Rudin gets life with possibility of parole

Kim Smith

Friday, Aug. 31, 2001 | 11:18 a.m.

Margaret Rudin was sentenced this morning to life in prison with parole possible after 20 years in the December 1994 death of her husband, Ronald Rudin.

District Judge Joseph Bonaventure also ordered Rudin to serve a concurrent sentence of 19 months to 4 years in prison for wiretapping her husband's office. In addition, Rudin will have to spend an extra month in prison for refusing to give authorities a handwriting sample.

The Department of Parole and Probation had recommended Rudin receive a no-parole life term.

Jurors convicted Rudin of first-degree murder May 1 after sitting through 10-weeks of testimony.

Prosecutors allege Rudin, 58, and an unnamed accomplice shot Ronald Rudin, 64, to death in his bed in December 1994 and then burned his remains in a trunk near Lake Mohave.

Before proceeding to the sentencing today, Bonaventure ruled that Rudin didn't deserve a new trial. Her new defense attorneys had claimed one of her attorneys, Michael Amador, was incompetent and she should be tried again. In his written decision, Bonaventure notes that the defense attorneys called no witnesses to the stand during a hearing last week to discuss Amador.

Although the judge had earlier said he would take into consideration affidavits the attorneys had submitted, he wrote that they are "legally insufficient, as conclusions, rumors, beliefs, and opinions are not sufficient to form a basis for a new trial."

Later, the judge noted, "As to Mr. Amador's personal antics which the defense seems to harp upon as tantalizing tidbits, this court feels it is not honorable to kick a man when he is down as the record speaks for itself."

The judge said Rudin, at taxpayer expense, also had at her side criminal defense attorneys Thomas Pitaro and John Momot.

Amador took on the case for free after Rudin fired her public defenders, but Bonaventure ended up appointing Pitaro and two investigators to the case three weeks before trial when questions arose as to Amador's preparedness.

Momot joined the defense team a few weeks into the trial.

Amador became a favorite topic of debate among trial watchers, journalists and attorneys who offered their opinions every night on the TV news after he gave a lengthy and rambling opening statement.

The scrutiny increased when Amador and Bonaventure began butting heads over everything from Amador's cell phone ringing in the courtroom and his tardiness to the relevance of certain documents and lines of questioning.

In his decision Friday, Bonaventure wrote, "The day that a judge cannot comment on the evidence in a case before him, or the applicability of precedential law to the case, will be the day that a free and independent judiciary is dead."

Rumors also began circulating that Amador was using drugs and spending his evening with strippers instead of preparing for the next day's witnesses.

Rudin ended up asking for a mistrial. Bonaventure denied the motion, but gave the defense attorneys a few days off to better prepare. Rudin's new defense attorneys say the denial of the mistrial was just one of many mistakes made by the judge.

The new attorneys also claimed the judge improperly met with Rudin without any attorneys being present.

The judge ruled last week that any allegations about himself or prosecutors are "without merit" and said he would base his decision about a new trial simply on the allegations of Amador's ineffectiveness.

At the hearing last week, Deputy Public Defender Craig Creel spent an hour cataloguing Amador's alleged faults.

On Thursday, prosecutors submitted an affidavit from Amador in an effort to rebut the defense's contention that Amador was unprepared.

In it, Amador said "Nobody worked harder or spent more time before or during the Rudin trial nor knew the case better than I."

Despite his former secretary's allegations to the contrary, Amador said he spent many hours on the case from the time he took it in August 2000 and his European vacation in November 2000.

Amador said he filed at least 24 motions and investigated "all major witnesses" in the case and organized their files prior to the vacation.

The defense attorney also said he deserves the credit for the more technical aspects of the case.

"With the limited exception of the DNA experts, every other forensic and scientific issue raised in the Rudin case was documented and researched prior to Mr. Pitaro's involvement in the case," Amador said.