Former bouncer gets prison time in nightclub beating

Erica D. Johnson

Wednesday, July 16, 2003 | 9:25 a.m.

A District Court judge chose prison time over probation Tuesday for a bouncer who was videotaped beating a man and woman outside a Las Vegas nightclub.

District Judge Valorie Vega sentenced Gaylen Kanoa to nine years in prison in the beating of Christopher Ecklund and Brandy Provenzano outside the now-closed R&R Club earlier this year.

Kanoa will be eligible for parole after about three years. He was also ordered to pay more than $32,000 in restitution for the pair's medical bills.

Vega, who had previously viewed the videotape, said she handed down the sentence because Kanoa needed to be punished for his actions.

"The decisions you made resulted in grave and serious consequences to those two victims," she said. "It is only fair that your actions also affect you and your life."

Vega apparently wasn't convinced by Kanoa, who for the first time made a statement in open court apologizing to the victims.

"I hope that one day the victims can forgive me," he said. "The incidents that happened will never happen again."

Kanoa had pleaded guilty to two counts of battery causing substantial bodily harm as the result of a plea agreement. In exchange for his guilty plea prosecutors dropped an additional attempted murder count.

Ecklund said he had approached Kanoa's brother and several other club employees on Jan. 18 to ask them why his friend's car had been towed, when Kanoa attacked him.

The friend, Christian Rogers, caught the melee on videotape.

"(Kanoa) grabbed my throat and started choking me," Ecklund said. "Then Mr. Kanoa picked up my body and slammed me against a parked car."

Provenzano said she tried to distract Kanoa by screaming. Kanoa attacked her instead, she said.

"He punched me in the jaw and knocked me unconscious," she said. "I woke up crying on the cement sidewalk."

Provenzano said Kanoa's arrogant attitude following the beating exemplifies his "rage and hatred." She asked Vega to hand down a stiff prison sentence.

"He began to mock us and celebrate what he did," she said. "Don't allow Gaylen Kanoa to mock the judicial system."

But defense attorney Virginia Eihacker argued that prison time wasn't necessary for her client, who has no history of violence.

She asked Vega to place Kanoa on strict house arrest and even suggested that Vega institute an automatic revocation the first time Kanoa violated his probation.

Pointing to Kanoa's friends and family members who packed the back row of the courtroom, Eihacker said the videotaped attack was not indicative of Kanoa's character.

"Good people do bad things," she said. "Mr. Kanoa is not a bad person. To look at two minutes and say, 'That defines Mr. Kanoa's character,' is unfair and inaccurate."

Eihacker said Kanoa took anger management and co-dependency classes during his four-month stay at the Clark County Detention Center.

Kanoa offered several explanations for what he called his irrational behavior.

He said someone had fired gunshots outside the club earlier that evening and he believed Ecklund was threatening Kanoa's brother when they approached him about the car.

"I admit, the thing I did was a heinous action," he said. "I was intoxicated. I was in fear for my brother's life and in fear for my life."

Kanoa, whom prosecutors criticized for fleeing the scene, said he turned himself in to police a few days later.

"I don't want them to think I'm emotionless or heartless," he said. "I'm only human."

Ecklund and Provenzano described a litany of injuries they sustained as a result of the beating. Ecklund, a glass artist, said he suffers from spotted vision, migraines, muscle spasms and memory loss.

He continues to receive treatment from a neurologist and physical therapist, he said, but he has no insurance.

"This attack has interfered with my livelihood," he said.

Provenzano said she has a displaced jaw and a bulged disc and nerve damage in her neck. She said she is now uncomfortable in large groups of people.

"He took away a large part of my life that night," she said.