Delayed murder trial expected to resume

By Matt Pordum

Thursday, Sept. 9, 2004 | 9:29 a.m.

An error in how levels of the illegal club drug GHB were recorded in the body of the victim caused an abrupt halt to the now more than five-week-old murder trial.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Vicki Monroe and Special Public Defender Bret Whipple appeared before District Judge John McGroarty on Wednesday, assuring him that the trial of Daniel Wolff could resume without problems on Friday.

Prosecutors allege that after a night of drug-fueled partying, Wolff went home with 40-year-old Richard Marotto, killed him and then stole a variety of items from Marotto's house and pawned Marotto's jewelry at four different pawn shops in Las Vegas.

Last week Monroe told District Judge John McGroarty it had come to her attention that the levels of GHB found in Marotto were recorded in nanograms instead of micrograms. The error could ultimately mean Marotto had 10 times more GHB in his system than originally reported.

The exact nature of the error and how it happened have not yet been confirmed. Monroe has said it was her understanding in 2001 that GHB levels were measured in micrograms, not nanograms, as had been recorded.

Monroe said if Marotto's GHB levels were properly measured in micrograms, instead of nanograms, Marotto would have been unconscious when he was slain in December 2001.

But Whipple said that his subsequent conversations with toxicologists from Quest Diagnostics Laboratories Inc. indicated that it has been determined Marrotto would not have been rendered unconscious by the amount of GHB found in his system.

Whipple has said that Wolff reacted violently when he awoke at Marotto's home, high on the club drug GHB, and discovered that Marotto was raping him.