Modesto connection to new ‘Dateline’ episode, a saga of scams, secrets and murder
A new episode of “Dateline” features a Modesto connection. “The Prince, the Whiz Kid and the Millionaire” is the name of the episode that premiered on Oct. 10 and reports on the murder of Palm Springs socialite and art dealer Cliff Lambert and the subsequent trials of his assailants.
The plot to steal from and kill Lambert was orchestrated mainly by two individuals, Kaushal Niroula and Daniel Garcia, prosecutors alleged. Garcia is from Modesto.
The episode opens with an introduction to Lambert. He had been a successful art dealer, owning an art reproduction business that allowed him to retire to Palm Springs, where he was well known in the social scene. “He had all these pictures in his house with all these famous people, like icons,” said close friend Eddie Mullikin.
When Lambert didn’t show up to a Christmas parade as scheduled on Dec. 6, 2008, Mullikin went to his home. He did not find his friend, but it looked as if there had been a party, with drinks left out and cigarettes left in ashtrays.
When he didn’t hear from Lambert the next day, Mullikin filed a missing persons report. A few days later, he returned to Lambert’s home to find it had been cleaned, but he still had not heard from his friend.
Police went to his home but found nothing suspicious. About a week after Lambert was seen, Mullikin and other friends began to receive emails from him, saying he was in Maui, recovering from oral surgery.
Mullikin found it odd that Lambert would communicate by email, because as best friends, they spoke on the phone often.
On the other end of the email was not Lambert, but Garcia and Niroula, a San Francisco grifter who previously claimed to be an exiled prince from Nepal.
Garcia, then 26, met Lambert on an online dating site in April 2008. After a breakup of a 15-year relationship and the untimely death of that partner in 2007, Lambert was trying to get back into the dating scene.
He matched with Garcia, who was living in San Francisco. Lambert flew Garcia out to meet him. “He was a super-smart, nice kid,” Mullikin says in the episode about meeting Garcia for the first time.
About a month after Lambert was reported missing, police were contacted by a real-estate agent who said Lambert’s house was being sold. The agent wanted to verify the seller was the actual owner of the property. He was suspicious of the client, and when doing research, came upon the missing persons poster of Lambert.
The client was Niroula, who told the realty agent he had been given the property by Lambert.
Just days after that call, police discovered a U-Haul truck at Lambert’s home and items being moved out by Miguel Bustamante. This was the key to unraveling the plot to murder Lambert, because Bustamante told police he had been hired by Niroula to bring to him art and other items in exchange for Lambert’s Rolls-Royce.
Bustamante said Garcia was Lambert’s boyfriend and had lured the older man to Mexico, where he was kidnapped and his whereabouts were unknown.
From here, the entire scheme was revealed, with Garcia and Niroula as the masterminds.
Friend thought he knew Garcia well
A former close friend, tech entrepreneur Tyson Wrensch, met Garcia in the Bay Area and was drawn to his charisma. In an interview with The Bee in 2016, Wrensch said Garcia was his best friend for about five years, until his bank accounts were drained while he was away on a trip.
Upon returning home, Wrensch found Garcia was living in his home and had accessed his financial information. Wrensch tried but failed to get justice for the theft, so he set out to learn exactly who Garcia was.
While researching Garcia, Wrensch found a news story about Lambert being missing, and among the comments, someone had posted that he was last seen with a man matching Niroula’s description. Wrensch recognized him as Garcia’s close friend and contacted the police.
Wrensch wrote a book about the murder, with details about his friendship with Garcia. Titled “Until Someone Gets Hurt”, it was co-authored by Sherrie Lueder.
The “Dateline” episode reveals that Lambert learned Garcia was using his credit cards to make purchases and upgrades on flights. With Lambert now suspicious, Garcia and Niroula hatched a plan to defraud and kill him.
In November 2008, Niroula posed as a lawyer and contacted Lambert with news that a wealthy friend had left him valuable art in her will. Niroula told Lambert he needed to sign some documents, and he traveled to Palm Springs to meet with him at his home.
That night, Dec. 5, Niroula left a door open for Bustamante and his roommate, Craig McCarthy, to enter the home and kill Lambert. Lambert was buried in a shallow grave in the mountains just north of Los Angeles. The remains were identified as his in 2020 but were found a few years before.
The episode details the trials of the four main conspirators: Niroula, Garcia, Bustamante and lawyer David Replogle, who had previously represented Garcia as a plaintiff in a lawsuit.
Niroula and Garcia acted as their own attorneys at trial, and all four defendants were found guilty in 2011 and 2012 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
McCarthy confessed to the killing and cooperated, giving full details of the murder and the plot. He pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 25 years.
Here’s what got convictions tossed
Garcia had been given a laptop to use at trial and he used it to record conversations between court officials. Though not allowed, Garcia recorded off-the-record conversations between Judge David Downing and his clerk in which they made derogatory comments about Niroula, and other conversations that appeared to show bias. All four convictions were thrown out and overturned, and new trials were set.
Years of appeals, delays, and even COVID delayed the trials, and in September 2022, as he was awaiting retrial, Niroula was killed at the Riverside County Jail by another inmate.
Later that year, Replogle was again found guilty, and Bustamante and Garcia were both found guilty in 2023.
All three were sentenced to life without the possibility for parole in 2025.
The episode is now streaming on Peacock.
This story was originally published October 18, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
