Woman who stabbed date in Vegas-area hotel thought she was on TV show

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A 23-year-old woman who stabbed her blind date in a Las Vegas-area hotel room in retaliation for a U.S. drone strike that killed an Iranian leader, and who avoided prison time, said she was hallucinating and believed she was in an episode of “Homeland.”

Earlier this month, Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny sentenced Nika Nikoubin to three years’ probation.

Last year, a grand jury indicted Nikoubin on charges of attempted murder with the use of a deadly weapon because of certain, actual or perceived characteristics of a person, and two counts of battery. Nikoubin later agreed to plead guilty to two counts of false imprisonment with the use of a deadly weapon.

This week, Nikoubin released her self-published book, “Who is Nika Nikoubin? A Bloody Las Vegas Hotel Story.”

Throughout the book, Nikoubin cites her ongoing mental health struggles, including diagnoses for severe depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Henderson police arrested Nikoubin, a Texas-area university student who immigrated to the U.S. from Iran when she was 12, shortly after the stabbing on March 5, 2022, at Sunset Station. Nikoubin and the victim met online on the dating website Plenty of Fish, Henderson police wrote in an arrest report. The duo then agreed to meet at the hotel, booking a room together, police said.

While in the room, the pair began engaging in sexual activity, when Nikoubin put a blindfold on the man police said. Nikoubin then turned off the lights, and several seconds later, cut the man’s neck, documents said.

“While checking in at the hotel lobby, I saw a woman and heard her say, ‘I bet she is gonna slit his throat during sex,’” Nikoubin writes in the book. “I’m sure this didn’t actually happen, but it’s what I was seeing and hearing at the time. Looking back now, I know I was hallucinating.”

Photos shown to a grand jury showed two puncture wounds to the young man’s neck. Nikoubin writes she felt like actress Salma Hayek in the 1996 movie “Dusk Till Dawn.”

“I started to dance like Selma [sic] Hayek from Dusk Till Dawn,” the book said. “I felt powerful. She was so pretty. I felt as though that’s who I was watching. I was transforming into Selma [sic] with the Gravedigger song playing on repeat in my head.”

While speaking to officers at the hotel, Nikoubin said she wanted to get revenge for a drone strike, which killed Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani in 2020. Soleimani was a popular Iranian military officer and right-hand man to the country’s supreme leader. Former President Donald Trump called for Soleimani’s assassination to kill “the number-one terrorist anywhere in the world” to protect “American diplomats and military personnel” worldwide.

“I was a character in the TV show ‘Homeland’ now,” Nikoubin writes. “I wasn’t in my mind. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think anything was real. It was all a movie. I was Carrie from ‘Homeland.’”

Throughout the book, Nikoubin cites lingering trauma from an earlier sexual assault.

“I am a girl who needs and is receiving help,” she writes. “I want to be free from the sexual trauma I experienced, I want to be free of the experiences I endured as a young girl mocked by the Morality Police for not wearing a hijab; I want to be free of the headlines designed to sell papers rather than cover the truth. I am forever grateful that I was given a second chance.”

While on house arrest in her home state of Texas, Nikoubin attended classes at a university. Earlier this year, a police representative for the university said they nor any department in the region knew Nikoubin was on house arrest in their jurisdictions. The university later banned her from campus.

Nikoubin did not violate any terms of her house arrest, nor did she have any connection with a terrorist organization, her lawyer said.

While on house arrest, Nikoubin released a music video for a song called “Spaceman” under the name Nika Borouj. She also gave several performances and was working as a fitness instructor.

Earlier this month, Kierny said she would allow Nikoubin to serve her probation in Texas. She also ordered Nikoubin to complete 100 hours of probation.

Nikoubin plans to move forward focusing as an advocate for mental health.