Grandmother convicted in husband’s 1994 murder seeking new trial

By Steve Green

Tuesday, April 26, 2011 | 9:10 a.m.

Margaret Rudin, the grandmother convicted after a sensational trial in the 1994 murder of her wealthy Las Vegas husband, is trying yet again for a new trial.

The Nevada Supreme Court last year denied Rudin a new trial.

But on Monday, Las Vegas attorney Christopher Oram filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court seeking a new trial and reversal of her conviction based on allegedly ineffective assistance of trial counsel, allegedly impermissible hearsay testimony, allegedly faulty jury instructions and other points.

Rudin in 2001 was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years. She had been convicted by a jury after a 10-week trial in which prosecutors said she and an accomplice killed Ronald Rudin, 64, because Margaret Rudin stood to lose $6 million if Ronald Rudin divorced her.

The case was noteworthy at the time in part because after Margaret Rudin reported her husband missing, his decapitated, burned and bullet-ridden body was found at Nelson’s Landing on the Colorado River south of Las Vegas.

After she was charged, Margaret Rudin was a fugitive but was arrested after someone in Massachusetts recognized her from the TV show "America’s Most Wanted." She had been living under an assumed name in Revere, Mass.