Judge calls Strip rape ‘incredibly horrible,’ sends men to prison for decades

A judge referred to two men as “animals” on Thursday as he sent them to prison for decades for kidnapping and gang raping a tourist on the Strip.

The victim, who was 28 at the time, told District Judge Douglas Herndon that the attack would not only weigh on her for the rest of her life but also her parents, brother and children.

Prosecutors said the woman was visiting from another country and walking alone on a sidewalk outside the Fashion Show Mall in the predawn hours in September 2011, when a man leaped from behind a bush, threatened her with a knife and dragged her to the parking lot. The man, later identified as Matthew Goin, and another attacker, Sinder Holmes, shoved her down the stairs and took turns sexually assaulting her.

“I died that day,” she said. “The me I once was died that day. The world I knew died that day. The hope I had died. The pride I had died. And there is no turning back.”

The judge said he understood her pain, and tried to console her by adding, “Nobody writes your narrative but yourself. These two guys don’t write your life story.”

Herndon then turned to the defendants, calling them “animals without any impulse control,” and said he struggled to think of a crime “more incredibly horrible.” Holmes, who was 15 at the time of the attack, received 33 years to life in prison. Goin, then 22, was given 40 years to life.

In May, Goin and Holmes pleaded guilty to all charges they faced: six counts of sexual assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit sexual assault, first-degree kidnapping with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit kidnapping and battery with intent to commit sexual assault.

The attackers walked free for more than two years before being caught.

After Holmes was arrested in late 2013, the woman described to a Clark County grand jury the terrifying events of that morning.

She and two friends checked into the former Imperial Palace, had dinner, and later went to a party at the XS nightclub inside the Wynn.

After the club closed, the woman’s friends suggested walking back to their hotel room.

She was in heels and didn’t want to go barefoot, so she hoped she could catch a cab.

She started ahead of her friends and wound up on an escalator that took her across Las Vegas Boulevard, then walked toward Treasure Island.

Just as she was about to step onto another escalator, Goin jumped out, clutching a serrated knife with a black handle. With his free hand, he grabbed her arm.

“You’re going to walk with me, or I’m going to kill you,” she said he told her.

She noticed Holmes and initially thought he might be able to help her but quickly realized he was “making sure that I wasn’t going to run to the other side.”

Prosecutors said Goin and Holmes were drifters who had met riding trains.

In the parking lot, the woman tried to get the attention of a truck driver, waving and screaming before the men climbed on top of her. Holmes wrapped his hands around her neck and squeezed before the truck pulled away, she said.

They dragged her to another corner of the parking lot, pulling her by the hair, hitting her. They found yellow caution tape and bound her hands and feet.

After about an hour in the parking lot, a couple walked up, and the men ran.

Authorities linked Holmes to fingerprints on the caution tape after he was arrested on an unrelated charge in Washington state in late 2013. Goin was arrested in early 2014 in Sacramento, California, and authorities matched his DNA.

Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.