New trial denied in du Pont case

Kim Smith

Friday, Jan. 21, 2000 | 10:17 a.m.

The man accused of strangling the fiancee of a du Pont heir lost his bid for a new trial in federal court Thursday.

Ricardo Murillo, 37, believes he deserves a new trial because prosecutors kept referring to a co-defendant's participation in the murder during their closing arguments.

Because testimony about Joseph Balignasa's alleged confession had been stricken from the record during the trial, Murillo's attorneys, Assistant Federal Public Defenders Arthur Allen and Shari Kaufman, said prosecutors acted improperly.

The testimony concerning the alleged confession, combined with another co-defendant's testimony, greatly prejudiced the jury, Allen said.

"The only thing that could have been in the jurors' minds was 'Bingo!' Murillo must have been involved," Allen said.

U.S. District Judge Justin Quackenbush ruled, however, that he is required to assume that jurors followed his instructions to disregard the confession testimony. Moreover, the jurors heard nothing to indicate that Balignasa had implicated Murillo in the murder.

Jurors in November found Murillo guilty of the federal charges of conspiracy to use interstate commerce in the commission of a murder for hire and using interstate commerce facilities to commit murder for hire.

The jurors decided Murillo used the telephone and faxes to plot the murder of Patricia Margello at a Las Vegas motel and traveled back East to obtain a $15,000 fee for the murder.

According to court testimony, Delaware resident Christopher Moseley, 59, hired Diana Hironaga, Murillo and Balignasa to kill Margello because he didn't approve of her relationship with his step-son, du Pont heir Dean MacGuigan.

Moseley disapproved of Margello, 45, because she was a drug addict and prostitute and she had followed MacGuigan to Las Vegas while he sought a divorce from his wife.

Moseley, Hironaga, 40, and Balignasa have all pleaded guilty for their part in the murder and are awaiting sentencing.

During Thursday's hearing, Quackenbush scheduled Moseley, Hironaga and Murillo's sentencing for March 16. He told Hironaga's attorney, Mace Yampolsky, who was in the gallery, that he and Moseley's attorney, John Fadgen, ought to be considering their sentencing arguments between now and then.

Because Moseley and Hironaga testified against Murillo, the government could recommend that they receive something less than a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Quackenbush, musing out loud, wondered whether the attorneys should ask for sentences based on their clients' life expectancies, which would mean Moseley would serve much less time than Hironaga, or whether they should ask for similar sentences, which could mean Moseley would die in prison.