the 32-year-old victim had testified against Honeycutt at a preliminary hearing and then at the defendant's October 1998 trial on the kidnapping and rape charges. The jury was hung 11-1 in favor of conviction, and Honeycutt, 28, told a fellow inmate at the Clark County Detention Center that a guilty verdict was likely if the woman returned to testify, Lowry said.

In an apparent agreement to cooperate, the inmate arranged for Honeycutt and another inmate to meet and formalize the murder-for-hire deal.

That inmate, however, was an undercover police officer who testified he was offered a $500 down payment and another $4,500 once the deed was done.

Prosecutors presented evidence that Honeycutt passed along the victim's home and work addresses, her Social Security number and a detailed description.

"It was everything a killer needed to know," Lowry said.

Honeycutt took the witness stand in his own defense and testified that the sexual encounter with the Canadian woman that led to his original arrest was actually consensual sex in the back of his van in the Hard Rock Cafe parking lot.

He told the jury that he then drove her to the Luxor.

It was there that the woman asked a passerby to help her remember the van's license number, and police were called. Honeycutt was arrested a couple of hours later, according to trial testimony.

When Deputy District Attorney Bill Kephart asked Honeycutt last week about the murder-for-hire allegations, the defendant refused to answer. He cited his Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination although the judge told him he sacrificed that right when he took the witness stand and swore to testify.

Honeycutt returned to the witness stand the next day with a different attitude and explained to the jury that he never wanted the victim killed but only wanted her to be scared.

But the undercover officer testified that Honeycutt explicitly stated that he wanted the woman to "disappear."

Honeycutt claimed the fellow inmate was the only one who was advocating murder.

But in a letter Honeycutt wrote in his cell but didn't get a chance to send before it was seized by police, he commented about the victim, "if she dies before trial, I get to go home."

The jury didn't believe Honeycutt's story and convicted him of kidnapping, sexual assault and solicitation to commit murder.

When he is sentenced on Nov. 30, the lightest possible sentence would keep him behind bars for 10 years before he would be eligible for parole.

Lowry said Honeycutt already was on probation for coercion and battery with substantial bodily harm for a sexual attack on his ex-girlfriend in 1997 and Tuesday's conviction opens the door to that probation being revoked. A hearing on the issue is scheduled for next week.

Honeycutt also was convicted in Michigan of felony counts of malicious destruction of private property and burglary.