Accused Attacker of Eu Held for Trial

A 27-year-old prison parolee was ordered Wednesday to stand trial in the robbery of Secretary of State March Fong Eu after a hearing in which the key evidence was a fingerprint on a blood-stained envelope discovered by chance a block from Eu’s Hancock Park home.

Eu testified calmly about the Nov. 10 attack in which she suffered three broken ribs, facial cuts and torn cartilage in her ear that required surgery. But she was unable to identify defendant Gregory Lee Moore as her assailant during his preliminary hearing in Los Angeles Municipal Court.

Eu said the intruder hit her repeatedly with the blunt end of a hatchet, dragged her through the house by her hair, and escaped with two envelopes, one of which contained four $100 bills and the other an undisclosed number of $2 bills.

Moore’s thumbprint was later found in a bloodstain on one of the envelopes, Peggy Fiderio, a Police Department fingerprint expert, testified.

Lisa Mulvey, who lives in an apartment building a block away from Eu’s home in the gated enclave on Fremont Place, testified that the morning after the robbery she spotted two envelopes littering the sidewalk and tossed them in her car, intending to discard them.

Unaware of the attack on the secretary of state, Mulvey failed to notice that the envelopes were covered with blood and that one was addressed to “Dr. Eu” and the other was official stationery from the secretary of state’s office.

Four days later, Mulvey said, after she had heard about the robbery, her husband happened to see the envelopes lying on the floorboard of their car, where she had left them, and realized that they might be connected to the case. The couple immediately contacted police.

During her testimony, Eu said that although she picked Moore from a police lineup on the basis of his voice, she could not be certain she had the right man since the assailant had been behind her during the attack.

Pointing to Moore, Deputy Dist. Atty. Antonio Barreto Jr. asked Eu: “Can you say at this time with any certainty whether he is the person who assaulted you?”

“No,” she replied.

Later, Eu told reporters she had recovered from her injuries. “I’m feeling very well, thank you,” she said.

Arrested Nov. 21, Moore had previously been ordered to stand trial for five counts of burglary and three counts of robbery in connection with break-ins in Hancock Park and Beverly Hills. His Superior Court arraignment on the additional counts was set for Feb. 5.

Charges relating to Eu were dismissed and had to be refiled because the secretary of state was in Taiwan during the first preliminary hearing last month.