Woman, 61, Convicted in ‘War of the Roses’ Case : Trial: The guilty verdict takes only two hours. The defendant was accused of having two men threaten her ex-husband into signing a property settlement.

A jury took two hours Monday to convict a Laguna Beach woman accused of having two men use a lighted road flare to threaten her ex-husband into signing a $600,000 property settlement.

Helen Westin Ruppert, 61, faces six years in prison on charges of conspiracy, extortion, burglary and assault with a deadly weapon when she is sentenced Oct. 2 by Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin.

Ruppert, who remains free on $25,000 bail, said she was surprised by the verdict.

“All I can say is, I’m not guilty. I didn’t do it. . . . We chose not to retry the divorce,” she said.

Her ex-husband, Harold Ruppert, 65, testified during the trial but was not present when the verdict was announced. He said in an interview later that the jury’s decision “doesn’t make me happy,” adding that he had no opinion on whether his former wife should go to prison.

“The evidence was pretty one-sided,” he said. “But I’m not a vindictive person. I don’t wish her ill. I just want her out of my life. I am anxious to get on with my life and do something creative.”

Assistant Dist. Atty. James A. Coulter III said he would wait to see a probation report on Helen Ruppert before recommending a sentence.

Coulter said he discussed the case with three jurors after the verdict. They told him that the jury reached a quick consensus on three of the charges but took longer to decide on the assault count, since there was no evidence that Helen Ruppert knew the two men would use a lighted flare to threaten her ex-husband.

Ultimately, Coulter said, the jurors determined that the intimidation was a “naturally foreseeable consequence” of asking the two men to meet with her ex-husband.

Those two men, Richard William Nimmo and Ralph Thomas Pueschel, pleaded guilty earlier to their role in the incident and testified against Helen Ruppert.

Ruppert’s defense attorney, Gary M. Pohlson, said he was not entirely surprised by the verdict.

“She had two co-defendants testifying against her . . . ,” Pohlson said. “The trial went fairly well, but we went into it with our eyes open.”

Pohlson said his client is hoping for probation in light of the fact that Nimmo and Pueschel were sentenced to time served--three months for Nimmo, 67 days for Pueschel--plus probation.

The Rupperts’ 3 1/2-year marriage and five-year, post-divorce struggle over $11 million in assets has been likened to the movie “The War of the Roses.”

The couple still live in walled-off sections of their Laguna Beach home. Harold Ruppert described the living arrangements as “tortuous . . . with her in the penthouse and me in the servants’ quarters.”

He said he had seen “The War of the Roses” and enjoyed it and identified with it. However, he said, he found it “very mild compared to what we went through.” He and his ex-wife’s experience was “10 times worse,” he said.

It was in Harold Ruppert’s section of the house on Jan. 22, 1991, that Nimmo and Pueschel confronted the victim with a revised settlement that Helen Ruppert had drawn up.

That settlement would have given her the Rupperts’ Laguna Beach house, another piece of property, stocks and $30,000 in cash, netting her about $600,000 more than she received in a court-ordered settlement.

Nimmo testified that during the incident, he threatened to break Ruppert’s legs and told him: “Sign these papers or you’re a dead man.”

When Nimmo lighted the flare and held it near Ruppert’s groin, Nimmo asked: “How would you like to feel your flesh burn?”

Harold Ruppert signed the papers. He was not injured.

The jury’s message in the case, prosecutor Coulter said, was “keep your battles in the courtroom” and “don’t overstep the bounds of common decency,” even though the judicial system may be frustrating.

“We settle our differences in court,” he said. “That’s the way we handle things. You shouldn’t get a couple of thugs to do your dirty work.”