Unrelated Charge Might Be Dropped for Murder Suspect

State prosecutors plan to ask a Ventura County judge next week to dismiss a misdemeanor spousal battery charge against suspected killer David Alvarez so they can focus entirely on the pending murder case against the Ojai man.

Alvarez was charged last month with murder and attempted rape in the slaying of 14-year-old Oak View resident Kali Manley. A preliminary hearing is set for May 25.

But before taking up the murder charges, state prosecutors are scheduled to try Alvarez, 22, on a single count of battery for allegedly assaulting his 20-year-old wife last summer.

In an application for a restraining order, Brooke Alvarez said her husband tried to force her into having sex on Aug. 14, 1998, and shoved her face into a bathroom mirror when she refused.

The alleged incident occurred at her mother’s home in Ojai a week after Brooke Alvarez filed for divorce.

“[He] kept trying to force himself upon me,” she wrote in a court declaration. “I went into the kitchen to use the phone. He followed and grabbed the phone from me. He pulled me into the bedroom. . . . He made it clear he wanted to have sex with me.”

Brooke Alvarez told authorities she yelled for her husband to leave her alone and deliberately kicked out a window to scare him off. She said she then locked herself in the bathroom with their 2-year-old son until Alvarez pried the lock open with a butter knife.

“[He] came into the bathroom, grabbed my cheeks and pushed my head against the cabinet,” she wrote in the declaration. “He also grabbed me on the lower part of my body.”

Alvarez pleaded not guilty to spousal battery on Sept. 2. The case was postponed several times and is now set for trial to begin Monday.

State prosecutors were scheduled to present the case to a jury at that time, but now say they want the matter dismissed so they can focus on the more severe charges against Alvarez.

“The presentation of evidence on this case at this time would act as an unnecessary diversion of our efforts, which are concentrated on the murder case,” said Bill Maile, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office.

Authorities say Alvarez picked up Kali Manley from a sleepover in Ojai sometime after midnight on Dec. 20, 1998, and attempted to rape her at a mobile home he had access to that morning.

When the teenager didn’t come home that day, her parents reported her missing--a move that triggered a weeklong search for the Nordhoff High School freshman.

On Dec. 26, Alvarez led authorities to her body, hidden in a drainage pipe in the mountains above Ojai. She had been strangled.

In addition to the murder charge, Alvarez faces an allegation that he killed Kali while or after attempting to force sex on her--making him eligible for the death penalty if convicted.

Brooke Alvarez could not be reached for comment Monday on the prosecution’s decision to dismiss the spousal battery charge.

Ventura defense attorney James M. Farley, who is representing Alvarez in both matters, welcomed the prosecution’s decision. Since he will not oppose the dismissal, a judge would have no reason not to grant the request, he said.

“I think they had some very serious problems anyway,” Farley said of the evidence against his client in the battery case. “I am very pleased about it.”

State prosecutors agreed in February to handle both the battery case and murder investigation at the request of Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury.

The defendant’s parents, Eugene and Marie Alvarez of Ojai, are Bradbury’s friends and political supporters, and the county’s top prosecutor feared an appearance of impropriety if his office handled either case.