Defense: Torture case ‘overcharged’

Kim Smith

Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2002 | 9:28 a.m.

Opening statements were heard Tuesday in the trial of two Las Vegas men accused of beating and torturing an acquaintance in July.

Avery Church Jr., 25, and Rene Ross each face eight criminal counts, including attempted murder and first-degree kidnapping, in connection with a July 29 incident on Green Gables Street in southeast Las Vegas.

Deputy District Attorney Giancarlo Pesci told jurors the men tried to kill Jack Battle in a dispute over money.

Battle told police that Church and a man later identified as Ross knocked him unconscious when he opened his door. When he awoke, Battle said, he was being beaten and dragged around his home by a nylon rope around his neck.

As they beat him, Battle said Church and Ross repeatedly asked him where the money was, police records show. The beating continued when he told them he didn't know what they were talking about.

According to police reports, Ross poured both rubbing alcohol and Raid on Church's wounds and went through the home looking for a lighter.

Pesci told jurors that Church told Battle that he would "never see daylight again" unless he told him where the money was.

After forcing him to his knees, Battle told police, Ross stabbed him in the head with a 4-inch folding buck knife.

Battle told police he fell over and played dead and when Ross and Church left the home he ran out the back door, jumped a fence and called 911 from a neighbor's house.

Defense attorney Christopher Oram, who represents Ross, told jurors that Battle is an ex-felon on parole who was selling methamphetamine at the time of the incident.

Oram said much of Battle's story was made up to protect himself because he knew he could wind up back in prison on drug charges.

Battle's story to the police changed over time, Oram said. Initially, Battle said he didn't know one of the men who beat him but later identified Ross as his assailant.

Oram further alleged that while Battle told grand jurors he had staples put in his head, a broken nose and broken ribs as a result of the incident, medical records do not reflect such injuries.

Emergency room personnel gave him Motrin and butterfly bandages and sent him home after 90 minutes, Oram said.

"In sum, this case is tremendously over-charged," Oram said.

Church's attorney, Peter Christiansen, will present his opening argument after the state puts on its case.

The trial is Church's second trial in less than 18 months. He was acquitted of charges of murder, robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery and burglary filed in the September 1999 death of Paulo Cornejo.

In a June 2001 trial, prosecutors alleged that Cornejo, 24, and Church robbed the manager of the Rochelle Manor Apartments near Flamingo Road and Maryland Parkway.

The manager, William Gifford, who had been bound with duct tape, freed himself and chased the men with a .38-caliber weapon, intending to confront them in the parking lot.

He ended up shooting Cornejo to death when Cornejo allegedly reached for a weapon. Defense attorneys pointed out Cornejo was shot in the back of the head and the back.

Church was charged with murder in Cornejo's death because Nevada law allows someone involved in a crime that ends in death to be charged with the death, even if he wasn't involved in the slaying.

Jurors said after the acquittal that the state didn't prove its case, and that Gifford should also have been charged in the slaying.