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Hearing Delayed
Handyman in Smart Disappearance Won’t Be In Court Until End of Month  July 15
— A handyman accused of robbing the home of Elizabeth Smart and breaking into another home in the 14-year-old missing girl's neighborhood as people slept has had his initial court appearance delayed until the end of the month. |
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Ricci admitted breaking into a house in the Smarts' Salt Lake City neighborhood in April 2001, and also admitted stealing some things from the Smarts' home in a separate incident, according to court documents. There were people sleeping in the house at the time of the break-in at a home in the Smarts' neighborhood, according to the charges filed Thursday, and Ricci allegedly woke up a houseguest as he was looking for things to take. Salt Lake City police say the charges are not directly related to the investigation into the girl's disappearance, but that there may be a "connectivity" between the alleged break-in and the suspected abduction of the teenager. One of the scenarios that police are considering in their investigation of Elizabeth Smart's disappearance is that the girl was awakened by an intruder and that person took her rather than leave behind a witness, police said. Though police said Ricci admitted committing the crimes he was charged with, the man's lawyer said police may be misconstruing his words. "I think they're trying to bring as much pressure to bear on him as possible," Ricci's lawyer David Smith said, adding that the charges only came as a result of things Ricci told police when he was trying to cooperate with the investigation into Elizabeth's disappearance. "His position is he didn't have anything to do with it, doesn't have any idea where she is and he, like everybody else, would like her to be found," Smith said. Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse said last week, when the theft and burglary charges against Ricci were announced, that police were not ready to charge the man with any involvement in the abduction of Elizabeth, and said the 48-year-old ex-convict is not the only person investigators are looking at in the case. "There is no question there is a connectivity between Mr. Ricci, these charges and the Smart case, but that does not mean that he's the abductor in this case," Dinse said. "There are other people we are looking at." Police and the FBI are also investigating other people "surrounding Mr. Ricci," as well as people not connected to him, Dinse said. Ricci, who has been in police custody since June 17 on an alleged parole violation and is currently in the Utah State Prison, was charged Thursday with one count of burglary and two counts of theft, stemming from a pair of incidents in April and June of 2001. He allegedly stole $3,500 worth of items, including jewelry, a perfume bottle and a wine glass filled with sea shells, from the Smart home in June 2001. Police found the stolen items in Ricci's home last month, according to the documents filed Thursday. ‘I Need You to Clear Yourself’ Ricci worked at the Smart home around the time of the two incidents, and Elizabeth's father said Friday that the handyman "looked me in the eye" and told him he did not take the items that had been stolen. After the thefts, though, Ed Smart fired all the contractors that were working on the home. Smart said Ricci told him that he had taken a polygraph test that cleared him of any involvement in the robbery in his home, but that he has since learned from police that Ricci was never given a lie detector test. When police first named Ricci as a potential suspect in the case, Smart said he did not believe the man could have been involved, but now his opinion has changed. "Finding he did take these items … can't help but make me feel that there is a possibility that Richard is involved," Smart said Friday during the family's daily meeting with the media. As Smart started to lose control of his emotions, tears on his cheeks and his voice breaking, he began to plead with Ricci to do everything he could to aid the investigation into Elizabeth's disappearance. "I need you, Richard, I need you to clear yourself," he said.
Ricci Could Face Life in Prison Because Ricci has a criminal record stretching back 29 years and is currently on parole for a conviction for the attempted homicide of a police officer, he has been deemed a habitual criminal and all of the charges have been enhanced to first-degree felonies, Salt Lake County District Attorney David Yocom said. A conviction on any of the charges could result in a sentence of up to life in prison for Ricci, Yocom said. Police have said that Ricci was one of the first people they talked to after Elizabeth disappeared on June 5, but he was not identified as a focus of the investigation until after his arrest on June 17 on the alleged parole violation. "If I could charge him, I'd charge him," Dinse said Thursday. "That doesn't mean I don't have anything linking him to the case, but if I could charge him and we could prove it, I'd charge him today." Ricci and his wife have both maintained his innocence. His wife, Angela Ricci, has said he was in bed with her the night of the kidnapping. Police say a gunman took Elizabeth from the bedroom she and her little sister shared in the middle of the night. Details of the abduction came from the younger girl, 9-year-old Mary Katherine, who pretended to be asleep during the kidnapping. |
