Case of bookmaker’s murder goes to jury

Bill Gang

Wednesday, Oct. 28, 1998 | 12:04 p.m.

Jurors continued to struggle today with the patchwork pieces of evidence that prosecutors say can be sewn into a blanket of guilt for Amy DeChant and Robert Jones on charges they killed bookmaker Bruce Weinstein.

The jury in District Judge John McGroarty's courtroom deliberated about four hours Tuesday after the conclusion of closing arguments in the case that had covered more than two weeks. They resumed the task this morning.

Deputy District Attorney David Roger contended that Weinstein was shot to death when DeChant, who was living with him, and Jones, her carpet cleaning company employee, decided to rob him of more than $135,000 in cash and casino chips.

Prosecutors portrayed DeChant as a greedy woman who was frustrated when she couldn't manipulate Weinstein into voluntarily turning over his wealth to her.

Roger suggested that DeChant recruited Jones for the robbery, but it went bad and Jones shot the victim to death with a .380-caliber pistol. One belonging to Jones that could have been the murder weapon was found discarded under a bush a year after the July 5, 1996, slaying, but it was too corroded for conclusive ballistic tests.

"I'm not suggesting it was a planned murder," Roger argued. "I'm suggesting ... there was panic."

Neither defendant testified at the trial, but DeChant had told police after the incident that her nearly 300 pound boyfriend was the victim of vindictive gangsters who broke into the couple's posh home, shot Weinstein and hauled off his body.

She told police that the killers told her they don't kill women and would leave her and the victim's daughter alive if she cleaned up the murder scene and kept quiet.

Roger called that story "a sham ... a fairy tale made up in her mind."

He noted that DeChant exhibited "consciousness of guilt" by fleeing Las Vegas and accumulating disguises and false identifications.

But even then, it was a year before charges were filed in the case and months after that before DeChant was apprehended in Florida. Jones already had been arrested in New Mexico.

In his closing argument Monday, DeChant's attorney Daniel Albregts argued the prosecution's case was based on innuendo, rumor and speculation and when added up the evidence was insufficient to convict the 50-year-old woman and her 59-year-old co-defendant.

Albregts said that DeChant -- at 5 feet 1 inch tall and 110 pounds -- was incapable of moving her boyfriend's body out of their house and burying it in a shallow grave near Mesquite, where it was found a month later.

Roger countered that Jones was the one who he believed had disposed of the body.