LAS VEGAS — A woman pleaded not guilty in Nevada state court on Friday to charges that she intentionally drove onto a Las Vegas Strip sidewalk, killing one pedestrian and injuring at least 34 others less than a week before Christmas 2015.
Lakeisha Nicole Holloway, 26, entered her plea after a Las Vegas judge recently ruled her competent to stand trial, following months of treatment at a state psychiatric center. Holloway, a former resident of Portland, faces charges of murder, attempted murder and battery with a deadly weapon.
Holloway is accused of slamming her 1996 Oldsmobile sedan carrying her 3-year-old daughter into a crowd of pedestrians on the Strip on Dec. 20, 2015. Holloway told police that she and her daughter had been in Las Vegas for about a week before the crash, living in the car that she parked at casinos where security guards kept making her move.
The crash happened in front of the Paris and Planet Hollywood casino-hotels and across from dancing water fountains of the Bellagio hotel-casino. Hordes of visitors to the busy stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard walk from one casino to another.
Tests showed Holloway had more than the Nevada legal limit of pot and its metabolic byproducts in her blood when she was arrested shortly after the crash.
Holloway faces 71 felonies. A child endangerment count stems from allegations that she had her 3-year-old daughter in the back seat at the time of the crash. The girl wasn’t injured.
A judge in March ordered Holloway to receive treatment at Nevada’s Lakes Crossing state psychiatric center in Sparks.
Jessica Valenzuela, 32, of Buckeye, Arizona, died in the crash. The injured were tourists from California, Colorado, Florida, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington state, Mexico and Canada.
Records in Oregon show Holloway changed her name to Paris Paradise Morton in October 2015.
— The Associated Press
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