Garibay Pleads Not Guilty to Aiding in Bank Robbery

While TV production companies continued angling for a movie-of-the-week deal, a former Newbury Park High School soccer star denied federal charges here Monday that she helped her wrestling champ boyfriend rob a bank.

Twenty-year-old Tabetha Sue Garibay stood red-eyed before U.S. Magistrate Virginia A. Phillips in U.S. Magistrate Court and pleaded not guilty to aiding and abetting a bank robbery.

Her boyfriend, Todd Hoult, 23, pleaded not guilty last Tuesday to charges that he robbed the Coast Federal Bank in Westlake Village on Dec. 14 with Garibay’s help.

Prosecutors charge that while Garibay waited outside in her gold Corvette, Hoult walked into the bank wearing a ski mask and waved a semiautomatic pistol at two tellers. After they gave him $8,925 in cash, Hoult ran out, hopped back into the car and rode off with Garibay at the wheel, prosecutors said.

The car was found abandoned several miles away, and inside police found two plane tickets for North Carolina, where some of Hoult’s kin live, prosecutors have said.

On Monday, Phillips scheduled a trial for Hoult and Garibay on April 30 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

Garibay--dressed casually in black jeans, a white Angora sweater and a pager on her belt--arrived at court Monday with an older woman whom her lawyer identified as her grandmother.

When called by the court clerk, she stepped before Philips, waived a formal reading of the grand jury indictment against her, and answered in a quiet voice, “not guilty.”

But Garibay said little else in court and left the building, still free on $25,000 bail. Hoult is being held at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles.

Garibay also declined to be interviewed about the Bonnie-and-Clyde allegations against her and Hoult that have enticed Hollywood production companies to call defense lawyer Shawn Perez voicing interest in a movie deal.

At least four companies have approached Perez, but the attorney said Monday that he and Garibay have not approved any deal yet.

Right now, Perez said, he is weighing whether he will even be able to continue as Garibay’s attorney in the criminal case because of a potential conflict of interest.

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And on Monday--for the time being, at least--Perez temporarily stepped aside as Garibay’s lawyer until he and Assistant U.S. Atty. Andre Birotte Jr. can determine whether the conflict is enough to bar Perez from representing her. Birotte declined to comment on the case.

An attorney usually cannot represent two defendants charged in the same case, so the court has appointed Federal Assistant Public Defender Myra Sun to represent Hoult.

But a further conflict may exist, Perez said, because he talked confidentially with Hoult and Garibay in separate conversations just after they were indicted Feb. 28.

“We’ll have to resolve that amongst the attorneys,” he said. “I have to really take a second look.”

If convicted, Garibay faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison while Hoult faces up to 25, prosecutors have said.