Prosecutors: Bid to dismiss Strohmeyer case ‘frivolous’

Bill Gang

Thursday, Oct. 9, 1997 | 10:10 a.m.

A bid to win dismissal of rape and murder charges against Jeremy Strohmeyer in the slaying of a 7-year-old girl at a Primm casino has been called "frivolous" by prosecutors.

In documents filed this week, prosecutors asked District Judge Don Chairez to simply toss out the motion filed by attorneys for the 18-year-old Long Beach, Calif., high school honor student.

The judge, however, is expected to wait until after hearing arguments on the issue in court on Monday.

Defense attorneys have alleged that prosecutors violated state law by letting a key witness in the case bring his attorney with him while he testified at a July grand jury proceeding.

The key witness was Strohmeyer's buddy at the Primm Valley hotel-casino, David Cash Jr., who told the grand jurors that he saw the defendant struggling with Sherrice Iverson in a stall in a women's restroom.

The Los Angeles girl was sexually assaulted and strangled in the late-night incident at the casino on the California border, 45 miles southwest of Las Vegas.

The result of the grand jury session was the Aug. 1 indictment of Strohmeyer on charges that could result in the death penalty should he be convicted of first-degree murder.

In the court documents filed by attorney Karen Winckler, prosecutors are alleged to have "violated the secrecy of the Strohmeyer grand jury by allowing counsel for Cash to be present."

Winckler, a partner of Strohmeyer's trial attorney, Richard Wright, said that grand jury witnesses may only have an attorney present if they are a target of the grand jury proceeding.

The court motion notes that prosecutors admitted to the grand jury that they believe insufficient evidence exists to charge Cash with criminal charges for his role in the Memorial Day incident.

In its response filed late Tuesday, the district attorney's office stated that because Cash was nearby when Iverson was killed and because he hasn't been given immunity, it is possible the grand jury could decide on its own to indict him.

The potential of that, according to Deputy District Attorney Peggy Leen, gives Cash the legal right to have his attorney with him in the closed-door proceedings.

The defense motion argued that secrecy is necessary to prevent the flight of a suspect, to prevent witness tampering and to minimize the impact on a potential target who the jury chooses not to indict.

Leen responded that the presence of Cash's attorney didn't adversely impact any of those concerns.

She added that neither Cash nor his attorney revealed any information about the testimony and the issue is no longer important because the transcript of the grand jury proceeding was made public shortly after Strohmeyer was indicted.

The secrecy issue was the only one raised by the defense team in the motion that was filed on the deadline date Chairez had set for the filing of challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence used to indict the teenager.