Defence lawyers say US reality TV producer hopes to avoid Mexico trial in wife's death The USA Times

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Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Defence lawyers say US reality TV producer hopes to avoid Mexico trial in wife's death

(AP Photo/PGJQR)

CANCUN, Mexico - Lawyers for a U.S. reality television producer facing trial for allegedly murdering his wife at a Mexican resort said Thursday they hope to persuade a judge to drop the charges and free their client.

Jaime Cancino Leon, an attorney for former "Survivor" producer Bruce Beresford-Redman, said he had found inconsistencies in the prosecution case, but did not elaborate.

Beresford-Redman appeared for an initial hearing, where a judge read the homicide charges filed against him. He did not immediately enter a plea.

Cancino Leon said the defence will ask for an additional three days to make their case for dismissal, which would extend to a total of six days the time that the judge has to either dismiss the charges or order a trial.

Carlos Grajales Betancourt, another defence lawyer, said the defence team also will present evidence in his client's favour.

The defendant has denied that he killed his wife, Monica, during an April 2010 vacation in the Caribbean coast resort of Cancun.

The Quintana Roo state attorney general, Gaspar Armando Garcia Torres, said he expects the judge to order the case to go to trial.

The body of Monica Beresford-Redman was found in a sewer cistern at a swank resort during a family vacation. The couple had gone there with their young children in an attempt to save their marriage after she learned her husband was cheating on her.

He was flown in to Cancun early Thursday escorted by nearly a dozen Mexican agents.

The U.S. Marshals Service turned the Emmy-nominated producer over to Mexican federal police Wednesday, roughly two weeks after State Department officials signed a warrant clearing his extradition.

Beresford-Redman opted in December not to appeal a U.S. court ruling upholding his extradition.

Part of the evidence in the case includes statements from hotel guests who said they heard loud arguing and cries of distress coming from the couple's room on the night Monica Beresford-Redman went missing.

The producer's lawyers have said the noises came from Beresford-Redman and his children playing loud games throughout the night and say there isn't any forensic evidence that he killed his wife.