Summary of Offense:
On October 23, 1992, Manuel was convicted of murder for Cheryle Mallory and his wife, Tracie Williams Ortiz. Ortiz claimed he killed his wife for $950,000 worth of life insurance.
Ortiz was sentenced to death on January 31, 1995.
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April 22, 2010
Death sentence in Jefferson Parish murder could be overturned
Troubled that former Jefferson Parish prosecutor Ronald Bodenheimer sent a man to death row for a double murder in Kenner 18 years ago and then represented a victim's family in a related civil lawsuit, a state judge indicated Thursday that he is leaning toward overturning the convict's death sentence but leaving the conviction intact.
Judge Jerome Winsberg, a retired New Orleans jurist sitting ad hoc in the 24th Judicial District Court, said he had no problem with the prosecutors' circumstantial evidence that led to the 1994 conviction of Manuel Ortiz, 52. Bodenheimer, who led the prosecution, convinced a Jefferson Parish jury to convict Ortiz of two counts of first-degree murder in the Oct. 23, 1992, deaths of Ortiz's wife, Tracie Williams, 31, and her friend Cheryl Mallory, 33.
But Winsberg said he found it "extremely troubling" that Bodenheimer signed a contract to represent Williams' family in getting her life insurance seven days after Ortiz was convicted. The criminal case had not concluded.
"If the death penalty was not involved, I think the court would be of a different mind," Winsberg told attorneys. "I just have a severe problem with an attorney being in a position that Mr. Bodenheimer was in, and he put himself in that position, and he knew there was a problem."
Winsberg gave Ortiz's attorney Nick Trenticosta and Assistant District Attorney Terry Boudreaux until May 21 to provide case law on whether he could overturn Ortiz's death sentence but let the convictions stand.
That delivered an apparent blow to Ortiz, who says he is innocent and accuses prosecutors of hiding evidence favorable to the defense and presenting evidence to the jury knowing it is false. Trenticosta argues Ortiz should get a new trial.
"Mr. Ortiz has been living a nightmare for 18 years that can end today," Trenticosta said.
Bodenheimer later became a 24th Judicial District judge who pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges and was sent to federal prison for 46 months. While an inmate more than four years ago, Bodenheimer was subpoenaed to testify in Ortiz's case, admitting his private firm earned almost $300,000 in the Williams' life insurance case. But he denied cheating to win convictions.
Ortiz, a resident alien from El Salvador, was convicted of taking out a $900,000 life insurance policy on his wife and then hiring someone to kill her so he could get the money. Ortiz was in El Salvador during the killings, and the actual killer was never identified.
Mallory, Williams' lifelong friend, was slain simply because she was with Williams when the killer struck.
The case rested almost entirely on Carlos Saavedra, a Honduran who lived in Jefferson Parish and was a paid informant for the FBI. Saavedra told his FBI handler that Ortiz had approached him about murdering a woman and sharing the life insurance.
Ortiz claims Saavedra killed the women. Trenticosta argues that Saavedra was a Cold War hitman for the Honduran government who admitted on his death bed in 2000 he killed the women.
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