COUNTYWIDE : Undertaker Unable to Get Trial Moved

A Pasadena undertaker who is accused of poisoning a rival mortician with oleander failed Friday in his attempts to have his murder trial held in Los Angeles instead of Ventura and to have two Los Angeles prosecutors excused from the case.

Ventura County Municipal Judge Lee E. Cooper Jr. denied motions filed by David Wayne Sconce requesting a change of venue and asking that Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Attys. Harvey Giss and James E. Rogan be barred from the case.

Sconce, 33, is accused of killing Timothy R. Waters, 24, who died of oleander poisoning in Simi Valley in 1985. Giss and Rogan were appointed special Ventura County deputy district attorneys because their office won a conviction against Sconce for illegally operating his family’s mortuary in Hesperia.

On Friday, defense attorney Roger J. Diamond argued that Sconce should be tried in Los Angeles County because that is likely where Waters was poisoned. But Cooper said the murder is not considered to have been committed until the victim dies, and Sconce should be tried in Ventura County because Waters died there.

After denying the motion to move the case, Cooper said the judge at the preliminary hearing scheduled for Oct. 1 should decide whether Sconce should be tried in Ventura County on murder charges.

Diamond also argued that Giss and Rogan should be excused because of a conflict of interest: Sconce has been charged with trying to hire someone to kill one of their colleagues, Los Angles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Walter H. Lewis, Diamond said.

Diamond also expressed concern that Giss would use testimony from Los Angeles jail inmates who allegedly heard Sconce confess to Waters’ poisoning. A Los Angeles County grand jury found in July that the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has tolerated suspected perjury by jailhouse informants to help win murder cases. But the grand jury made no indictments or recommendations on the practice.

However, Giss emphatically told Cooper that he would not use jailhouse witnesses in Sconce’s case.

And Giss said Friday that he was chosen for the Sconce case specifically because he knows Lewis only casually.

Cooper ruled that no conflict of interest exists.