Sisters Won’t Talk to Police in Alleged Plot

Both sisters in a bizarre, botched murder plot have now refused to talk to police while the suspected target of the scheme, a veteran city prosecutor, is cooperating, authorities said Thursday.

Los Angeles police were informed that Lynette LaFontaine-Trujillo, who is hospitalized in intensive care with a gunshot wound suffered when the alleged plot went awry, has refused to be interviewed by detectives.

Capt. Ronald Bergmann, who oversees the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill police station, said he received a letter from her public defender stating that LaFontaine-Trujillo has asserted her 5th and 6th Amendment privileges--against self-incrimination and protecting her right to a fair trial.

A defense attorney, armed with a court order, appeared at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills earlier this week and was allowed to see LaFontaine-Trujillo, who remains under police supervision.

“This is just strange,” Bergmann said. “We’ll research it. In the past, it’s always been that the individual has to assert these rights. We’re not sure the public defender can assert these rights.”

LaFontaine-Trujillo’s younger sister, Nicole Garza, and the alleged mastermind of the scheme to kill Jose Garza, already has refused to be interviewed by police. She remains in custody at Van Nuys Jail on $1 million bail.

But Jose Garza, who spent about an hour on Wednesday afternoon with detectives, appears willing to cooperate with the police, Bergmann said. But he also said Jose Garza, 50, still appears to be “in shock” over the incident.

The law firm where Nicole Garza worked for the past year, which was searched by police and prosecutors Wednesday, also expressed its surprise that the 32-year-old lawyer would be involved in such a scheme.

“Nicole has always been a consummate professional during the course of her employment at our firm . . . and the charges against her are utterly inconsistent with the person we have come to know and respect,” said the written statement issued by Fredric J. Greenblatt of Greenblatt, Linde & Associates.

“We continue to view her as a loving, concerned wife and mother, who always seemed to us to be deeply in love with her husband and tremendously concerned about her children. Her office is filled with pictures of her husband and children, and we have always viewed Nicole as Jose Garza’s biggest fan and supporter.”

But police said Nicole Garza actually plotted with her sister to kill Jose. They say she sent him to the garage allegedly to fetch ice cream last Wednesday night. But once there, he exchanged shots with LaFontaine-Trujillo, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, dark glasses and a black wig.

Police say she was armed with a handgun provided by her sister from Jose Garza’s collection and fortified with promises of financial security once he was dead. Police found notes in LaFontaine--Trujillo’s car that they say indicates a murder-for-money plot.

The notes, pieced together by crime lab investigators, show that Nicole promised to take “the brunt of the questioning” and that she would “pass muster” with detectives, leaving police no reason to suspect LaFontaine-Trujillo.

But the plan went astray when Jose Garza, hearing his three dogs barking, took his handgun along to the garage. While he has refused to comment publicly, police say he believes this is a family tragedy and that he is shocked by the bizarre sequence of events.

Nonetheless, Bergmann said the prosecutor, who has worked for the city attorney’s San Fernando office since 1980 and currently is second in command, said he would help detectives in their investigation.

“He told [the homicide detectives] he would give them whatever they asked for,” Bergmann said.