Man kills self after conviction for molestation

Orange County prosecutors said they had warned a judge that a man who was ultimately convicted in his courtroom of child molestation was suicidal. The man jumped to his death from the ninth floor of a Santa Ana courthouse Tuesday, hours after being convicted.

Carlos Eduardo Tello, 53, of Santa Ana was facing up to 20 years in prison when he leaped from a balcony at the Central Justice Center about 4 p.m. He left behind a suicide note that was found on the floor, said a Santa Ana police spokesman.

A court administrator, however, disputed that the Orange County district attorney’s office, out of concern that he was suicidal, had requested that Tello be jailed.

A jury in a Fullerton courtroom convicted Tello on Tuesday at 11 a.m. of three counts of molesting a girl between 1989 and 1994.

Prosecutors said they had asked Superior Court Judge Greggory Prickett to jail Tello if he was found guilty. Susan Kang Schroeder, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, said the prosecutor raised three issues in arguing that Tello’s $250,000 bail should be revoked. He had been free on bail for almost two years.

“We pointed out that he was facing [up to] 20 years in prison. He was a flight risk because he was a green-card holder from Guatemala, and he had written [another] suicide note when he was arrested in 2006,” Schroeder said. “The court was also told that he had made statements he would never spend a day in jail.”

Instead, Prickett ordered Tello to go home and retrieve his passport, which he surrendered to the court.

The judge scheduled a sentencing hearing for Friday, when Tello’s attorney, Gary Pohlson, said he would argue that his client should be allowed to remain free on bail pending appeal.

Court spokeswoman Carol Levitzky said that judicial ethics prevented Prickett from commenting on the case but that prosecutors did not ask Tuesday, when the verdict was returned, that Tello be jailed.

“There were no formal motions by the prosecutor to revoke bail,” Levitzky said. “As for the [2006] suicide note, that was first brought up in chambers last week, but they never produced it in court.”

However, Schroeder said that last week Prickett denied a prosecution request, made in his chambers, that Tello be taken into custody if found guilty.

Pohlson, who represented Tello at trial, was in Georgia at a golf tournament this week. Another attorney filled in for him Tuesday.

“Judge Prickett shouldn’t be criticized for allowing [Tello] to remain free. He was accommodating me because I wouldn’t return to my office until Friday,” Pohlson said. “The judge said he wouldn’t take him [into custody] until I had an opportunity to argue that he be allowed to remain free on bail.”

Pohlson said he learned from prosecutors last week about Tello’s earlier suicide note and his vow that he would not go to prison. He said he had not seen the 2006 note. The lawyer said Tello was going through a painful divorce but did not appear suicidal.

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hgreza@latimes.com