Judge denies request to delay trial in OCC students’ killings

The gruesome case of the slayings of two Orange Coast College students may be headed to trial nearly five years after their deaths.

On Tuesday, Orange County Superior Court Judge James Stotler declined to push back a February trial date for murder defendant Daniel Patrick Wozniak. His defense team had pleaded that it needs more time to prepare a motion that would allege a broad conspiracy between the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and district attorney’s office to hide evidence that would help criminal defendants.

Wozniak 30, is accused of killing Sam Herr and Juri “Julie” Kibuishi in 2010, dismembering Herr in an attempt to hide the body and then staging Kibuishi’s body to look as if she had been sexually assaulted by Herr.

Wozniak later confessed to killing the two friends so he could steal money from Herr’s bank account, according to grand jury transcripts released in 2012. Herr had about $50,000 in his account following his combat service in Afghanistan.

Recently, the two murder charges Wozniak faces have been overshadowed by his lawyer’s allegations of misconduct in the district attorney’s office and Orange County jails.

“My argument is that the way they conduct discovery in Orange County right now is so failed ... that a defendant in a capital case cannot get a fair trial,” public defender Scott Sanders said Tuesday.

Sanders first raised the accusations during another trial. He also represents Scott Dekraai, who pleaded guilty this year to eight counts of murder in Orange County’s deadliest mass shooting, at a Seal Beach hair salon in October 2011.

In Dekraai’s case, Sanders alleged — among other things — that sheriff’s deputies in the jails unconstitutionally sent informants to coax information from criminal defendants and that prosecutors wrongfully concealed evidence that was helpful to defendants.

Judge Thomas Goethals ruled in August that there were some lapses by authorities, but he declined to take the death penalty for Dekraai off the table, as Sanders had asked.

However, this month Goethals reopened the hearings after Sanders made new allegations.

To the ire of prosecutors and family members, Sanders has repeatedly asked for more time to file a motion in the Wozniak case outlining similar accusations.

“It has nothing to do with our case,” Wozniak prosecutor Matt Murphy said Tuesday, insisting he has turned over all evidence to Sanders and will not use testimony from a jailhouse informant.

Murphy told Stotler that key witnesses are ill and may not be able to testify if the case — which is 17 months older than the Dekraai matter — drags on much longer.

“This is becoming a farce,” Murphy said.

Sanders had been scheduled to file his motion Wednesday, but Stotler agreed to give him until Jan. 23 to submit the paperwork.

“I’m asking you folks to make a concerted effort to file,” Stotler said.

Sanders said it would be impossible to meet that deadline, but the judge did not push back the Feb. 13 trial date.

“Right now I see this as a never-ending process,” Stotler said. “I’ve given you months, months to file this.”