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 The Sacramento Bee September 3, 2010
By Andy Furillo, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.
Sept. 03--The Chu Vue murder trial figures to take a wild spin next week with testimony focused on the extramarital sex life of the former Sacramento sheriff deputy's wife.
Defense attorney Donald Masuda had the judge order four correctional employees at the California Medical Facility back to court when the trial resumes Tuesday, when he will seek to question them about their relationships with his client's wife, Chia Vue.
Prosecutors say Chu Vue arranged the shooting death of another facility employee, Steve Lo, nearly two years ago because the officer was having an affair with his wife, who also worked at the Vacaville prison.
Masuda said in court Thursday that Chia Vue's other purported love interests would show that she was having affairs with so many men that it wouldn't make sense for his client to target only Steve Lo.
"It's our opinion that he was a chump just like Mr. Vue was a chump," Masuda said. The lawyer said his client realized "this is the way she's always going to be," and that he had "moved on" from his marriage.
Besides wanting to show that Chu Vue didn't have reason to direct his anger at just one person, Masuda said he needs to elicit testimony about his wife's continuing affairs to undercut what he called the "lovey dovey" jail letters between Chia and Chu Vue that he fears the prosecution will introduce.
Such correspondence could show a continued passion between the two, bolstering the motive to kill laid out by prosecutors, Masuda suggested.
The sex testimony, Masuda said, will demonstrate that Chia Vue "is a deceitful person." The trial judge, however, said that fact is already so well established that any more testimony on the subject would be "like carrying coal to Newcastle."
"I don't think you're going to have a high hill to climb to show Mrs. Vue -- is not a paragon of virtue," Sacramento Superior Court Judge Steve White said.
Deputy District Attorney Eric Kindall said Masuda's witness lineup for Tuesday threatens to turn the trial into "a circus."
"We should not be having a parade of people going through this courtroom saying, 'I slept with her. No, I didn't,' " he said.
Kindall argued that before any of the men takes the stand, the defense first must establish their relevance to Chu Vue's mind-set. Kindall said such a predicate can only be nailed down through the testimony of Chu Vue himself -- or his wife.
Masuda said he plans to call his client to testify.
Chia Vue, meanwhile, doesn't want to take the stand. She appeared in court Thursday with a lawyer who filed a motion to block her testimony on grounds of marital privilege.
Her attorney, Gregory Foster, also sought to quash Masuda's subpoena for fear that Chia Vue might incriminate herself if the questioning leads to what she knew about the harboring of the alleged gunmen in the case, Chu Vue's younger brothers, Gary Vue, 29, and Chong Vue, 31. Kindall said he is prepared to offer immunity.
White, in a tentative ruling from the bench, denied Chia Vue's motion.
Court records show she filed a divorce petition against her husband earlier this year.
Chu Vue, 45, is on trial along with co-defendant Lang Vue, 27, in the shooting death of the 39-year-old correctional officer in the garage of his south Sacramento home.
Lang Vue is accused of aiding and abetting the killing by obtaining motel rooms and rental cars, and then buying a car for the alleged gunmen.
On Thursday, the prosecutor cross-examined Lang Vue about the younger Vue brothers using his house as a base of operations for the Lo killing on Oct. 15, 2008.
The co-defendant had testified under direct questioning that he thought Gary and Chong Vue, who were wanted at the time for a murder in Minneapolis, dropped into Sacramento to pay respects to their ill parents before heading back to Minnesota to surrender.
Kindall noted in his questioning that a cell phone linked to Gary and Chong Vue pinged off a tower near Lang Vue's house at 4:33 a.m. the day of the shooting, just 13 minutes before a car believed to be theirs was caught on a surveillance video driving down the street where Steve Lo lived.
At 4:58 a.m., Lo's wife called 911 to report that her husband had been shot.
"Isn't it true, sir, that they were using your home as a base from which to go out and kill Steve Lo?" Kindall asked.
"Probably," Lang Vue replied. "I would guess so."
At 5:33 a.m., the alleged gunmen's cell phone once again pinged off the tower closest to Lang Vue's house.
"Is it true," Kindall asked, "that Gary Vue was back at your house making calls right after the murder?"
"I was sleeping," Lang Vue replied.
Vue had testified earlier that he gave Gary Vue a key to his house and that he didn't know the precise movements of the suspected shooter around the time of the Lo killing. He insisted during his two days on the witness stand that he did not know that the younger Vue brothers intended to kill Lo. |
