D.A. Wins Appellate Fight to Try 4 Convicted Men

Peter Kovach and Ted Gould disappeared from a Torrance cellular phone shop in October 1994. Their bodies turned up in a San Diego parking lot several days later.

Investigators soon traced the deaths to an intricate scheme of drug dealing, extortion and racketeering that led back to a Queens, N.Y., attorney and his brother. Kenneth and Gary Friedman, along with two others, were convicted in federal court in New York of traveling across state lines with intent to commit a violent crime.

But when Los Angeles County prosecutors charged them with the more serious crimes of kidnapping and murder, a judge threw the case out, deciding that it would violate state laws on double jeopardy -- that a defendant may not be tried twice for the same crime.

That ruling led to a legal tug of war over whether the men could be prosecuted in state court after already being convicted in federal court.

The district attorney’s office appealed and won. Now prosecutors plan to try the men for the murders. They could face the death penalty if convicted, though the office hasn’t decided whether to seek that punishment.

Prosecutors say the case has both moral and legal significance.

“It’s an important decision for us, so that murderers can be held accountable for the actual crimes they commit,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Juliet Schmidt. “It’s not the sentencing; it’s justice, for the family’s sake.”

But defense attorneys question why prosecutors want to proceed, when the men are already serving prison terms, most of them lengthy. Both Friedmans were sentenced to life. The two others got lesser terms: Juan Galindo, 17 1/2 years; and Carlos Rodriguez, 39 years, later reduced to seven.

“The state wants to add on,” said appellate attorney Dennis A. Fischer, who represented Gary Friedman. “Instead of life” for the brothers, “they want death or life without parole.”

Defense attorneys fear that the decision will erode double-jeopardy rights in future cases.

“Will this open up a Pandora’s box? If prosecutors push it, it probably will,” said Cliff Gardner of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, a nonprofit organization that had urged the state high court to review the case.

Defense attorneys argued that the men could not be retried because state law holds that a defendant cannot be prosecuted in California if all of the acts necessary to prove the offense have been used in an earlier case in another state or country. Another state law says a defendant cannot be tried here if he or she has been acquitted or convicted of the same act in another state or country.

Defense lawyers maintained that the defendants couldn’t be tried in Los Angeles, because the prosecution would be based on the same evidence and the same acts -- including the traveling -- as the prosecution in New York.

But Deputy D.A. Schmidt argued that the district attorney’s office could prosecute, even if the evidence was the same in both cases, because the federal conviction did not require proof that the men had kidnapped the victims or committed murder.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal agreed with the prosecution, and the state Supreme Court declined to review the decision.

“The courts rejected our argument,” Fischer said. “So what am I to say?”

The case dates back more than a decade, according to court papers. Gary Friedman got involved in a cross-country drug-trafficking business in 1992 with a nightclub owner and friend, Howard Bloomgarden. Friedman headed the New York operation, and Kovach worked from California.

In 1993, Kovach decided to cut Bloomgarden and Friedman from the drug business. The next year, the Friedmans plotted to kidnap Kovach as a way to get back into the trafficking operation, according to the appellate decision.

Gary Friedman traveled -- with his brother and associate Ruben Hernandez -- to California but returned to New York before the killings, though he continued to provide “direction and financing” for the plot, the decision said. Juan Galindo was recruited as a replacement for Gary -- to join Kenneth Friedman and Hernandez. Rodriguez’s offense involved sending money to finance part of the crime, according to court papers.

In October 1994, the Kenneth Friedman, Hernandez and Galindo burst into the Galleria Telecom store and kidnapped Kovach and Gould, a bystander. They took the victims to a nearby motel and demanded money from Kovach before strangling them both, court papers said. Hernandez cooperated with the government and became a witness for the prosecution.

Kovach’s father, John, said learning that the murder case was going forward in California had been like a Christmas gift. But he was not sure he could attend another trial and have to hear again how his son died.

“In one way, as a parent, there is almost never enough justice,” said Kovach, who lives in Holland, Mich. “But it never brings Pete back.”