GUILTY NV - Donald Idiens, 53, murdered, Las Vegas, 8 Dec 1997

Greg Chao, 41, was found guilty of first-degree murder and robbery with use of a deadly weapon in District Judge David Barker's courtroom for slaying of Donald Idiens, a 53-year-old land developer.

On Dec. 8, 1997, Idiens was playing poker at the Mirage with Las Vegas resident Phil Barber, who had been friends with Idiens since they were in elementary school... Idiens left the poker table, but was expected to return because he left $822 in chips on the table. But at 9 a.m. the next morning, maids at the Imperial Palace found Idiens' body in the 17th floor stairwell. He had been beaten and was wearing nothing but socks and underwear. A plastic bag had been tied around his head.

Authorities connected Chao, a convicted felon who had owed money to loan sharks for gambling debts, to the killing via DNA evidence found later in Chao's hotel room. Idiens' blood was on the floor of Chao's hotel room, Weckerly said.

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About 10 years ago, Canadian car dealership owner John Wolfe and his family remained cloistered in their home with the shades drawn. A former employee, Greg Chao, had demanded $50,000 from Wolfe to absolve gambling debts and threatened to shoot Wolfe's two daughters, age 7 and 9, if he didn't get it. When Wolfe stalled, as directed by Canadian law enforcement, Chao telephoned and asked him: "Are you going to call my bluff?"...

It was an appropriate question coming from Chao, whose gambling debts prompted him to commit increasingly violent crimes: two thefts in 1996, the extortion of Wolfe in January 1997 and the December 1997 murder of Canadian poker player Donald Idiens in a Strip hotel.

After a penalty hearing Thursday in which Chao's criminal history was scrutinized, a Clark County jury said Chao must serve life without the possibility of parole for Idiens' murder.

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