Man gets probation for Las Vegas attack captured on video

Nearly two years after the brutal beating of his daughter, which was captured in home surveillance video that received international media attention, the man can still visualize her injuries.

“I’ve never seen somebody so bruised up in my entire life,” Robert Couillard said Wednesday afternoon during the attacker’s sentencing hearing. “From her legs, head, back. Black, blue and brown. Handfuls of hair were ripped out of her head.”

Darnell Rodgers, 25, was ordered to serve three years probation for the attack on Taryn Couillard. He pleaded guilty in October to one count of coercion and one count of battery domestic violence.

Should he violate his probation, District Judge Ronald Israel ruled, Rodgers could face two to five years behind bars.

While prosecutors had sought prison time, and Robert Couillard spoke about a need for “consequences for everyone’s actions,” his daughter asked the judge for leniency.

“I just feel that any time in prison won’t serve anybody in this situation any justice,” she said, explaining that Rodgers was a changed man and an “outstanding” father.

Although the couple broke up, they co-parent a toddler, they said.

Hours after the New Year’s Day 2020 attack, the Metropolitan Police Department released a video in an effort to identify the woman who they thought at the time might have been kidnapped.

She was seen on video crying and running toward a house near Warm Springs Road and the 215 Beltway, pleading for help as she banged on a door. Rodgers appeared from behind, violently throwing her to the ground before he kicked her and dragged her back to his car.

Their daughter, then a newborn, was in the car, police said.

Rodgers was arrested the next day as police received tips after they released the video.

The couple had been driving home after a New Year’s Eve party when they started to fight, police said. The woman told investigators that she pulled over and got out of the car to seek help.

Rodgers told police that he had been drunk and could only remember that the quarrel was about money.

He also said he was afraid his girlfriend was going to leave him, according to his arrest report.

In court on Wednesday, Rodgers turned toward his ex-girlfriend and her father and apologized, noting that he could not imagine what he would do “if I was to see somebody do that to my daughter.”

Rodgers has been on house arrest since he was taken into custody.

He has not been in trouble since, public defender Susan Bush said. “I think he’s going to be a productive member of society.”

Taryn Couillard said that Rodgers’ absence would “take a toll” on their daughter if he went to prison.

“I know that what happened that night is not who he really is,” she said.

Clark County Deputy District Attorney Hagar Trippiedi said she disagreed with probation and had advised the victim against it.

“When the victim doesn’t cooperate, it makes our job so much tougher,” Trippiedi told the Review-Journal after the hearing.

The judge said he found it “unusual” that the victim and her father gave contrasting impact statements.

“One family member clearly disagreeing with the other,” Israel said.

Rodgers and Couillard declined to comment, while her father said it was “time to move on,” as he walked out of court with her.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @rickytwrites.