Maestas defense looks for link in dad’s violent past

Erica D. Johnson

Wednesday, June 4, 2003 | 9:35 a.m.

Lawyers defending the Maestas siblings against a murder charge are investigating whether the violent criminal history of the teens' father affected their upbringing.

Harry Maestas, the biological father of Beau Maestas, 19, and Monique Maestas, 17, is a convicted killer who was behind bars for most of his children's lives, Howard Brooks, Beau Maestas' attorney, said.

Brooks said the elder Maestas was incarcerated for second-degree murder when his children were born. The children were conceived during weekend visits home, which were granted for inmates with good behavior, he said.

"He was never a part of his children's life," Brooks said. "He feels he failed as a parent."

Brooks said defense attorneys are still investigating what role Harry Maestas' incarceration, and the financial hardship it created, played in the teens' development.

"There is nothing in their record to suggest a tendency toward violence," Brooks said.

Monique Maestas' attorney, Deputy Special Public Defender Phil Kohn, declined to comment on Harry Maestas, but acknowledged that he was investigating the details of Monique Maestas' childhood.

Maestas, 54, is now a quadriplegic due to spinal meningitis. He was released on parole last year and is a patient at the Wasatch Valley Rehabilitation Center in Salt Lake City. Reached there this morning, he declined comment.

Court records show Harry Maestas was convicted on multiple felony charges and was sentenced to prison more than five times since 1967.

Local authorities allege the Maestas siblings stabbed to death 3-year old Kristyanna Cowan in a trailer outside the Casablanca hotel in Mesquite.

The attack left the toddler's 10-year-old sister, Brittney Bergeron, paralyzed from the waist down.

Prosecutors said last week they would seek the death penalty against the siblings. Monique Maestas will be charged under a state law that allows teens 16 and over to face the death penalty.

Brooks said Harry Maestas was "totally torn up and just very sad" about the state's decision to seek the death penalty against his children.

A Utah District Court spokeswoman said Harry Maestas was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of Rosemary Mattucci on New Year's Eve in 1973 and was sentenced to five years to life in prison.

Mattucci is believed to have been Maestas' girlfriend.

Maestas spent most of the last 30 years in Utah prisons on multiple other convictions, which included drug and firearms charges, said John Green, a Utah Pardon and Parole Board administrator.

He was convicted of burglary in 1967 and again in 1976 for robbery, Green said.

That same year, while already in prison on the murder charge, Maestas was convicted on manslaughter charges stemming from a prison fight that left another inmate dead.

Court records show he was released on parole three times between 1972 and 2002, Green said.

Brooks said Maestas' lengthy stints in prison left his wife, Marilyn, alone to raise their children. She became a truck driver to make extra money and the children stayed with relatives while she was on the road.