A 73-year-old California businessman accused of orchestrating two execution-style murders — including the killing of a father gunned down in front of his children — had his murder charges dismissed Monday because the European country that extradited him refused to allow charges carrying life without parole. Richard Wall Sr. walks on the murder counts while the families of attorney Jeffrey Tidus and former employee Juan Mendez, who waited over 15 years for justice, are left with conspiracy charges alone.
This is the system working exactly as it's designed — for the accused, not the victims. Deputy District Attorney Hilary Williams told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Louis Parise Jr. that the dismissal was "not based upon any insufficiency of the evidence, nor upon any determination by the People that the charges are legally deficient," but solely on Montenegro's refusal to extradite on murder charges "due to penalty concerns." In plain English: the evidence is there, the charges are valid, but a foreign government's objections to America's sentencing laws override justice for two dead Americans.
Wall, owner of Whittier-based Welded Fixtures, allegedly decided that when he lost lawsuits, he'd kill the people who beat him in court rather than appeal. Tidus, 53, was shot once in the head outside his Rolling Hills Estates home on Dec. 7, 2009, as he stepped out to grab his laptop. He'd won a $1.7 million settlement against a close friend of Wall. Mendez, 35, was shot by a co-conspirator at his Whittier apartment on Feb. 26, 2011, when he answered his door — killed in front of his children as he tried to run. He'd been awarded $300,000 in an unpaid overtime case. Wall is also a suspect in a third killing in Las Vegas, according to the District Attorney's Office.
District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in June that Wall "thought killing two people would end his legal problems." Instead, the special circumstance allegations — multiple murders, lying in wait, murder for financial gain — that could have meant life without parole are now gone. Defense attorney Hagop Kuyumjian filed the motion to dismiss; Judge Parise granted it. Wall remains jailed without bail, with arraignment on the conspiracy charges set for Sept. 23.
The Register reported the procedural mechanics straight; the Tribune, covering a different California justice story the same day, focused on rapper Lil Durk's acquittal on murder-for-hire charges in Los Angeles while he still faces racketeering counts tied to a Chicago killing. In that case, a federal judge accused prosecutors of trying to "expand the indictment at the 11th hour" — the Chicago tail wagging the Los Angeles dog. Two different cases, same structure: procedural maneuvering determines outcomes more than evidence.
When a foreign ministry's penalty preferences dictate which charges American prosecutors can bring against a man accused of ordering hits on people who beat him in court, the question isn't whether the system can function. It's who it functions for.
