Rudin might seek new lawyer to handle appeal

Kim Smith

Monday, May 14, 2001 | 10:58 a.m.

Margaret Rudin might fire her new attorney.

Rudin has written a three-page letter to the public defender renewing her objections to Deputy Public Defender Jordan Savage and one of his investigators, she said Friday, during her first full-length interview with local media since she was convicted May 2 of murdering her husband, Ron Rudin.

Savage and Deputy Public Defender Will Ewing were Rudin's original attorneys. She fired them last summer and hired Michael Amador because of concerns she still has today. She fired Amador last week and was reassigned to Savage.

Rudin said she is worried about placing her life in Savage's hands.

"I believe Jordan to be a fine young man, and I like his caring personality," Rudin said, quoting from a copy of the letter she said she was sending over the weekend, "but he was put into a courtroom situation much better suited to someone with criminal defense trial experience."

Rudin recalled an "unimportant" hearing in which she says Savage's hands and voice trembled.

"I couldn't help but wonder if I was given someone to represent me because it was just his turn up to bat," Rudin wrote.

Rudin in the letter asks Public Defender Morgan Harris to tell her how many murder trials Savage has tried in front of jury and what percentage of the office's plea agreements involve murder cases.

In addition, Rudin tells Harris she would prefer a female investigator because the male investigator assigned to her case last year asked her an inappropriate question, was overly aggressive with her 79-year-old mother and alienated a handful of her friends.

Rudin said she believes she and the investigator share a mutual dislike of each other.

"There's very few people I ever in my life don't get along with," Rudin said. "I go out of my way, and I'm not fast to judge people. I wait ... because I'm not good at first impressions."

She was also displeased that the investigator didn't go through several boxes of evidence she believes are crucial, Rudin said.

As a result of her concerns, Rudin wrote, "I was upset and worried, and I made a very bad reactionary decision to let Mr. Amador represent me."

Rudin closes her letter by writing, "This is my life on the line, and I'm even more aware of it now than I was a year ago. Please reply and address my very real, pressing concerns."

Rudin fired Amador last week, saying she was displeased with his performance at her trial and she suspected he was using drugs. Amador denied using illicit drugs.

District Judge Joseph Bonaventure then reappointed Savage to her case. Savage will handle her motion for a new trial, sentencing and appeal. If Bonaventure turns down her request for a new trial, Rudin will be sentenced to life in prison in August.

During her interview Friday Rudin offered her thoughts on a wide array of topics from Amador to Bonaventure to Coreen Covacs, known as Juror 11, who changed her mind on the last day of jury deliberations and voted for a guilty conviction.

Amador, Rudin said, would try to soothe her fears or play down problems when she expressed concerns to him. He also had the ability to make her feel guilty. In the end, she was never comfortable criticizing him in front of the TV cameras, she said.

Had last week's hearing been in the judge's chambers, Rudin said, she would have been more forthcoming.

Rudin said she felt so badly for Amador that she even complied with his request for a kiss at the end of the hearing.

"I thought he knew I didn't want to give him a kiss on the cheek goodbye. He only did that because the one I gave Mr. Pitaro was sincere and heartfelt, and I thought again 'I don't want to embarrass him in front of everybody,' " Rudin said. "It's a real problem for me to be able to confront and not feel guilty."

Over the past week Rudin has been focusing on her prospects of obtaining a new trial. Amador filed a motion for a new trial based in part on Covacs' allegation she was bullied into voting guilty by her fellow jury members, particularly jury foreman Ronald Vest.

Savage is expected to file a similar motion now that Amador's is moot.

Despite Covacs' final decision, Rudin expressed admiration for Covacs' strength in the first four days of jury deliberations.

"I don't know what any of us would do if we were in that same situation, and I certainly can't find fault with anyone," Rudin said.

Rudin also had words of praise for Bonaventure, who had so many tiffs with Amador that each was considering filing complaints against each other.

"I have absolutely nothing whatsoever critical to say about Judge Bonaventure. I know that at times I think his reactions did somewhat taint the jurors, but I understand it and I certainly accepted it and I understood it at the time," Rudin said.

"Ninety-nine percent of the time it was reactionary things to Mr. Amador's lack of preparation or his antagonistic way of not respecting the court," Rudin said. "I don't know if that's a good way to put it or not, but that's the way it struck me."

Rudin said she believes the trial's coverage by Court TV, "48 Hours" and Las Vegas ONE, Cox cable channels 1 and 39, adversely affected Amador and the prosecutors, but she is still glad cameras were in the courtroom.

"I think the television cameras, and especially the national TV networks, they shift the exposure from the public -- which is sometimes the local, behind-the-scenes politics that slant the exposure somewhat -- into a scrutiny that is a good thing for the defendant," Rudin said.

Her decision to speak with the media, even on a limited basis, is a logical one, Rudin said. For the past six years police and prosecutors have been telling only one side of the story.

"I feel like it couldn't be any worse than it was when I didn't speak," Rudin said. "It was just unreal to me the things that were being reported by the police and the prosecutors when they knew better and had evidence in their hands that wasn't true.

"I think one of the reasons they pursued that (media exposure) is because there was never anybody to stop them or to challenge them or to present proof otherwise," Rudin said. "I think that if I had come forward at that time and produced some of the documents to prove they were not telling the truth, I think it might have possibly stopped some of the bad publicity my family has had to bear."

One of the false statements spread by police was that she forgot her husband's remains when she left for Illinois for his funeral. It was revealed at trial that the funeral home was responsible for shipping the remains.

Rudin said she has decided to speak at her next trial -- if there is one.