Witness Marries Shooting Defendant : Courts: Marcie James stuns prosecutors in testifying she wed Newbury Park High School football star Leodes Van Buren on July 8.

The key witness against a football star accused of shooting up a Newbury Park house last April stunned prosecutors Tuesday by testifying that she is now the defendant’s wife.

Marcie James, 20, told a Ventura County Superior Court jury that she wed Newbury Park High School football star Leodes Van Buren in Las Vegas on July 8--three months to the day after he allegedly fired a bullet through her back door.

“It took me about 15 seconds to collect my wits,” Deputy Dist. Atty. James Grunert said after the disclosure.

James said she married Van Buren in an attempt to regain custody of the couple’s 2-year-old daughter. She said she granted her parents legal custody immediately after the girl was born to make the child eligible for the grandparents’ health benefits.

Van Buren, a 19-year-old standout wide receiver, planned to attend the University of Colorado on a football scholarship this fall. But since the shooting, the university has said he is not academically eligible, and Van Buren has said he wants out of the letter of intent he signed with the school.

James was the first witness Tuesday when Van Buren went on trial on a felony charge of shooting at an occupied dwelling. No one was hurt in the incident.

Immediately after the April 8 attack, she testified, she told her parents and police that Van Buren had fired the gun through the back door. She said he was angry that she would not let him inside to discuss their breakup the night before.

But in police interviews and court testimony since then, James has given differing accounts.

On April 9, James testified Tuesday, she told her parents and investigators that another man, one she had never seen before, actually fired the gun.

Then, in an interview with investigators on May 4, James changed her story again, she acknowledged Tuesday. This time, she told police that Van Buren acted alone and that he had threatened her life and the lives of her family members since the incident.

At the preliminary hearing in Municipal Court on May 26, James again reversed her statements, insisting that Van Buren did not fire at the Newbury Park home.

And on Tuesday, she testified that a companion of the defendant had fired at the house.

“I shouldn’t have said Leodes did it, but I did,” James told the jury, adding that she had been angry with the defendant for cheating on her.

Defense attorney John B. Miller of Woodland Hills said he knew a week ago about his client’s Las Vegas wedding. But he said he decided not to assert the defendant’s right not to have his wife testify against him. To do so, he said, might suggest that James was hiding something.

“It could have backfired,” Miller said. “We’re going on the facts (of the shooting), not on the fact they were married.”

Prosecutor Grunert said because all of the incidents surrounding the case occurred before the wedding, the testimony would be allowed in any case.

Within minutes of the shooting, Ventura County sheriff’s deputies arrested Van Buren at his home while he was on the phone confessing the crime to an emergency 911 dispatcher, Grunert said in his opening statement.

The prosecutor plans to call the dispatcher to the witness stand today.

Investigators testified Tuesday that Van Buren, who faces up to seven years in prison if convicted, also confessed to them.

“He said, ‘I don’t deny it,’ ” Deputy Larry House told jurors. “That’s a quotation.”

Deputies also testified Tuesday that they found a bullet inside the defendant’s car and a handgun case under the mattress in his bedroom after Van Buren gave them permission to search his room and car.

Van Buren grew up in South-Central Los Angeles, but moved to the Newbury Park home of his sixth-grade teacher, Kenneth McGee, when McGee offered to provide him a safer upbringing.

Van Buren had a state-record 269 receptions and 4,456 yards receiving during his prep career.