Jury Finds Pair Guilty In Murder Of Palm Springs Retiree

Two Bay Area men were convicted today in the financially motivated stabbing murder of a Palm Springs retiree.

Jurors deliberated about three days before convicting 61-year-old San Francisco attorney David Repogle and Miguel Bustamante, a 28-year-old former Castro District bartender from Daly City, of first-degree murder.

Both defendants were also found guilty of eight other felony counts, including conspiracy, burglary, grand theft, identity theft and receiving stolen property, and face life prison terms without the possibility of parole when sentenced on March 4.

The panel reached its verdicts within hours of returning from a two-week holiday break. The trial lasted 33 days spread over nearly three months.

Prosecutors say Bustamante and Replogle, along with several others awaiting trial, orchestrated the Dec. 5, 2008, stabbing death of 74-year-old Clifford Lambert in order to steal his money and possessions.

Deputy District Attorney Lisa DiMaria told jurors Lambert and Bustamante were involved in a “massive conspiracy” to loot the retiree 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.

In his closing argument, Replogle’s attorney, John Patrick 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 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 was “spot on” with respect to those men, who have yet to face trial.

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

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, adding “he knows who gave (the lighter sentence) to him and who he owes,” 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.

Deputy Public Defender Joe Forth, who represents Bustamante, contended his client simply was the victim of guilt by association.