2 to Be Tried in Shooting of Wells Fargo Guard : Courts: Judge maintains attempted-murder charges. Wounded man is recovering better than expected.

As a Wells Fargo guard continued his surprising recovery from injuries suffered in a botched holdup, two men implicated in his shooting were ordered Friday to stand trial on attempted-murder charges.

Relatives of victim John Statkus, 25, of Fullerton, brain-damaged and largely incapacitated in the May 16 shooting in Garden Grove, attended the hearing in Municipal Court in Westminster. They grimaced on occasion as lawyers for the defendants made their points. They even put in an unusual request to take pictures of the two handcuffed defendants in court.

“I want (the photos) to use as a dart board,” said Carrie Statkus, whose husband has now shown some signs of recovery at a county rehabilitation home. “I deserve one.”

Photograph requests from people other than the news media are rare in court. Judge James H. Poole denied this one with little comment, citing opposition from defense attorneys.

Defendants Thomas A. Chaney, 28, and Gilbert O. Green, 22, both of Ontario, have each pleaded innocent to attempted murder, robbery and other charges, as has a third suspect being tried separately.

Chaney worked along with Statkus at the Wells Fargo Armored Services Corp. but was fired weeks before the May 16 robbery for allegedly stealing funds.

Chaney and Green are scheduled to appear July 8 in Superior Court in Santa Ana for trial. They face life in prison if convicted.

At Friday’s hearing, defense attorneys tried to show that it was the third man in the scheme who pulled the trigger and should be held accountable for attempted murder, not Chaney and Green.

The defendants’ intent, their lawyers said, was to rob Statkus’ armored truck.

But Orange County Dist. Atty. Ron Cafferty argued that death is a possible and even “natural” product “any time you plan to do an armed robbery of an armed courier.”

Cafferty acknowledged: “I don’t think they clearly intended to shoot him from the very beginning--I hope they didn’t. It looks like it was a plan that went askew.”

Nonetheless, the prosecutor said, there is “key evidence” indicating the attempted murder and the events that led up to it arose from “a cold, calculated judgment” under the law.

As a result, he said, “Mr. Green and Mr. Chaney are just as liable” as the alleged shooter in the robbery, Marc A. Blount, 25, of Pomona, who was arrested in Las Vegas several weeks after the crime. He is to face separate criminal proceedings in July.

Judge Poole agreed. While he dropped a kidnaping-for-robbery charge against the two defendants, he kept intact the key attempted-murder charge, saying that the shooting “was not just a rash impulse done in a short time . . . due to panic.”

Poole’s decision to order Green and Chaney to stand trial came as little surprise. The defense lawyers indicated beforehand that they expected as much. And attorney Donald Rubright told his client, Green, before the hearing: “Don’t expect any miracles.”

The judge also refused to throw out potentially damaging taped statements that both Green and Chaney gave to police after their arrests, in which each gave an extensive account about the robbery and its planning.

Ruling that the defendants were properly read their rights guaranteeing them attorneys, Poole said: “I have to say that I did find in the context and totality there was no compulsion or cajoling or misleading or tricks” used by police to obtain the defendants’ statements.

According to those statements and investigators’ accounts, the three men made plans up to five days ahead of time to hit a Wells Fargo armored truck. They knew Statkus’ route because Chaney had driven it himself, authorities said, and they planned to knock Statkus out and handcuff him during a stop at a 7-Eleven store, then drive the armored vehicle away with the money.

Statkus was carrying about $185,000 at the time of the holdup. His job was to restock automated teller machines at several locations in the Garden Grove area.

Prosecutors allege that Blount pushed Statkus into the armored truck and then shot him several times--hitting him twice in the head--before he and his accomplices split up in their attempted getaway. They got no money. And Chaney and Green were quickly tracked down through the aid of an eyewitness’s notation of the license plate of their fleeing car.

Initially, doctors said Statkus did not appear likely to live.

But Carrie Statkus, buoyed by her husband’s progress and by the support she has received from friends and strangers alike, said he has managed to prove the doctors wrong.

“It shocks the hell out of me every time I see him,” she said.

With a bullet still lodged in his skull, Statkus is still sometimes unable to recognize family members or remember things about his own past. He can’t form many sentences, family members say. And he still doesn’t know what happened to him on May 16.

But Carrie Statkus, noting that doctors predicted her husband would be paralyzed for life, said he has been able to walk with a crutch during therapy and “he’s starting to squeeze his right hand.”

She added, “He can say a few words if I ask him to repeat after me.”

Said prosecutor Cafferty: “It sounds like he’s doing remarkably well--a near-miracle.”