NM - Tera Chavez, 26, found dead in her Los Lunas home, 22 Oct 2007 - #1

[NCEast]

Yes...court is done for today as the State's next witness isn't at the courthouse.

And was that supposed to be Samantha Wheeler?

 

[NCEast]

Yes...court is done for today as the State's next witness isn't at the courthouse.

I'm so happy you guys are here to tell me what's going on. I cannot hear a word the judge says and only part of what McKay says.

 

[NCEast]

These poor jurors are getting herded in and out like cattle. I sure hope NM pays a decent wage for jury duty.

 

[NCEast]

I think I'm ready for my nap. I hope each of you has a terrific weekend! So happy you are getting your a/c fixed NCB!!

 

[Jewels53]

Thanks for the re-cap!

I left you all cause of the horrible feed. Iwill try again on Monday.

Wishing everyone a Great Weekend.

 

[NCB]

And was that supposed to be Samantha Wheeler?

What is up with these witnesses not being ready to proceed? I would say that's a PT issue, no? This trial is hard to follow. East, I can't hear the judge, either, but alas, they don't do this for us, do they? I hope the jurors are having an easier time digesting this info than I am at this moment...

 

[NCB]

Thanks for the re-cap!

I left you all cause of the horrible feed. Iwill try again on Monday.

Wishing everyone a Great Weekend.

You too, Jewels!!! Hopefully the feed will be better on Monday!

 

[NCB]

I think I'm ready for my nap. I hope each of you has a terrific weekend! So happy you are getting your a/c fixed NCB!!

THANK YOU, EAST! It's better already!! Come over and see me--we can go to IKEA!! Have a great weekend!!

 

[NCEast]

THANK YOU, EAST! It's better already!! Come over and see me--we can go to IKEA!! Have a great weekend!!

I would love to!! The only IKEA store I've ever been in is the one at Potomic Mills Mall or whatever the name of it is near Washington, DC. I got so turned around in that store I could not find my way out, it was huge and I wanted everything in there. Love the commercial with the little boy who is on time out--riding his tricycle into the cabinets. I want those cabinets!!!

 

[Paintr]

http://blogs.krqe.com/2013/06/21/levi-chavez-trial-live-blog-day-9-2/


KRQE News 13 Reporters Alex Goldsmith and Amanda Goodman are in the courtroom covering the Levi Chavez trial.

details of testimony today...

more at link.

 

[NCEast]

http://blogs.krqe.com/2013/06/21/levi-chavez-trial-live-blog-day-9-2/


KRQE News 13 Reporters Alex Goldsmith and Amanda Goodman are in the courtroom covering the Levi Chavez trial.

details of testimony today...

more at link.

Thanks for the link! It was a short day, well it seemed short to me. It was a nothing day for the prosecution, not much better for Serna, other than introducing the jury to Tera's lover. I am anxiously awaiting Samantha W's testimony and hope it is first thing Monday morning.

 

[ChubbyCheeks]

http://blogs.krqe.com/2013/06/21/levi-chavez-trial-live-blog-day-9-2/


KRQE News 13 Reporters Alex Goldsmith and Amanda Goodman are in the courtroom covering the Levi Chavez trial.

details of testimony today...

more at link.

Paintr....thanks for the link, lots of good detail about today proceedings. Two things stood out to me: Samantha Wheeler was Tera's maid of honor at her wedding - ?! I had not heard that before; they were obviously such good friends at one time. The other thing, Nick Wheeler said was that Samantha told Tera to contact him, to reach out to him.
Reach out to him for what reason is what I want to know. I'm pretty sure it wasn't to sc*ew:twocents: around with her husband, or on other side of coin, her good friend; bad friend and husband. That APD, along with spouses seems like a big cesspool of lying, cheating, and infidelity.
One more thing, the anonymous female caller from the hair shop saying LC truck wasn't stolen, I doubt it was Tera calling from her place of employment, I think it may have been Rose Slama helping out LC. :twocents:

 

[calamityjane831]

Paintr....thanks for the link, lots of good detail about today proceedings. Two things stood out to me: Samantha Wheeler was Tera's maid of honor at her wedding - ?! I had not heard that before; they were obviously such good friends at one time. The other thing, Nick Wheeler said was that Samantha told Tera to contact him, to reach out to him.
Reach out to him for what reason is what I want to know. I'm pretty sure it wasn't to sc*ew:twocents: around with her husband, or on other side of coin, her good friend; bad friend and husband. That APD, along with spouses seems like a big cesspool of lying, cheating, and infidelity.
One more thing, the anonymous female caller from the hair shop saying LC truck wasn't stolen, I doubt it was Tera calling from her place of employment, I think it may have been Rose Slama helping out LC. :twocents:

BBM This question is so intriguing to me and I have thought about it off and on all weekend. I don't understand so I really want to hear more of your theory.

 

[calamityjane831]

Good morning friends, I found this article on one of the issues that we will be following this morning. Interesting if you ask me.....

http://www.abqjournal.com/main/213844/news/alibi-witness-tries-to-get-out-of-chave-ztrial.html

Alibi witness tries to get out of Chavez trial

One of Levi Chavez’s potential alibi witnesses is trying to get out of testifying in Chavez’s murder trial by asserting his Fifth Amendment rights, according to court filings, because he doesn’t want to “make waves” in a pending legal case of his own.

So Chavez’s attorney, David Serna, is seeking to compel the testimony of Russell Perea, who was sharing an Albuquerque Police Department vehicle with Chavez the weekend prosecutors allege that Chavez killed his wife.

State District Judge George P. Eichwald will decide at a hearing this morning, outside the presence of the jury, whether Perea must testify, the Journal has learned.

Prosecutors allege that Chavez, a former Albuquerque police officer, killed his wife in the couple’s home near Los Lunas last year on either Oct. 19, 20 or 21 with his APD-issued pistol and tried to make it look like a suicide.

Chavez contends that he discovered his wife’s body around 9 p.m. on Oct. 21, a Sunday. He claims he hadn’t been home since the previous Friday morning and that he had spent the weekend working two 2 p.m. to midnight shifts for APD and staying at the Albuquerque home of another officer with whom he was having an affair.

On Oct. 19 and 20, Perea and Chavez worked the West Side together.

In a motion to compel Perea’s testimony filed Thursday, Serna contends that Perea testified under oath in a deposition for a civil wrongful death lawsuit against Chavez that “he was in the physical presence of Levi Chavez for virtually the entire shift” on those two days and that “Levi Chavez never left the Westside Area Command during his shift.”

APD officials fired Perea in August 2011, four months after Chavez was indicted, for inconsistencies between statements he made about the Levi Chavez matter during the deposition, in an interview with Valencia County Sheriff’s deputies who were investigating Tera Chavez’s death and in an APD Internal Affairs investigation.

Serna pointed out two of those inconsistencies in his motion to compel Perea’s testimony: Perea said in one instance that he didn’t know Chavez prior to their employment at APD but later said the two had gone to high school together, and he at first said the two never shared a police vehicle after Tera’s death but later said they had.

APD records show that the last call Perea and Chavez took on Saturday, Oct. 20, was a domestic violence incident at 7:45 p.m.

Perea has maintained that the two were together virtually the entire shift. However, discrepancies in APD records raised questions for department officials about where he and Chavez had been that night and whether they had been together the whole shift, according to a city hearing officer’s summary of why Perea was fired.

Perea successfully sought through the city personnel board to get his job back.

According to the city hearing officer, APD officials never told Perea how he violated policies before they fired him. And APD Deputy Chiefs Allen Banks and Paul Feist, who is now retired, were unable to prove during personnel hearings earlier this year that Perea had been untruthful.

In a 19-page opinion dated in February, the hearing officer blasted APD and the city, saying the city failed “to demonstrate employee wrongdoing, much less that he deserved to be discharged.”

The city appealed the personnel board’s ruling, and a hearing is scheduled this week in state District Court.

In his motion to compel Perea’s testimony, Serna accused then-VCSO Detective Aaron Jones, the lead investigator in Tera Chavez’s death, of using “coercive, threatening interrogation techniques during (a) nearly three hour interview” with Perea.

“None of the statements Mr. Perea made during his deposition, which Aaron Jones claims are untruthful, are material misstatements of fact,” Serna wrote. “Therefore, Russell Perea is not in jeopardy for perjury or any other sort of criminal violation.”

On April 17, Serna served a subpoena on Perea through his attorney, Sam Bregman, for a pretrial interview in the murder case. Bregman told Serna, according to the motion, that he intended to seek a protective order to keep Perea off the stand.

In a follow-up letter on June 12 that was attached to Serna’s motion, Bregman wrote: “I have conferred with my client and it is still our position that Mr. Perea will be exercising his Fifth Amendment right not to testify at trial … .”

Reached by telephone Friday, Bregman confirmed that he plans to accompany Perea to this morning’s hearing. He declined to comment further.

Serna, in his motion, wrote that Bregman is “simply wanting to protect his client, and avoid ‘making waves’ ” in the upcoming appeal hearing.

“Although Mr. Bregman is justifiably concerned that thrusting Mr. Perea into a high profile murder case as an alibi witness for (Levi Chavez) might have a negative impact on Mr. Perea’s pending litigation, such concern does not amount to a Fifth Amendment privilege … ,” his motion states.

It is unclear whether prosecutors had planned to call Perea as a witness for the state, although his name was on a prosecution witness list from March 2012.

Thirteenth Judicial District Attorney Lemuel Martinez did not return a telephone message Friday.

Also on that witness list is Rita Brito, Levi Chavez’s mother. Chavez maintains that he went to his mother’s home in Los Lunas on Sunday evening Oct. 21, 2007, and that he left from there to go home and check on Tera. That’s when he said he found her dead.

The third of Chavez’s alibi witnesses is former APD officer Deborah Romero, with whom Levi Chavez was having an affair at the time of his wife’s death. Chavez maintains that he went to Romero’s Northeast Albuquerque home after finishing his shift at 12 a.m. on Oct. 21, 2007, and stayed the night.

Romero testified last week that Chavez did spend the night, but she doesn’t know what time he arrived, because she was asleep.

After this morning’s hearing, the trial is scheduled to move into its third week with testimony from more prosecution witnesses.

 

[calamityjane831]

I hope Albuquerque is watching this trial because I would not want to come into contact with Officer Perea. This guy IMHO is as slippery as wet soap. The public deserves honest service personnel. This is all so frustrating.... it is like pulling justice out of a sinkhole for Tera.

 

[NCEast]

Good Monday morning everybody. I hope each of you had a terrific weekend!!

 

[NCEast]

Good morning friends, I found this article on one of the issues that we will be following this morning. Interesting if you ask me.....

http://www.abqjournal.com/main/213844/news/alibi-witness-tries-to-get-out-of-chave-ztrial.html

Alibi witness tries to get out of Chavez trial

One of Levi Chavez’s potential alibi witnesses is trying to get out of testifying in Chavez’s murder trial by asserting his Fifth Amendment rights, according to court filings, because he doesn’t want to “make waves” in a pending legal case of his own.

So Chavez’s attorney, David Serna, is seeking to compel the testimony of Russell Perea, who was sharing an Albuquerque Police Department vehicle with Chavez the weekend prosecutors allege that Chavez killed his wife.

State District Judge George P. Eichwald will decide at a hearing this morning, outside the presence of the jury, whether Perea must testify, the Journal has learned.

Prosecutors allege that Chavez, a former Albuquerque police officer, killed his wife in the couple’s home near Los Lunas last year on either Oct. 19, 20 or 21 with his APD-issued pistol and tried to make it look like a suicide.

Chavez contends that he discovered his wife’s body around 9 p.m. on Oct. 21, a Sunday. He claims he hadn’t been home since the previous Friday morning and that he had spent the weekend working two 2 p.m. to midnight shifts for APD and staying at the Albuquerque home of another officer with whom he was having an affair.

On Oct. 19 and 20, Perea and Chavez worked the West Side together.

In a motion to compel Perea’s testimony filed Thursday, Serna contends that Perea testified under oath in a deposition for a civil wrongful death lawsuit against Chavez that “he was in the physical presence of Levi Chavez for virtually the entire shift” on those two days and that “Levi Chavez never left the Westside Area Command during his shift.”

APD officials fired Perea in August 2011, four months after Chavez was indicted, for inconsistencies between statements he made about the Levi Chavez matter during the deposition, in an interview with Valencia County Sheriff’s deputies who were investigating Tera Chavez’s death and in an APD Internal Affairs investigation.

Serna pointed out two of those inconsistencies in his motion to compel Perea’s testimony: Perea said in one instance that he didn’t know Chavez prior to their employment at APD but later said the two had gone to high school together, and he at first said the two never shared a police vehicle after Tera’s death but later said they had.

APD records show that the last call Perea and Chavez took on Saturday, Oct. 20, was a domestic violence incident at 7:45 p.m.

Perea has maintained that the two were together virtually the entire shift. However, discrepancies in APD records raised questions for department officials about where he and Chavez had been that night and whether they had been together the whole shift, according to a city hearing officer’s summary of why Perea was fired.

Perea successfully sought through the city personnel board to get his job back.

According to the city hearing officer, APD officials never told Perea how he violated policies before they fired him. And APD Deputy Chiefs Allen Banks and Paul Feist, who is now retired, were unable to prove during personnel hearings earlier this year that Perea had been untruthful.

In a 19-page opinion dated in February, the hearing officer blasted APD and the city, saying the city failed “to demonstrate employee wrongdoing, much less that he deserved to be discharged.”

The city appealed the personnel board’s ruling, and a hearing is scheduled this week in state District Court.

In his motion to compel Perea’s testimony, Serna accused then-VCSO Detective Aaron Jones, the lead investigator in Tera Chavez’s death, of using “coercive, threatening interrogation techniques during (a) nearly three hour interview” with Perea.

“None of the statements Mr. Perea made during his deposition, which Aaron Jones claims are untruthful, are material misstatements of fact,” Serna wrote. “Therefore, Russell Perea is not in jeopardy for perjury or any other sort of criminal violation.”

On April 17, Serna served a subpoena on Perea through his attorney, Sam Bregman, for a pretrial interview in the murder case. Bregman told Serna, according to the motion, that he intended to seek a protective order to keep Perea off the stand.

In a follow-up letter on June 12 that was attached to Serna’s motion, Bregman wrote: “I have conferred with my client and it is still our position that Mr. Perea will be exercising his Fifth Amendment right not to testify at trial … .”

Reached by telephone Friday, Bregman confirmed that he plans to accompany Perea to this morning’s hearing. He declined to comment further.

Serna, in his motion, wrote that Bregman is “simply wanting to protect his client, and avoid ‘making waves’ ” in the upcoming appeal hearing.

“Although Mr. Bregman is justifiably concerned that thrusting Mr. Perea into a high profile murder case as an alibi witness for (Levi Chavez) might have a negative impact on Mr. Perea’s pending litigation, such concern does not amount to a Fifth Amendment privilege … ,” his motion states.

It is unclear whether prosecutors had planned to call Perea as a witness for the state, although his name was on a prosecution witness list from March 2012.

Thirteenth Judicial District Attorney Lemuel Martinez did not return a telephone message Friday.

Also on that witness list is Rita Brito, Levi Chavez’s mother. Chavez maintains that he went to his mother’s home in Los Lunas on Sunday evening Oct. 21, 2007, and that he left from there to go home and check on Tera. That’s when he said he found her dead.

The third of Chavez’s alibi witnesses is former APD officer Deborah Romero, with whom Levi Chavez was having an affair at the time of his wife’s death. Chavez maintains that he went to Romero’s Northeast Albuquerque home after finishing his shift at 12 a.m. on Oct. 21, 2007, and stayed the night.

Romero testified last week that Chavez did spend the night, but she doesn’t know what time he arrived, because she was asleep.

After this morning’s hearing, the trial is scheduled to move into its third week with testimony from more prosecution witnesses.

This is interesting about Perea. He was fired, no grounds given, I sent an article to WS last week about it. I can't even remember now if it was in regards to this murder case or not. What I do remember is that he and Levi Chavez said they spent the last 4 hours of their shift together the night Tera was murdered logging evidence. When checked, only 1 piece of evidence was logged in during that time frame and Perea logged it in.

 

[CUCKOOHEAD]

Good Monday Morning everybody!

Is everyone set for another day of who knows what?

 

[calamityjane831]

This is interesting about Perea. He was fired, no grounds given, I sent an article to WS last week about it. I can't even remember now if it was in regards to this murder case or not. What I do remember is that he and Levi Chavez said they spent the last 4 hours of their shift together the night Tera was murdered logging evidence. When checked, only 1 piece of evidence was logged in during that time frame and Perea logged it in.

Yes it is interesting. I did read your previous post about the logging of the evidence which raised a big red flag to me but I did not know that the witness would plea the fifth.

"APD officials fired Perea in August 2011, four months after Chavez was indicted, for inconsistencies between statements he made about the Levi Chavez matter during the deposition, in an interview with Valencia County Sheriff’s deputies who were investigating Tera Chavez’s death and in an APD Internal Affairs investigation." from the article

It appears to me that personnel board tried to fire him for lying under oath but even though it was morally wrong but they didn't have the policies to back it up? really? unbelievable. IMHO

 

[calamityjane831]

Did Perea lie? That is the question.