Desert Hot Springs, CA: Prosecutor: DHS man killed friend over rape rumor

A Desert Hot Springs man shot and killed a friend after his girlfriend substantiated a rumor that the victim had raped her, a prosecutor told jurors Monday.
Concepcion Rodriguez, 35, is charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of 27-year-old Anastacio Torres.
Deputy District Attorney Manny Bustamante said in his opening statement that Rodriguez and another man brought Torres to his apartment and interrogated him about the rape rumor, which had surfaced several weeks earlier.
Defense attorney Demitra Tolbert countered that the rumor had been spread for much longer than several weeks and that few people believed it was true.
The prosecution claims Rodriguez gunned down Torres after approaching him a second time about the truth of the rumor that he raped Rodriguez's girlfriend.
Bustamante said Rodriguez waited for Torres at his apartment in the 66000 block of Second Street in Desert Hot Springs the night of May 13, 2006.
When Torres arrived home, the two got into an argument over the rumor.
They left when the mother of Torres' girlfriend got upset that they were fighting, the prosecutor said.
“(Rodriguez) told (Torres), ‘If you don't have anything to hide, then just come with me,'” Bustamante said. “That was the last time anybody ever saw Anastacio alive.”
Rodriguez and another man, Mingus Chavarria, bound Torres' hands together with zip ties and walked him to a car, driving him to Rodriguez's apartment on Palm Drive, the prosecutor alleged.
Once there, Bustamante said, Rodriguez — while waving a gun — questioned Torres and his girlfriend about the rumor he heard.
“He said it was going to be him or her, but somebody will tell him the truth,” Bustamante said.
Once the girlfriend said she was, indeed, raped by Torres, she was taken out of the room and Rodriguez shot the victim twice, according to the prosecution.
Chavarria, 33, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in September 2009 in exchange for a prison term of 15 years to life, Bustamante said.

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His arrest in February 2009 on suspicion of participating in a street gang led investigators to reopen the murder case, which had gone cold, and take Rodriguez into custody in June of that year.
Tolbert said there are several inaccuracies in the statements given by Chavarria and the girlfriend, who the attorney said is now married to Rodriguez.
She said Chavarria contends Torres was shot three times — the coroner's office determined it was twice — and his hands were bound with black zip ties, not clear ones as found with Torres' body.
“You will notice that Mingus Chavarria's or (the girlfriend's) testimony will not be credible at all and there will be reasonable doubt,” Tolbert told the jury.
Tolbert also said that at the time of the killing, Torres had angered a father in the area for initiating his daughter's beating by a group of men several weeks prior. Torres had already been attacked once in retaliation, the attorney said.
Torres was found dead May 14 near Verbena Drive and San Lorenzo Drive, atop two blankets, with his hands secured in front of him.
The trial is expected to last 21 days. Rodriguez, who is being held without bail at the Indio Jail, could face life in prison without parole if convicted.

His arrest in February 2009 on suspicion of participating in a street gang led investigators to reopen the murder case, which had gone cold, and take Rodriguez into custody in June of that year.
Tolbert said there are several inaccuracies in the statements given by Chavarria and the girlfriend, who the attorney said is now married to Rodriguez.
She said Chavarria contends Torres was shot three times — the coroner's office determined it was twice — and his hands were bound with black zip ties, not clear ones as found with Torres' body.
“You will notice that Mingus Chavarria's or (the girlfriend's) testimony will not be credible at all and there will be reasonable doubt,” Tolbert told the jury.
Tolbert also said that at the time of the killing, Torres had angered a father in the area for initiating his daughter's beating by a group of men several weeks prior. Torres had already been attacked once in retaliation, the attorney said.
Torres was found dead May 14 near Verbena Drive and San Lorenzo Drive, atop two blankets, with his hands secured in front of him.
The trial is expected to last 21 days. Rodriguez, who is being held without bail at the Indio Jail, could face life in prison without parole if convicted.