Trial with du Pont ties in postponed

Bill Gang

Tuesday, Dec. 1, 1998 | 11:18 a.m.

The federal court trial of three people in a murder-for-hire plot connected to the wealthy du Pont family has been postponed until Oct. 18, 1999.

U.S. District Judge Philip Pro delayed the trial at the request of prosecutors, who have not yet determined whether the death penalty will be sought for any or all of the defendants -- Las Vegans Diana Hironaga, 40, and Richard Murillo, 37, and the du Pont-connected Christopher Moseley, 58.

Patricia Margello, the 45-year-old girlfriend of a du Pont heir, was beaten and strangled Aug. 2, and her body was stuffed into an air-conditioning vent at a downtown motel.

Moseley, a former gardener at the du Pont family estate in Delaware, is the husband of Lisa Dean Moseley, a direct descendant of the founder of the DuPont Co.

The du Pont family's wealth is estimated at more than $10 billion.

The victim was the girlfriend of Dean MacGuigan, Christopher Moseley's stepson, who had come to Las Vegas apparently to get a divorce from his estranged wife. Metro Police said MacGuigan provided key information about the people his girlfriend was with shortly before her slaying.

Moseley is alleged to have called Hironaga in July and asked her to kill Margello, according to a complaint filed in a Delaware federal court. The interstate call put the case into federal jurisdiction.

Hironaga, Murillo and Joseph Balignasa are charged with luring Margello to the motel, where she was beaten and strangled, stuffed into a plastic bag and hidden in the vent. Her body wasn't found for more than two days.

Balignasa was not named in the federal indictment but still faces state charges. A preliminary hearing for him is set for this month over the incidents that led to the slaying of Margello in the Del Mar Motel, 1141 Las Vegas Blvd. South.