Mistrial decision set for today

Kim Smith

Monday, March 19, 2001 | 11:16 a.m.

Margaret Rudin couldn't believe her situation in March 1995. Now, with her murder trial on the verge of collapse, she must feel as if she has a case of deja vu.

"If someone was writing a novel of the most unbelievable horror story that could ever be imagined, it couldn't be written better than this story," Rudin told Sun reporters six years ago.

A lot has happened since.

Rudin became engaged in a legal battle with her husband Ron's trustees over his estate. She was indicted for his murder. She spent more than two years as a fugitive. She was allegedly duped by her pastor, and she has endured countless courtroom battles with two teams of attorneys.

It's just another chapter in the already long story.

District Judge Joseph Bonaventure was scheduled to announce at 11:30 a.m. today whether he should "pull the plug" on Rudin's murder trial, which began March 2.

Rudin on Thursday asked the judge for a mistrial, saying her defense attorney, Michael Amador, isn't prepared to proceed. Amador himself asked for a mistrial, going so far as to say his opening statement fell far below competency standards set by law.

Amador apologized to Bonaventure, saying he spent so much time on the financial and forensic evidence in the case that he didn't prepare for the other witnesses.

Should Bonaventure deny the motion, the trial will continue at 1 p.m.

Prosecutors allege Rudin and an uncharged accomplice shot Ronald Rudin, 64, in the head multiple times as he slept Dec. 18, 1994. Prosecutors also contend those responsible decapitated Rudin, stuffed him in a steamer trunk, doused it with gasoline and set it ablaze along Lake Mohave 45 minutes south of Las Vegas.

Ronald Rudin, a real estate developer and gun dealer, was worth between $8 million and $11 million, and Margaret Rudin wanted the 60 percent her husband left her in his will, prosecutors allege.

Amador, however, told jurors that Ronald Rudin's trustees had him killed and then took Margaret Rudin to court to obtain her share of the will, which they would split.

According to court testimony, Rudin and the trustees went to trial in January 1996, but the lawsuit was settled shortly before Rudin's alleged lover and suspected accomplice, Yehuda Sharon, was to take the stand.

Rudin got about $600,000; the remainder of her inheritance was split among the trustees.

Prosecutors allege some of Rudin's money went to Sharon, who has been granted immunity and is on their witness list.

Margaret Rudin, indicted for her husband's death slightly more than a year later, was nowhere to be found. Police allege she spent the next couple of years traveling to places such as Chicago, Phoenix and Mexico.

It wasn't until November 1999 that Rudin's days as a fugitive ended. She was arrested in Revere, Mass., after being featured on the television program, "America's Most Wanted."

Six months later, while incarcerated at the Clark County Detention Center, Rudin claims she was duped into selling movie and book rights for $1 to a man she says misrepresented himself as an ordained pastor.

Rudin filed a lawsuit alleging fraud against Joseph DeLeo. DeLeo, claiming defamation, filed one himself. Both suits are pending.

At about the same time Margaret Rudin fired her public defenders, Will Ewing and Jordan Savage. She said they didn't have enough time to prepare her case. It was then she found Amador, who took the case on at no charge.

If Bonaventure grants the mistrial, Rudin will likely have to wait several months before she will face another jury. When she does, though, she will again be flanked by two public defenders.