Jury hears closing arguments in lawsuit alleging detectives framed woman in 2001 murder

A jury will begin deliberations on Wednesday to determine if two retired Las Vegas police detectives will be held liable in a lawsuit alleging they framed a woman for a highly publicized 2001 murder.

“What happened to Blaise Lobato is unjust, and we’re asking you to right that injustice,” attorney Elizabeth Wang said at the end of closing arguments Tuesday.

The trial began last week in Kirstin “Blaise” Lobato’s federal lawsuit against the Metropolitan Police Department and retired detectives Thomas Thowsen and James LaRochelle. The jury is expected to begin deliberations on Wednesday morning.

Lobato, 41, was released from custody in early 2018 after serving more than 15 years behind bars for the murder of Duran Bailey, a crime a judge ruled last month Lobato had never committed.

Bailey was found dead on July 8, 2001, badly beaten and with his penis severed.

Lobato’s attorneys argued that Lobato only ever admitted to fighting back when a man attempted to sexually assault her in May 2001 in east Las Vegas, and that she slashed at his lower body with a knife before running away. Her attorneys argued that Bailey was killed over a month later on the other side of town and that his penis has been cut off after he had died, which didn’t match Lobato’s description of her attack.

David Owens, another attorney representing Lobato, asked the jury to grant her $34 million in compensatory damages, plus $40,000 in punitive damages. Lobato’s attorneys have accused the detectives of fabricating evidence and intentionally causing Lobato emotional distress.

“This is a pain that’s not going to be resolved, and it’s a pain that was the deliberate choice of the two detectives in this case,” Owens told the jury.

District Judge Veronica Barisich signed a certificate of innocence for Lobato on Oct. 30, after she reached a settlement with the attorney general’s office in a state civil case.

Lobato, who was 18 at the time she was accused of killing Bailey, was released from prison after the district attorney’s office declined to pursue a third trial against her. A judge had vacated her conviction for a second time, on grounds that she received ineffective counsel, after her case was taken up by the New York-based Innocence Project and local attorney David Chesnoff.

Attorney Craig Anderson, who represents the police detectives, argued Tuesday that although a judge ruled Lobato innocent of the murder, that does not mean the officers fabricated evidence against her.

“Neither of them is callous and reckless and indifferent,” Anderson said during his closing arguments.

The defense only put up a single witness on Wednesday by calling Sandy DiGiacomo, a recently elected judge who helped prosecute both of Lobato’s criminal trials. She testified for only a few minutes about specific evidence that was presented during the trials.

Lobato’s attorneys have accused detectives of misrepresenting witness statements and omitting facts in police reports. They also disputed several statements attributed to Lobato in reports, including that she said she “snapped” and “cut it off,” referring to the man’s penis.

The detectives testified that those statements came from a portion of their interview with Lobato that was not recorded, and that they followed police protocol by destroying notes taken during the interview that were used to write the report.

Anderson argued Tuesday that it was “more than reasonable” Lobato had stated she “snapped” in the unrecorded portion of the interview, and that it was up to the jury to decide who is telling the truth.

He told the jury that the case is not about deciding if Lobato is innocent or not.

“We don’t have the buzz words, we don’t have the emotion, but we do have the facts,” he said.

Last week, the Metropolitan Police Department released a letter sent to the attorney general’s office from Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill and Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson. The letter questioned why Lobato received a certificate of innocence, and stated that “key parties involved in her prosecution” still believe that she is guilty.

Wang argued that in addition to Lobato being declared innocent by a judge, she could not have committed the crime because she was not in Las Vegas when Bailey was killed on July 8. Years ago, Lobato was released from prison after new forensic evidence showed Bailey’s time of death was on July 8, when Lobato said she was at her parent’s home in Panaca.

Lobato’s attorneys argued that detectives either knew that Lobato was innocent or were deliberately indifferent to her innocence. Wang said that by writing misleading statements in reports, the detectives were essentially lying and caused the criminal proceedings to continue against Lobato.

“They were trying to fit something that didn’t fit into this box,” Wang argued Tuesday.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240.