The Tim Zickuhr Kidnapping Case

     The reality TV show "Ice Road Truckers" fell within the genre of reality television series that featured rugged rough-and-tumble men who lived in swamps, dug for gold, ran a business geared to the killing of ducks, hunted wild hogs and transported unusual cargo over-the-road--Back Woods TV, if you will.

     "Ice Road Truckers," starring men who drove 18-wheelers on seasonal routes that crossed frozen lakes and rivers in remote arctic territories in Canada and Alaska premiered on the History Channel in June 2007. Later series focused on Alaska's remote Dalton Highway built on solid, snow-covered terrain. 

     In 2010, the History Channel introduced a spin-off series called "Ice Road Truckers: Deadliest Roads." Tim Zickuhr, a 35-year-old part time actor from Port of Los Angeles, appeared in the series' second season. In a promotional video for the show, Zickuhr described himself as an "adrenaline junkie." The reality TV actor, referring to himself as an "outlaw," also said, "The action is the juice for me." Full of bravado and a lot of crap, Zickuhr was perfect for reality TV. 

     On December 18, 2013, in Las Vegas, Zickuhr hired a prostitute named Lisa Cadeau who worked under the trick name "Snow White." In his apartment, after she had performed the sex acts, Zickuhr gave her his ATM card to withdraw the money they had agreed upon. The next day, after checking his account, Zickuhr called Cadeau back to his apartment where he accused her of withdrawing more cash for her services than they had agreed upon. 

     At sometime during the heated dispute, Zickuhr allegedly punched the hooker in the face and threatened her life if she didn't return the $1,000 she had supposedly stolen from him. According to the police report he tied Cadeau up, then dumped a bucket of cold water on her head. After locking the prostitute into a closet, Zickuhr demanded that she give him the phone number of someone who would pay him the money she had stolen. 

     Cadeau gave her enraged captor the phone number of a Las Vegas police officer she had worked for as a snitch. Zickuhr called the number and put Cadeau on the phone. To the cop, she exclaimed, "Help me, he's going to kill me!"

     When Zickuhr took the phone back from Cadeau, he instructed the man on the line to meet him with the money behind the Eureka Casino near the Las Vegas Strip. 

     After arranging the meeting with the man he thought was going to return his money, Zickuhr forced the prostitute to jump out of a second-story window onto the roof of a carport. As a result of her ordeal, Cadeau suffered injuries to her face and arms. She also had abrasions on her wrists from being bound. 

     At the Eureka Casino, two Las Vegas police officers arrested Zickuhr. As he was being hauled off to jail, the arrestee, according to the police report, he "admitted that he'd made a mistake." (Exactly what "mistake" he was referring to was not clear.) 

     A Clark County prosecutor charged the former reality TV actor with first-degree kidnapping, extortion and coercion. All three of these offenses were felonies that could put the "adrenaline junkie" behind bars for several years. 

     Following his arrest, Zickuhr told a TMZ reporter that he had not given Cadeau the money because she was a prostitute. He insisted that "Snow White" was a friend. He said he lent her the money, nice guy that he was. And what did she do? She wiped him out! So who was the real victim here?  

     Lisa Cadeau, in an April 22, 2014 email to a reporter with the New York Daily News, wrote: "I only withdrew the $80 I was supposed to, and an additional $120 that I wasn't."
 
      In February 2015, following Zickuhr's conviction on the kidnapping and extortion charges, the judge sentenced him to 5 to 15 years in prison.