Defense attorneys challenge charges in Modesto triple homicide

Defense attorneys on Monday said charges and enhancements are not sufficiently specific in an indictment against one of seven men accused of murder in the shooting of three people inside an east Modesto home last year.

A criminal grand jury in December indicted Ricky Javier Madrigal, Jose Osegueda Jr., Richard Tyrone Garcia, Armando Osegueda, Joseph Luis Jauriqui, Robert Palomino and Juan Jose Nila.

The defendants are charged with murder in the shooting deaths of 16-year-old David Siebels, 19-year-old Alyxandria Tellez and 31-year-old Edward Joseph Reinig. They were killed March 3, 2012, inside a home on McClure Road, across from Creekside Golf Course.

Prosecutors say the slayings were the product of a criminal conspiracy carried out by members of a Modesto regiment of the Norteño street gang.

The defense attorneys challenged the indictment Monday, arguing that the listed charges do not indicate who prosecutors think shot the three people inside the home.

Stephen Foley, Garcia’s defense attorney, told the judge that his client is entitled to know whether prosecutors think he is a principal suspect in the shooting or an abettor. He argued that the law requires that this information to be apparent in the indictment.

Deputy District Attorney Meghan Greerty, one of the prosecutors on the case, told the judge that the law does not require that information to appear in the indictment charges. She also argued that the criminal grand jury transcript is clear about what roles the defendants played in the killings.

At the request of the defense and the prosecution, Stanislaus County Superior Judge Scott Steffen has ordered the 1,300-page transcript to remain sealed from the public until he rules on the defense’s objections to the indictment.

Foley argued that this is a “highly complex” case involving accusations of a criminal gang conspiracy and a large number of suspects. He said specific information in the indictment is critical in allowing his client to mount a defense.

Criminal grand jury proceedings are held behind closed doors, and witnesses testify without the defendants or their attorneys present.

Steffen told the attorneys that the indictment charges don’t have to specify who shot the three people and who was an abettor if the roles are clearly indicated in the grand jury transcript.

The judge said he couldn’t make a ruling without knowing what’s in the transcript, so he will read the transcript before announcing his ruling at a Jan. 8 hearing.

Steffen also is slated to decide on other challenges to the indictment. Defense attorneys argued Monday that the indictment doesn’t have enough information on the gang enhancements and that prosecutors are required to list more specific information in an indictment involving a capital murder case.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Garcia, Armando Osegueda and Jauriqui. If convicted, the four other defendants face a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.

Deputy District Attorney Marlisa Ferreira, the lead prosecutor, told the judge that the District Attorney’s Office is not required to list specific information in an indictment, even in a capital murder case, as long as the details of the alleged crime are made clear in the grand jury transcript.

The prosecutor said the District Attorney’s Office rarely seeks the death penalty in first-degree murder cases. She told the judge that three people were targeted while they were sleeping inside their home and shot to death, “one of them execution style.” Ferreira argued that the grand jury transcript makes it clear why prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in an attack where “human decency is thrown out the window.”

Authorities have said the slayings are connected to the torture of a 19-year-old woman about a month earlier. That woman later was the only survivor in the attack in the McClure Road home.

The woman accused her boyfriend, Garcia, of beating her and holding her against her will for several days in his Ceres apartment. Authorities allege that Armando Osegueda helped Garcia bind his girlfriend with tape.

Court documents indicate that an investigation into the claim of torture led authorities to seize guns, ammunition, drugs, cash and a phone list of gang members from Garcia’s apartment.

Ferreira has said in court that the grand jury heard the entire story of this criminal gang enterprise and how its members conspired to target Garcia’s girlfriend’s family.

This story was originally published November 18, 2013 at 9:03 PM with the headline "Defense attorneys challenge charges in Modesto triple homicide."