Conviction in killing of Laguna Beach hotel worker overturned

A state appeals court has overturned the 2013 murder conviction of a Lake Forest man accused of killing a Hotel Laguna catering manager in Laguna Beach nearly seven years ago, citing errors by police.

In December 2013, an Orange County Superior Court jury found Matthew Thomas Dragna guilty of one felony count of special-circumstances murder during commission of a robbery in the bludgeoning death of Damon Nicholson at Nicholson’s apartment on Oct. 23, 2009.

But in a ruling last week, a three-judge panel said Laguna Beach police erred in continuing to question Dragna after he said he wanted to speak with a lawyer following his arrest.

“Dragna’s police statements were a centerpiece of the prosecution’s case,” Associate Justice Richard Aronson wrote in the ruling. “Indeed, they led the prosecutor to describe [Dragna] as his ‘star witness.’ ”

Join the conversation on Facebook >>

The attorney general described as “harmless” any error in including these statements by Dragna because compelling evidence pointed to his guilt, including his DNA found at the scene, but the appeals court counters that assertion, Aronson wrote. The judge said that “the flaw in the attorney general’s position is that none of this or similar evidence established when Dragna was at the crime scene.”

On the day of his arrest, before arriving at the police station, Dragna told officers, “You guys have me in a situation where I don’t even know what to do right now. I have to talk to a lawyer,” according to an excerpt from the court ruling.

Once at the police station, according to court records, officers advised Dragna of his Miranda rights, which include the right to an attorney and to remain silent as protection against self-incrimination.

According to the ruling, the state attorney general said in a court brief that Dragna “initiated further conversation with the police when he asked the officers, ‘So what do you guys wanna know?’ ”

Dragna’s “expressed willingness to answer questions after acknowledging his Miranda rights was sufficient to constitute an implied waiver of such rights,” the state attorney general continued.

The appeals court disagreed.

Dragna, now 26, admitted he had gone to Nicholson’s Dolphin Way apartment the day before the murder to have sex with Nicholson, 40, and returned a day later with Jacob Quintanilla, a friend whom Dragna believed “would be interested in similar [sexual] acts,” according to court records.

Dragna claimed he stayed in the car to smoke cigarettes and marijuana and that Quintanilla told him he had argued with Nicholson, “struck him with a bat to knock him out, but killed him,” the court ruling said.

Nicholson was found with a fractured skull and a red, oval bruise above his left hip in his apartment, according to prosecutors.

Dragna was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole and remains in state prison.

The Orange County district attorney’s office will retry the case, spokeswoman Roxi Fyad wrote in an email.

Quintanilla is awaiting trial.

bryce.alderton@latimes.com

Twitter: @AldertonBryce