Rudin’s attorney charges misconduct by prosecutor

Kim Smith

Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2001 | 11:51 a.m.

Just days before her trial is to begin, attorneys for murder suspect Margaret Rudin are demanding that the charges against her be dismissed because of alleged misconduct by a prosecutor.

And if the charges are not dismissed, defense attorney Michael Amador wants the lead prosecutor, Chief Deputy District Attorney Gary Guymon, taken off the case and to resign from the district attorney's office.

In motions filed this morning, Amador alleges Guymon lied to him and District Judge Joseph Bonaventure repeatedly on at least two issues.

Amador says Guymon didn't tell him that a key witness in the case, which is scheduled to go to trial Monday, is going to receive $25,000 if Rudin is convicted in the December 1994 death of her husband, Ronald Rudin.

The defense attorney also contends that Guymon told a newspaper reporter that a wallet found in Rudin's belongings in December was the one the victim was using at the time of his death.

Although the driver's license inside the wallet showed that it had expired in 1989, Guymon repeatedly told Amador and Bonaventure that a sticker on the back of the license had extended it, Amador said. He has since learned that is not true.

Amador accuses Guymon of "planting a false story" in the hopes it would "create a false impression of guilty to the public in Las Vegas, thereby poisoning the jury pool that would hear this case."

Amador said Guymon also did not tell him, a judge or a grand jury that Augustine Lovato will receive $25,000 from Ronald Rudin's trustees if Rudin is convicted.

Lovato told police and a grand jury that Margaret Rudin hired him shortly after Ronald Rudin disappeared to convert his bedroom into an office. In the process, Lovato said he removed blood-stained carpeting from the bedroom, dismantled a blood-stained bed and saw a brownish substance in the drain of the master bathroom.

Lovato's statements led to search warrants being executed, and evidence gathered during those searches should not be admitted as evidence if the trial goes forward, Amador said. The judge who signed the search warrant wasn't advised of the reward, either, he said.

Even though Guymon knew about Lovato getting the reward, when Lovato told grand jurors he had not been promised anything in exchange for his testimony, Guymon did not contradict him, Amador said.

In his motion, Amador says that if the trial does go forward, he wants jurors to know about Lovato's reward and the fact he was facing a probation revocation proceeding on an assault charge at the time he gave his statement.

Amador said he also wants jurors to know that two missing persons detectives didn't see or smell anything unusual in the master bedroom in the days before Lovato converted the bedroom.

Amador in his motions states he has never seen a prosecutor "act with such callous disregard for the truth and so disrespect the court by such dishonesty to the press compounded by his dishonesty directly to the court in chambers and on the record."

Amador said he believes that if the trial moves forward, Guymon should be removed from the case or resign from the Clark County district attorney's Office.

Although Guymon has not yet filed a response to Amador's motions, he told Bonaventure during a brief hearing Tuesday that he honestly thought the driver's license had been extended.

Guymon also said he never told the media that the wallet found was Ronald Rudin's current wallet.

As for the reward, Guymon said he is not sure when he became aware of it, but he is sure the information was included in the evidence provided to Amador a long time ago in preparation for the trial.

Bonaventure is expected to rule on Amador's motions Thursday. On Friday the judge, Margaret Rudin and the attorneys will travel to Mesa, Ariz., to interview Ronald Rudin's fourth wife about his sleeping and other habits.

Karen Carmany will not be available during Rudin's trial, and the judge has agreed to a videotaped deposition. Rudin will be at the deposition because she has a constitutional right to confront her accusers.

Prosecutors allege Margaret Rudin shot her husband multiple times while he was sleeping and then decapitated him and burned his remains in a trunk.

Ronald Rudin's remains were found near Nelson's Landing in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area in January 1995.