Countywide : Charles Ng Murder Trial Fund Set Up

A special $2.5-million fund was set up by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to pay for the coming trial in Orange County of Charles Chitat Ng, who is accused of multiple murders in Northern California.

But the bankrupt county will not pay for the bill. Instead, the state and Calaveras County, where the case originated, will reimburse all costs under a special financing agreement reached in March between the Board of Supervisors and the other two parties.

“The citizens of Orange County will not pay a dime for any of this,” said Ron Coley, a county criminal justice analyst. “The fund has been established to ensure a 100% cost recovery program.”

The case was moved to Orange County in September because of defense concerns about extensive pretrial publicity in Northern California.

The fund will allow the county public defender’s office to cover all trial-related expenses--from guarding Ng to paying the travel expenses of witnesses to hiring additional staff for the case. The money will come from the state rural homicide fund.

Trial-related costs since September are expected to total $428,374 by June 30, Coley said. Next year, the costs are anticipated at $2 million, when the case is expected to go to trial.

The county public defender’s office asked that the case be moved back to Northern California, where the crimes were committed and where all but one of the victims lived.

But Ng’s attorneys contended that an impartial jury could not be found in Calaveras County.

Ng, 33, is accused of mutilating and killing 12 people on a remote ranch in Calaveras County in 1984 and 1985 and faces a possible death sentence if convicted. One of his victims was an Orange County resident, Robert Scott Stapley.