Defense in Lake Mead shooting says witness unreliable

Kim Smith

Tuesday, May 16, 2000 | 11:41 a.m.

The trial of two men facing the death penalty for the 1996 shooting death of a California resident began Monday with defense attorneys ripping apart the credibility of the state's star witnesses.

Deputy district attorneys Becky Goettsch and Brian Kochevar argued that Jose Diaz and Victor Vargas took Edward Tellez to Lake Mead in February 1996 because they were upset about drug deals that had gone bad.

Once there, the prosecutors told jurors, the men beat Tellez and Diaz shot Tellez point blank in the chest at the urging of Vargas. Although the chest wound would have been fatal, they said, Diaz shot Tellez several more times.

During their opening arguments, however, defense attorneys Christopher Oram and Peter Christiansen told jurors that Vargas and Diaz were charged with the murder based on the accounts of two acquaintances that gave conflicting versions of events to police.

Jose Lopez, who is one of the witnesses, has at least 16 aliases and had reason to shoot Tellez himself, Oram told jurors. Oram said Lopez believed that Tellez had written his common-law wife love letters.

Christiansen also told jurors that after the murder, Tellez's girlfriend paged him only to have the page returned by Lopez.

Chief District Judge Lee Gates is presiding over the trial.

Kim Smith

covers courts for the Sun. She can be reached at (702) 455-4844 or by e-mail at kimberly@lasvegassun.com.