Surprise alibis surface in veterinarian beating case

Bill Gang

Thursday, Feb. 19, 1998 | 10:22 a.m.

A week before their scheduled trial and more than three years after they were indicted in the beating of a Clark County veterinarian, the two defendants have announced they now have alibis.

The attorneys for veterinarian Alan Ruegamer and his associate, Jacqueline Demaria, dropped the legal bomb Wednesday after District Judge Michael Douglas asked them if they were ready to go to trial.

Deputy District Attorney Steve Owens said the three alibi witness for Ruegamer were names police and his office had never heard of before defense attorney Lamond Mills revealed them Tuesday night.

Demaria's attorney, Lew Wolfbrandt, said at Wednesday's hearing that he was readying the paperwork on her alibi witnesses.

Owens complained of the last minute notices but said he wasn't willing to give up the scheduled trial date for the case that has been dragging on for years.

Douglas compromised by postponing jury selection from Monday until Wednesday to give prosecution investigators a chance to check out the purported alibis.

Ruegamer and Demaria are charged with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the beating of veterinarian James Reilly.

The indictment charges that Reilly, Ruegamer's former partner in a veterinary business, was lured to a house in the northwest area by a call from a person who claimed to have a sick or injured cat.

When Reilly arrived there, he was beaten brutally and left for dead.

Reilly was to be the state's key witness in a case charging Ruegamer, 55, with practicing veterinary medicine on a suspended license

But those hearings had to be postponed because of the beating that affected Reilly's memory and speech.

The lingering problems also caused delays in the criminal case but Reilly finally testified before a grand jury in October 1994 that Ruegamer was the man he remembers swinging the bat.

Pitaro said the indictment was "based on a man who literally has no memory."

At a hearing earlier in the case, Deputy District Attorney Lynn Robinson said that Reilly's brain is like a computer that was turned off and then back on and has to re-establish its links before it can function completely.

"He was beaten to within an inch of his life," Robinson told District Judge Nancy Becker.

Becker acknowledged that it is not unusual for the memories of persons with head injuries to be restored as the brain heals.

Reilly also had identified Demaria, who is also known as Jacqueline Wills, as being involved in the incident.

At the end of that 1995 hearing, Becker dismissed charges against Charmaine Guss, 39, because evidence was not sufficient to show she was more than merely present when the alleged conspiracy to silence Reilly was hatched.

Although Reilly had been left for dead after the beating, he regained consciousness and began driving for help when he was found by investigators with the Board for Veterinary Medical Examiners who had gotten a call from his wife that he hadn't returned from a house call.