Judge to Consider Sanchez Request

Attorneys for accused killer Vincent Sanchez, arguing that prosecutors misled a Ventura County grand jury, urged a judge Monday to dismiss two allegations that make him eligible for the death penalty.

Sanchez, a 31-year-old unemployed carpenter, could be executed if jurors find that he killed 20-year-old Moorpark College student Megan Barroso during an attempted rape and kidnapping last year.

Barroso disappeared July 4 and her remains were found a month later in a shallow grave near Simi Valley. Authorities linked the killing to Sanchez after he was arrested in connection with a string of rapes and sexual assaults in eastern Ventura County.

When presenting the murder case to a grand jury in mid-August, prosecutors argued that Sanchez abducted Barroso after shooting her in the abdomen with an assault weapon as she drove home from a party.

The grand jury also learned that two strips of twine were found embedded in Barroso’s badly decomposed body, one on her neck and one along her hip.

During a pretrial hearing Monday, Chief Deputy Public Defender Neil Quinn, who is representing Sanchez, argued that prosecutors led the grand jury to believe the twine was used to tie up Barroso, while disregarding an alternate theory favorable to his client.

Quinn pointed to testimony presented Monday that other pieces of twine, wrapped around bundles of twigs, were found in the ravine where Barroso’s body was recovered.

The twine found on Barroso’s body was simply debris dumped with someone’s yard waste, Quinn suggested, and not evidence of a kidnapping or attempted rape.

“There is this other explanation,” Quinn said. “The grand jury did not have the true facts to work with.”

As a result, he concluded, the murder indictment should not stand because the grand jury was prejudiced against his client by prosecutors who knew or should have known that evidence favorable to Sanchez existed.

But Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Lela Henke-Dobroth told Superior Court Judge Ken Riley that at the time of the indictment, the prosecution team was unaware that bundles of twigs wrapped with a similar type of twine were found in the ravine.

Henke-Dobroth said there was no way she could be expected to present evidence favorable to the defendant if she didn’t know it existed.

“The issue here is very narrow,” she argued. “What did law enforcement know, and what was conveyed to the district attorney’s office?”

Riley took the issue under advisement and is expected to rule in the coming week. Lawyers are scheduled to return to court this afternoon to take up another defense motion. Sanchez’s trial is set for March 11.