Suspect competent for Broward County trial in Rothstein law partner's killing
The man charged with strangling one of fraudster Scott Rothstein's law partners is competent to stand trial after spending 10 months locked in a mental health facility, a Broward judge ruled Tuesday.
Tony Villegas' defense team did not fight the recent findings of two forensic psychologists that he is mentally fit to continue with court proceedings in the March 2008 slaying of Melissa Britt Lewis. If he's convicted of first-degree murder, he could face the death penalty.
Lewis had been best friends with Villegas' ex-wife, Debra Villegas. Debra Villegas, the chief operating officer of Rothstein's law firm, is slated to start serving a 10-year prison sentence in June after pleading guilty to helping her boss pull off his $1.4 billion Ponzi scheme, the largest financial fraud in South Florida history.
Tony Villegas probably won't go to trial until next year, one of his attorneys, Bruce Fleisher, said after Tuesday's brief court hearing before Broward Circuit Judge William Haury.
Fleisher said Villegas' defense team will be exploring the connections Rothstein has with the murder case including his relationships with Lewis and Debra Villegas and Rothstein's ties with law enforcement. Until Rothstein's Ponzi scheme spectacularly collapsed in November 2009, the flashy, tough-talking lawyer was a regular presence at Tony Villegas' court hearings.
Fleisher said he will likely seek to get sworn depositions from both Rothstein and Debra Villegas in the criminal case. Rothstein is serving a 50-year prison sentence for his Ponzi scheme.
Tony Villegas, 47, is accused of confronting Lewis at her Plantation home on March 6, 2008, strangling her and then dumping her body in a canal. Villegas, a train conductor with no criminal past, was arrested a week later and taken to the Broward County Jail, where he was held without bond.
He was found incompetent to stand trial in May 2010 after two mental health experts concluded he was unable to effectively assist in his defense. He was transferred to a secure mental health facility where he was held until being brought back to the Broward County Jail last month.
Court documents show DNA taken from Lewis' jacket — which was found in her abandoned Cadillac SUV — matches Tony Villegas with the odds of it belonging to someone else being 1 in 30 billion. A nurse at the medical office building where the SUV was found has identified Villegas' silver Corvette as being in the parking lot that night, according to court records.
Police say they also used records of Lewis' iPhone signals to show that the night of her murder, it was taken from Plantation to the area in Hialeah where Tony Villegas lived. The next morning the iPhone's path mirrored the Florida East Coast train that Tony Villegas was riding, court records show.
Al Milian, Tony Villegas' other attorney, has previously said that DNA evidence can be fabricated and there's a "lack of evidence and motive" in the case.
Debra Villegas has told Plantation police that her ex-husband was controlling and physically abusive. The couple's teenage son has said his father repeatedly blamed Lewis for the couple's break-up, court records show.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/su...n-1395883.html
Bookmarks