Rudin defense team wins one, loses one

Kim Smith

Friday, Feb. 2, 2001 | 11:26 a.m.

Jurors in the Margaret Rudin trial will not hear prosecutors relate a story about how a jealous Rudin pulled a gun on her husband six years before she allegedly killed him in December 1994.

District Judge Joseph Bonaventure made that ruling Thursday, a victory for the defense. But it was not to be a win-win day for the defense, as Bonaventure denied a motion to remove the Clark County district attorney's office from the case.

The trial of Rudin, 56, is scheduled to begin Feb. 26. She is accused of killing her 64-year-old husband, Ronald Rudin, in December 1994. Prosecutors allege she shot and decapitated him, then stuffed his remains in a trunk and burned them at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

Rudin, prosecutors claim, was enraged after learning her husband was having an affair and she also wanted a portion of his multimillion-dollar estate.

Chief Deputy District Attorneys Chris Owens and Gary Guymon have described the Rudins' marriage as rocky. They had wanted to tell jurors that Margaret Rudin pulled a gun on her husband in the same bedroom he later died in and that at least two shots were fired.

Prosecutors argued that Rudin had became enraged after learning through listening devices that her husband was having an affair.

Jurors would have learned of the earlier shooting through Margaret Rudin's own diary entry, which prosecutors obtained from attorneys involved in a civil action over Ronald Rudin's estate.

Bonaventure ruled Thursday, however, that the diary entry will not be shared with the jury because it indicates that Ronald Rudin fired the shots.

The judge did, however, say that prosecutors can tell jurors that Rudin confronted her husband because the incident shows her jealous nature and therefore a possible motive for murder. They can also discuss the fact she had been listening to her husband's phone conversations because she bugged his office.

Rudin's attorney, Michael Amador, had sought to remove the prosecutors from the case because District Attorney Stewart Bell had represented Margaret Rudin in divorce proceedings 15 years ago.

Bonaventure said he saw no reason to disbelieve Bell's contention that he remembers nothing about the case and therefore can't give his prosecutors an unfair advantage.