Posted on 03/09/2007 10:59:37 AM PST by Wolfie
Man saved from murder charge by Curb gets $320,000
LOS ANGELES — A man who was cleared of murder when outtakes from the HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm put him at Dodger Stadium when the crime occurred will get $320,000 in a settlement with the city.
The Los Angeles City Council agreed Wednesday to settle the police misconduct lawsuit filed by Juan Catalan, who spent nearly five months in jail before footage from the show cemented his alibi.
Catalan, 28, was arrested for the May 2003 slaying of Martha Puebla, 16, outside her Sun Valley home. He told detectives he was innocent and was at a Dodgers game when the crime occurred.
His defense lawyer, Todd Melnik, went through footage of crowd shots from the televised game between the Dodgers and the Atlanta Braves, but did not find his client. Then he learned that the HBO comedy starring former Seinfeld co-creator Larry David had been shooting at the ballpark that day.
"There he was in the outtakes," said Gary S. Casselman, the attorney handling Catalan's lawsuit. "He's glad it's over."
The scene, which ended up on the cutting room floor, showed Catalan with his 6-year-old daughter and two friends. The footage was time coded, confirming that Catalan was at the ballpark shortly before the time of the murder 20 miles away.
Records of a cell phone call, made from Dodger Stadium, between Catalan and his girlfriend also helped persuade a judge to release him.
Someone else is now being prosecuted for the slaying, Casselman said.
Catalan was not a fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm before his time in jail.
"He is now," Casselman said.
Too bizarre.
Must have been the episode where Larry picked up a 'ho and took her to Dodger Stadium before he scored some weed for his father.
Police and prosecutors too often put the blinders on once they latch onto a suspect.
Wouldn't their testimony alone be enough to prove his alibi????
At $320K, LA got off too light...
That's the only one I can think of. Although to be fair to Larry, he only picked her up so he could ride in the HOV lane.
I wonder if they have any better case against the "someone else" who is now being prosecuted.
Lucky for the guy he wasn't arrested in Durham, NC.
Didn't he pick her up so that he could drive to the stadium in the HOV lane?
That was a funny one.
Even more bizarre.
So the testimony of three(3) people didn't clear him, it took a film clip and a cell phone record.
Yikes, I need to post more on FR! Some days that's the only alibi I have!!!
"See your Honor, these posting time stamps prove I was at my home computer during that time...."
That is quite disturbing. We need to start holding our law enforcement institutions to a higher standard.
Just as long as the post isn't a vanity about removing bloodstains from keyboards, you're OK.
Too often the police decide who ought to be guilty and then do everything they can to build a case agasnt that person(s) (Duke "rape")
*lol*!
A very good point...
Its LA County...they rely on plea bargains for most their convictions, and for those that dont have money for a competent attorney, they get a sh8tty public defender who doesnt give a rats ass about them.
It isnt Law and Order by any means.
Such was the case in December 2002, when North Hollywood detectives Martin Pinner and Juan Rodriguez arrested Vineland Boyz gang member Jose Ledesma on suspicion of murdering another gang member, Christian Vargas.
According to trial transcripts, Detective Pinner told him that they had a witness against him, hoping to get Ledesma to confess. To further impress Ledesma with the seriousness of his predicament, Detective Pinner showed Ledesma a “six-pack” in which his photo had been circled. (“Six-pack” is police slang for a photographic version of a police lineup used to help witnesses identify a suspect.) According to the documents, the six-pack featured a handwritten note reading, “This is who shot my friend’s boyfriend.” The photo lineup was signed by Martha Puebla, a 16-year-old girl whom Ledesma knew.
But the purported evidence was phony. Puebla never circled Ledesma’s photo, or identified Ledesma as the shooter. While the police had indeed interviewed her, she was a “reluctant” witness who said little and didn’t want to come to court. The circled photo was what Pinner would later describe in court testimony as a “ruse.” But Ledesma didn’t know this when he called one of his homeboys from jail and told the gangster friend how he’d been identified. Nor was Puebla made aware by police of her fictional role in Ledesma’s case.
Word soon spread among the Vineland Boyz that Puebla was “throwing dimes,” as Ledesma put it. Snitching. Eventually, Ledesma learned that the six-pack was bogus, but by that time the rumors had a life of their own. On May 1, 2003, Puebla testified at Ledesma’s preliminary hearing but did not implicate the defendant in any way. Ten days later, Martha Puebla was shot to death in front of her parents’ home, presumably by some member of the Vineland Boyz.
“Good God,” said one Los Angeles public defender who did not want to be named, asked by the L.A. Weekly what she thought of the detective’s ruse and its consequence. “And they wonder why people don’t want to come forward.”
Ledesma’s defense attorney, Marcia Morrissey, puts it another way. “To the detectives, Martha Puebla didn’t matter,” says Morrissey. “She was just another reluctant witness.”
And, of course, the suspect that just received the City of LA payout is/was a member of the Vineland Boyz gang, which murdered a Burbank Police officer, and implicated a Burbank City Councilwoman with involvement in the gang.
Funny how these FR threads all come back together...
Check out the second & third pictures.
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