Judge Postpones Brando Trial as D.A. Seek Sister’s Testimony

An international battle over prosecution efforts to force Marlon Brando’s daughter back to the United States from Tahiti led a Santa Monica judge Thursday to postpone the murder trial of Brando’s son.

Superior Court Judge Robert Thomas gave prosecutors more time to continue legal efforts to obtain the testimony of Cheyenne Brando in the trial of her half brother for the killing of her Tahitian lover.

But later in the day, another Santa Monica judge refused a prosecution request for help in getting the potential star witness to return from Tahiti to testify. After an hourlong hearing, Superior Court Judge Joel Rudof said he did not have the power to contact French Polynesian authorities regarding the status of Cheyenne Brando.

Prosecutors said Rudof’s ruling means the former fashion model will probably not be able to testify against Christian Brando, 31, who is free on $2-million bail.

Thomas set a tentative date of Nov. 5 for a trial that had been scheduled to start next week. But the judge said that date also could change if witnesses are unable to readjust their schedules.

The delay was vehemently opposed by defense attorney Robert L. Shapiro, who insisted that the trial should go forward as quickly as possible. He said Cheyenne Brando was mentally unstable and would not be a credible witness, even if she returned from Tahiti and agreed to testify about the May 16 shooting of her boyfriend, 26-year-old Dag Drollet.

Shapiro told the judge that Cheyenne Brando has given five conflicting statements to authorities about the slaying at her father’s hilltop estate. He said that in one statement Cheyenne even implicated another person in the killing. Outside court, the lawyer declined to elaborate on that comment.

“The prosecution knows that Cheyenne Brando is a mentally and emotionally disturbed young lady and no one could rely on anything she said,” Shapiro told the judge.

The lawyer said she fled to Tahiti because she was not getting along with her father.

Since Cheyenne Brando gave birth to Drollet’s child in June, she has been in a Tahitian sanitarium where she is kept sedated, according to a previous court session.

To complicate matters, Drollet’s parents have charged her under French law with complicity in their son’s death. Because of that charge, the 20-year-old woman does not have permission to leave Tahiti, even if she decided to return voluntarily. Tahiti is a French island territory in the South Pacific.

Marlon Brando, who did not appear at Thursday’s court hearing, suggested last week that his daughter was being unfairly hounded by prosecutors and was too sick to testify.

The prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven Barshop, said that if all efforts to gain Cheyenne Brando’s testimony fail by November, he would go ahead with the trial and present other witnesses.

Outside court, Shapiro was asked if there remains a chance of a plea bargain.

“There’s always a chance,” he said.