JW Probe: Govt. Hired, Rewarded Vegas Killer Lakeisha Holloway after Putting Her through At-Risk Youth Program

The federal employee who killed a woman and injured dozens by plowing her car into pedestrians on the Las Vegas Strip was handsomely rewarded by the government and touted as a great success who overcame drug addiction and homelessness via a taxpayer-funded program for at-risk youth, according to records obtained by Judicial Watch.

Her name is Lakeisha Holloway and in December she went on a deadly rampage, repeatedly ramming her 1996 Oldsmobile into pedestrians strolling along the sidewalk on the renowned Las Vegas Strip. Holloway was high on marijuana and her 3-year-old daughter was in the back seat. More than 30 people were injured and a 32-year-old mother of three, walking with one of her children, was killed. Las Vegas authorities said Holloway acted deliberately and video from the scene showed that she intentionally swerved back and forth from the street to the busy sidewalk. The 24-year-old has been charged with murder and child abuse and is scheduled to appear in court on March 11 for a competency hearing, according to Clark County records obtained by Judicial Watch.

Not long ago Holloway worked for Uncle Sam after American taxpayers helped her clean up her act. Once a homeless drug-addict in Oregon, she was rewarded with a stable taxpayer-funded job after going through a special program, largely funded with government grants, for at-risk youth. Records obtained by Judicial Watch show that Holloway received grade and pay increases from the government, a cash bonus and special accommodations in her work schedule so she could attend school. Holloway also got a transfer within the agency she worked for, the U.S. Forest Service. The agency hired her as an Office Automation Clerk in the Fire and Aviation Management branch in Portland at the end of September 2009, the records obtained by Judicial Watch show. Holloway’s annual salary was $22,454.

Three months later Holloway got a pay increase thanks to an executive order signed by President Obama granting annual pay raises to federal employees. That bumped her salary to $24,090, the records show. Prior to that, Holloway’s salary had already been increased to $23,608 from $22,454 for reasons that are unclear. Within months Holloway was moved to permanent status because her probationary period had expired. In less than a year however, she went back to part-time status, working 16 hours per week to accommodate her school schedule. In 2011 Holloway received a $371 cash award performance bonus and in 2012 a grade increase and raise in base annual pay to $26,284.

Holloway left the Forest Service under mysterious conditions at the end of May 2012, the documents reveal. She resigned for reasons that are redacted in the records and was rewarded with a lump sum pay-out for unused leave. It’s evident from the information that hasn’t been redacted in the records that the government went out of its way to help and accommodate Holloway and increase her pay in a very short period of time. If she had remained with the agency, it seems likely that she would have quickly climbed the ladder to a top position and salary.

After all, the government invested a lot in Holloway. She was promoted as a great success after completing a program run by a Portland nonprofit called Opportunities Industrialization Center that receives millions of dollars in government grants. The group trains uneducated and underemployed minority adults to enter the workforce and helps disadvantaged youth failing in the area’s public school system. Youths in “high-risk family situations” are especially targeted and Holloway was a prime candidate. In a promotion video featuring Holloway after completing the government-funded program she proclaims that she’s come a long way. “I managed to land a federal job at 21,” Holloway says in the segment. “Now that’s what I call living a grand life.” A few years after proudly explaining how she turned her life around, Holloway sits behind bars in Cook County, Nevada.