Jury Gets The Case In Palm Springs Retiree Murder Case

Jurors in the trial of two Bay Area men accused of seeking financial gain in the stabbing death of a Palm Springs retiree got the case today that has spanned 33 court days spread over nearly three months.

Deputy District Attorney Lisa DiMaria had a little more to say to the jury in rebuttal before the panel retired just before noon to pick a foreperson and then begin deliberating in earnest this afternoon.

Accused in the Dec. 5, 2008, stabbing death of 74-year-old Clifford Lambert are Miguel Bustamante, 28, of Daly City and San Francisco attorney David Replogle, 61.

DiMaria said Replogle’s attorney, John Patrick Dolan, had tried to mislead the panel in his closing argument, in which Dolan characterized his client as an empathetic man who was generous to a fault, not a mastermind of a greedy scheme as the prosecutor painted him.

Also accused in Lambert’s death is Miguel Bustamante, a Guatemala born bartender who worked in San Francisco’s Castro District and lived in Daly City.

If convicted, Bustamante and Replogle — a Montgomery Street lawyer — would face a life prison sentence with no chance of parole.

Several other men also face trial in what DiMaria told jurors was a “massive conspiracy” to loot Lambert of his worldly goods, and to “erase” him so he could not go to the police. He is believed to have been buried in the desert, but his body has not been found.

Dolan placed the blame for the killing, and the greed that DiMaria claims motivated it, squarely on the shoulders of Daniel Carlos Garcia and Kaushal Niroula, an acknowledged con man.

DiMaria has called the lot of the defendants “vultures,” sociopaths and con men out to enrich themselves at a lonely and vulnerable man’s expense — literally and figuratively.

Dolan characterized Niroula, a Nepal native who once claimed to be descended from royal blood, a “chameleon” and Garcia as a computer hacker, burglar and identity thief. He said the “greed” theory is “spot on” with respect to those men, who are yet to face trial.

“I don’t think together we could say enough bad things about Kaushal Niroula,” the attorney said.

Dolan contends that Niroula, via text messages, had suggested that Replogle could get his neck cut, or could be the target of a hit unless he followed instructions, and that Niroula impersonated Replogle.

The lawyer, said Dolan, “was threatened, he was coerced, he was intimidated” by Niroula.

Dolan told jurors that Craig McCarthy, who testified for the prosecution, participated in the Lambert killing but will get 25 years and four months when sentenced next month, and should be out in about 20 years or so, after serving 85 percent of his term. He will not face an indeterminate sentence that could have gone much longer, Dolan said.

“And he knows who gave (the lighter sentence) to him and who he owes,” Dolan said, suggesting that McCarthy’s testimony was tailored for the prosecution.

Dolan characterized prosecution witness-informant Arthur Jimenez as a “jailhouse rat” facing life in prison had he not testified against Replogle, and now expected to be out of prison in about 13 years.

He reminded jurors that in formulating a judicial analysis, a panel must start with no conclusion, just the presumption of a defendant’s innocence, and must not convict unless there is proof of the charge beyond a reasonable doubt.

Deputy Public Defender Joe Forth, who represents Bustamante, said his client simply is suffering guilt by association.