Citing a newly released autopsy report, an attorney for Bell Gardens Mayor Daniel Crespo, who was fatally shot by his wife in a domestic dispute in September, called Friday for Levette Crespo to be prosecuted on a murder charge.
Attorney James Devitt said the report showed that his 42-year-old client’s killing was calculated and was not a case of self-defense.
“The bottom line is, she tried to kill him. The autopsy report says homicide,” Devitt said. “There’s just no way around it.”
The shooting occurred at the family’s Bell Gardens home Sept. 30 after the couple’s 19-year-old son, Daniel Jr., tried to intervene in a fight between his parents, authorities have said.
In a 911 call made immediately after the shooting, a crying Daniel Jr. said, “It wasn’t my mom’s fault. She was defending herself.”
The couple had been high school sweethearts in Brooklyn, Daniel Crespo’s biography on the Bell Gardens website had stated.
On Friday, at a news conference held outside the county coroner’s office in Boyle Heights, Devitt and the victim’s brother, William Crespo, seemed to hope to refute allegations in the autopsy report, which corroborated statements from Levette Crespo’s attorney that she had suffered years of domestic abuse.
“The report contains new, scandalous allegations about the mayor, who can no longer defend himself,” Devitt’s office stated in announcing the news conference.
The office released copies of the report.
An investigator’s narrative appended to the autopsy report states that the Crespos’ daughter, Crystal, said her father had abused her mother “verbally and physically” for more than 20 years.
He was known to drag his wife by her hair into the bedroom to force them to sleep in the same room, the report states, citing a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department homicide detective.
Daniel Crespo threatened to kill his wife and their two children if she ever tried to report the abuse, according to the report.
Crespo’s “mistress” has recently begun making “annoying phone calls” to Levette Crespo, the report states.
He kept unlocked handguns in the home, according to the report, which also states he had a “plastic inflatable prosthetic testicle.”
Crespo’s body showed three 9 mm gunshot wounds within inches of each other on his upper right chest, the autopsy report says.
“He was involved in a dispute with his wife regarding his infidelity when she shot him,” states the report, written by Adrian Salgado of the county coroner’s office.
After the shooting, Levette Crespo was questioned by the Sheriff’s Department but has not been arrested.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office confirmed Friday that the case was under review.
A “very tough” prosecutor was assigned to the case, Devitt said.
“I have a feeling we’re going to have an indictment or an arrest by Christmas — is my hope,” Devitt said.
Levette Crespo’s attorney has in past said her client acted reasonably given the couple’s history. The attorney did not return calls for comment Friday.
Crespo’s brother William said Friday that the case thus far showed “you can get away with murder.”
“Killing your husband is wrong,” William Crespo said. “There was a lot of other ways. She could have called 911.”
William Crespo filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Levette Crespo in October.
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