Las Vegas Sun

December 4, 2009

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Two agree to plea bargain in Las Vegas motel death

Wednesday, Nov. 24, 1999 | 2:16 a.m.

Two men who attacked a husband to teach him a lesson after he beat his wife have agreed to plea bargains in the case.

Ted Rustin and Thompson Yazzie were charged with voluntary manslaughter in the July 1997 death of Gerald Brown in a Las Vegas Strip motel room.

Yazzie and Rustin entered the kind of plea in which they admitted only that prosecutors had sufficient evidence to gain a conviction.

The two men are scheduled for sentencing on Jan. 4. They face a maximum of 10 years in prison.

The victim's wife, 34-year-old Judith Brown, told police she left the couple's motel room after her husband beat her. She said she met two men who offered to give the same treatment to her husband.

Brown, who is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter, said she let the two men into the motel room and waited outside.

She said they exited and told her they had beaten her husband.

A motel employee later found Gerald Brown on the floor of the room. He died soon after he was transported to a local hospital.

An autopsy determined he died of blows to the head, neck and chest. His injuries included seven broken ribs on each side of his chest.

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