Judge Makes Closed Hearing Request Public

Details of a request to close a hearing in the case of a Woodland Hills lawyer accused in an alleged plot to kill her husband emerged Thursday when a judge unsealed a 2-week-old request for a gag order.

San Fernando Municipal Court Commissioner Gerald T. Richardson unsealed the documents after a lawyer for The Times argued that without them, it would be impossible to contest the move by Nicole Garza’s public defender to close the courtroom and silence the participants.

Defense attorney Marie Girolamo is seeking the measures to curtail pretrial publicity she contends might prejudice potential jurors.

The documents reveal that Garza, a 32-year-old mother of three, has “been contacted by TV producers who are most anxious to transform this family tragedy into a film for television.”

One producer, according to the documents, “went so far as to visit the defendant in jail without consent of counsel.”

Garza is charged with murder, attempted murder and conspiring with her sister, Lynette LaFontaine-Trujillo, to shoot and kill her 50-year-old husband, Jose, a deputy city attorney, at their Sylmar home.

According to police, the disguised LaFontaine-Trujillo, 35, was mortally wounded in an exchange of gunfire with Jose Garza in the garage, where he’d been sent by his wife to fetch some ice cream. He was not injured and told police he believed the person in his garage was a burglar.

Girolamo also cited Jose Garza’s privacy as a reason to close the courtroom: “The intended victim is a deputy city attorney whose privacy interests should be strongly considered. There is no justification for subjecting Mr. Garza and his children to the media attention this case is certain to produce.”

Times attorney Karlene Goller and experts in media law have said that existing court cases maintain that preliminary hearings should be public except in extreme circumstances.

The lawyers are expected to argue their positions Dec. 17.