DA to be called by defense in Rudin murder

Kim Smith

Monday, Jan. 15, 2001 | 10:03 a.m.

Clark County District Attorney Stewart Bell is going to be called as a defense witness during Margaret Rudin's murder trial.

Rudin's attorney, Michael Amador, said Friday that is just one of the reasons the district attorney's office should step aside and allow the Nevada attorney general's office to prosecute her.

Rudin is scheduled to go to trial Feb. 26 in connection with the December 1994 shooting death of her fifth husband, Ronald Rudin, 64.

Ronald Rudin's body was found decapitated and burned near Lake in January 1995. Prosecutors say Rudin killed her husband to gain access to his million-dollar estate and because she was angry over a suspected affair.

Amador, spelling out why he believes the district attorney's office has a conflict of interest in the case, said Bell represented Rudin when she filed for divorce in 1986 from her fourth husband, multimillionaire Richard Krafve.

"(Bell) got to know her, and knew all the problems and frustrations of her life and her marriage. Problems he litigated for her in the divorce in 1986 are remarkably similar to those alleged by the state to be problems in her marriage to Rudin," Amador wrote.

"Most important, however, is that he knows these things as her attorney and held a sacred trust protected by the attorney-client privilege, a trust violated by his active participation in her prosecution in this case."

Attached to Amador's motion is an affidavit from Rudin and a letter she sent Bell during the divorce. In each, Rudin complains that Bell charged her far more than he originally quoted her and didn't return phone calls during the divorce proceedings.

Rudin also alleges the divorce was going to be amicable until Bell began pushing her to fight a prenuptial agreement she had signed.

Amador said that the divorce case ended up being a fight over money and involved allegations of abuse. Both of those are factors in the Rudin murder case.

Bell also represented one of Rudin's sisters in a divorce case, and that sister and another sister are expected to be called as witnesses, Amador wrote.

"The relationship between the three sisters will be a key element of the defense, for which Mr. Bell is a witness," Amador said. "His current lapse of memory over the divorces is of no moment, since the defense has other records with which we intend to refresh his recollection."

Prosecutors have maintained that Bell doesn't remember the Rudin divorce case at all and didn't immediately realize Rudin was once a client of his since her name was Krafve at the time.

The next hearing in the Rudin case is scheduled for Jan. 17.