PORT HUENEME : Not-Guilty Plea Entered in Slaying

A 27-year-old Oxnard tile-setter pleaded not guilty Friday to murder and robbery charges in the July 3 beating and strangulation of a 62-year-old Port Hueneme man.

Anthony Eugene Diaz entered the plea in Ventura County Municipal Court two days after police arrested him in the slaying of Bruce Eugene Pope, a self-employed free-lance business consultant.

Pope was taking care of two condominiums in a guarded complex in the 300 block of Lighthouse Way in Port Hueneme where the robbery occurred, police said. A renter who lived with Pope returned home to find the condo ransacked and called security guards, who later summoned police.

Police said Pope had been severely beaten with household objects and then strangled. Missing items included a television, videocassette recorder, computer, camera and cash.

Police believe that Diaz and Pope met by chance and that Diaz apparently decided to rob Pope after he had been invited to the condominium.

Police received a tip in August that helped them identify Diaz and link him to evidence at the scene, but Deputy Dist. Atty. James Ellison would not elaborate.

Diaz was held until Friday in lieu of $517,000 bail. Judge Steven E. Hintz, however, ordered Diaz held without bail because the district attorney’s office had accused him of the special circumstance of murder during a robbery, a potential death-penalty charge that allows no bail.

Ellison said his office will decide after the preliminary hearing, scheduled for Nov. 5, whether to seek the death penalty in Diaz’s case.