Key Testimony in ‘Wrong Way’ Trial Disputed

A defense witness in the trial of four gang members charged with the 1995 “wrong way” slaying of toddler Stephanie Kuhen testified Wednesday that a key prosecution witness, armed and nervous, told her on the night of the shooting that he had been a participant.

The testimony of self-described gang member Tara Hernandez, 23, was the most direct rebuttal to date of the prosecution’s pivotal witness, Marvin Pech, 20, who was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying against the four defendants now on trial.

Three weeks ago, former gang member Pech told a Los Angeles Superior Court jury that he was among perhaps two dozen gang members and associates who were present the night that the four defendants--Anthony Gabriel Rodriguez, 28, Manuel Rosales Jr., 22, and Hugo David Gomez and Augustin Lizama, both 17--allegedly took part in a bloody ambush in a Cypress Park neighborhood.

Under heavy security in Judge Edward Ferns’ courtroom, Pech, who had initially been arrested in the case, said he did not participate in the shooting. He came forward, he testified, because he did not want to be a “sinner” like those who blocked and then opened fire on a car carrying 3-year-old Stephanie and her family.

But after hearing Pech’s testimony, Hernandez said Wednesday, she notified Gomez’s attorney, Lawrence Forbes, that she had seen Pech with a gun the night of the shooting and heard him implicate himself in the incident, which occurred along a dark and narrow dead-end street. Stephanie’s mother and other family members have testified that they were trying to take a shortcut home when they mistakenly drove into the gang’s turf and came under fire.

Testifying that she was in the neighborhood north of downtown that night visiting a girlfriend, Hernandez said she walked out on the street and saw Pech holding a black semiautomatic pistol similar to those described by authorities as being used in the shooting.

“He was nervous . . . he was sweating,” Hernandez told the court under questioning by Forbes.

“Did he say anything to you?” Forbes asked.

“He said he just came back from the alley from blasting at someone,” Hernandez said.

While saying that she had known Pech since he was 9 and had three weeks earlier seen him with a gun, Hernandez testified that she quickly left him the night of the shooting because she was scared.

Although Hernandez was called as a witness in the defense of Gomez, her testimony challenging a key prosecution witness could have implications for all four defendants. Seeking to minimize that possibility, Deputy Dist. Atty. Eleanor Hunter sought to question Hernandez’s own recall of the event and her motive for testifying.

Hunter got Hernandez to acknowledge that she is a close friend of Gomez’s girlfriend and had come with that friend to the trial on more than one occasion.

Under cross-examination, Hernandez acknowledged that as a gang member she understood that it was “a bad thing” to be “a snitch.”

But even as Hunter challenged Hernandez’s delay in coming forward with her allegations about Pech, the defense witness calmly maintained that she was not upset with Pech and that she had given up the more violent aspects of gang life three years ago.

While Hernandez’s testimony contradicted Pech’s claim that he did not participate in the shooting, it could bolster another defense argument: that the shooting was a tragedy that resulted because the gang members on the street feared that they were about to be wounded or killed in a drive-by attack.

Toward that end, Forbes argued that when the case goes to the jurors, possibly as early as Wednesday, they should be allowed to consider testimony by Pech and others that there was panic on the street as the shooting occurred.

That alone, Forbes maintained, would give the jury the possibility of returning a voluntary manslaughter verdict for his client.

But Ferns refused the attorney’s request.