Note: Apologies to anyone who logged on yesterday morning expecting to read the results to the previous poll and finding this QoD in their place. We had a slight programing glitch that's since been fixed and this is the QoD originally slated for today. Don't feel cheated if you already read it, as that probably means you didn't see the poll results, which are interesting reading and can now be viewed by anyone simply by clicking on the Poll Archives link on the home page.
On July 26, 1993, Ray Marion Cuddy and Jacob Harold Sherwood broke into the Spanish Trail home of Kevyn Wynn, Steve Wynn’s older daughter. When she came home from having dinner with family at the Mirage around 10 that night, the men, wearing masks, overpowered her and put tape over her eyes. She thought she’d interrupted a burglary, until the men informed her that they were after money from her father’s casino cage.
Meanwhile, the kidnappers called the Mirage, insisted on speaking to Steve Wynn, and demanded $2.5 million. Even Steve Wynn couldn’t withdraw that much cash from his own cage without drawing an enormous amount of attention to himself and the money. He informed the kidnappers of this; they apparently talked it over, then called back with a demand of $1.45 million. Steve Wynn agreed.
The kidnappers instructed Wynn to drive to Sonny’s Saloon, a bar near the Mirage. Wynn told them that he didn’t drive at night, so his driver would deliver the cash. The kidnappers agreed.
Wynn, who’d been warned that he’d be under constant surveillance, called in one of the Mirage’s security officers, who posed as the valet and left the money in the seat of a car at a mini-mart parking lot next door to the bar.
Kevyn Wynn was shoved into her bedroom. The kidnappers helped themselves to six figures worth of her jewelry, then forced her to take off her clothes and placed sunglasses over her taped eyes. Then they took compromising photographs of her and told her that if either she or her father went to the police, they’d release the pictures to the National Enquirer.
Next, Kevyn Wynn was tied up and placed on the floor of the back seat of her car, with a quilt thrown over her. She was driven to a long-term parking lot at McCarran Airport.
Once the kidnappers had the money, they called Wynn and told him where to find his daughter. Mirage President Bobby Baldwin drove Wynn to the airport where he found Kevyn’s car. And Kevyn.
The Wynns called in the FBI the next morning. It wasn’t a tough case to crack. One agent later testified that the kidnappers left a trail that would "choke a goat." Phone calls made from the pay phone at Sonny’s Saloon were traced to the men. Surveillance cameras at the airport recorded Kevyn Wynn’s car entering, and a Volkswagen registered to one of the kidnappers entering, then leaving 20 minutes later. Fingerprints from one of the kidnappers were recovered from the parking-lot ticket linked to the VW.
Best of all, the day after the kidnapping, Ray Cuddy, the "mastermind," put down $130,000 on a $196,000 red Ferrari Testarossa. The dealer notified the FBI, then identified Cuddy from a photograph the agents showed him. When Cuddy returned to the dealership to pick up the car a week later, he was apprehended.
Though it was an open-and-shut case, Cuddy and Sherwood refused plea bargains that would’ve resulted in 12-year prison sentences. A jury convicted them both of Conspiracy to Interfere with Interstate Commerce by Threats or Violence, Interference with Interstate Commerce by Threats or Violence, Use of a Firearm in the Commission of a Crime of Violence, and two counts of Aiding and Abetting. Cuddy was also charged with Laundering Monetary Instruments and Sherwood was charged with Conspiracy to Launder Monetary Instruments.
At trial, the jury quickly convicted both on all counts. Cuddy was sentenced to 20 years in prison with an additional 60 months to run consecutively. Sherwood was sentenced to 14 years in prison with an additional 60 months to run consecutively.
