This undated photo from the Henderson, Nev., Police Department shows Joshua Nichols. (Henderson Police Department via AP)
The son of Terry Nichols, one of the Oklahoma City bombers, has pleaded guilty to kidnapping and robbery for luring a 67-year-old jeweler to an empty home and taking $1,700 in cash and jewelry at gunpoint.
Joshua Nichols, 40, and George Moya III, 27, made a plea deal in the case at the Regional Justice Court in Las Vegas on Wednesday. Nichols could face more than 17 years in prison when he is sentenced on June 14. Moya could face up to 15 years in state prison.
Both men were kept in custody Wednesday, although according to the Associated Press, Nichols’ plea deal allows him to post $50,000 bail to be released on high-level electronic monitoring ahead of sentencing.
“We are satisfied with the outcome, and Joshua is looking forward to spending some quality time with his family,” Augustus Claus, Nichols’ defense attorney, told The Associated Press. Moya’s attorney, Michael Printy, did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the AP.
They were accused in the February 2020 heist in Henderson, Nevada, 16 miles southeast of downtown Las Vegas. Details about the case came out in May 2020 when the victim testified at a preliminary hearing.
The man said Nichols and Moya lured him to a vacant home on the pretext of selling him jewelry, according to The Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Once there, he said he heard a 9 mm pistol click and a bearded Joshua Nichols point a gun to his head, the newspaper reported. He said the men took $1,700 in cash, his ID, jacket, bracelets, a ring and a cellphone before leaving. The newspaper reported that a neighbor’s surveillance camera caught a rented 2019 Cadillac XTS driving off.
“Take off your jewelry, take off your clothes,” he quoted the attacker, according to the newspaper. “Tell me what’s in the car. What else is in the car? And you better not lie to me, (expletive). I’ll kill you.”
Joshua Nichols moved with his mother to Las Vegas after she divorced Terry Nichols before the April 19, 1995 bombing at a federal building in downtown Oklahoma City killed 168 people, including 19 children, and wounded hundreds of others.
Joshua Nichols has a record dating back to 2005 for armed assault, vehicle theft and resisting a police officer.
His father, 67, is serving multiple life sentences in a Colorado federal maximum security prison. His co-conspirator and mastermind behind the attack, Timothy McVeigh, was executed in 2001.
Joshua Nichols’ wife, Nadine, said in a 2018 interview with CBS affiliate 8 News NOW Las Vegas that his father’s actions have tormented him, and he’s struggled with drugs. The bombing happened when Joshua Nichols was 12.
“They teased him,” she said. “They named him bomber, nicknamed him that, and I guess he got beat up, you know?”
“People need to see another side of him other than bomber’s son,” she added. “He’s a human being.”
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