Trial Will Remain in Southland, Judge Rules

A judge ruled Friday that the upcoming trial of photographer Charles Rathbun, accused of sexually assaulting and killing model Linda Sobek, should not be moved outside Southern California despite publicity surrounding the case.

Torrance Superior Court Judge Donald F. Pitts also decided that testimony from four women, who allege that during the last 17 years Rathbun tried to either rape or assault them, could not be admitted in the trial, tentatively scheduled to begin Sept. 3.

Head Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen R. Kay had wanted evidence from a 1979 rape case to be admitted in the trial. Rathbun was accused of assaulting a woman he worked with in Ohio, but a judge found him not guilty.

On Friday, Pitts still had not ruled on one of the key pretrial motions requested by the district attorney’s office that could make or break the case.

Pitts will decide next week whether the prosecution can present evidence involving Rathbun’s leading investigators to Sobek’s body, which was buried in a shallow grave in the Angeles National Forest.

The defense argued that the evidence should be thrown out because Rathbun was not read his Miranda rights and that authorities repeatedly ignored his requests for an attorney while he was being questioned.

If the prosecution cannot use Rathbun’s statements leading to the discovery of the body on Nov. 24, the district attorney’s office will have to prove that authorities eventually would have found the body relatively intact.

If the body had been decomposed when found, it would have been difficult to prove sexual assault or death from asphyxiation.

Kay would then have to try the case without a body and without equally crucial evidence about the cause of death.

Testimony from investigators is scheduled to resume Monday about whether they could have found Sobek’s body without Rathbun’s help.