‘Bound to end in tragedy’
Family recalls abuse by slain Bell Gardens mayor as his wife is sentenced to jail.
Daniel Nicholas Crespo described his father as a complicated man. He was the dedicated mayor of Bell Gardens — a leader with a capacity for good who loved to listen to the Bee Gees.
But he was also “a liar, a bully, a cheater” — a violent husband and father who abused his family with his hands and with his words, according to his son.
“He had a lot of demons,” Crespo said, “and unfortunately, the demons won.”
His statements Friday came during an emotional hearing, in which Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy sentenced the 22-yearold’s mother, Lyvette Crespo, to 90 days in jail and five years’ probation for killing his father, Daniel Crespo.
The sentencing came after Lyvette Crespo, who told authorities that she was a battered wife and that she shot her husband to keep him from hurting their son, negotiated a plea deal with prosecutors.
In issuing her ruling, Kennedy called the couple’s relationship a “case study” in the “pain, hurt and scarring” caused by domestic violence.
“This was bound to end in tragedy,” she said. “I believe that she was abused throughout their marriage. I
don’t think it warrants a prison sentence.”
Before the judge’s ruling, the mayor’s brother, William Crespo — who is suing his sister-in-law and has condemned her plea deal as too lenient — walked to the lectern. He wasn’t feeling well, so his civil attorney read a statement aloud.
“You can’t take the law into your own hands and that’s exactly what she did,” William Crespo wrote. “Lyvette chose to execute him in cold blood. Daniel was no angel but Lyvette surely is the devil.”
A few minutes later, the couple’s son addressed the court, saying he believed his mother had saved his life. Before the shooting, his father punched him in the face. Since then, he told the judge, he’s had to wear eyeglasses. Eventually, he looked toward his mother.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” he said. “I wish that I was stronger and that I could’ve done something to stop him. But this is our life now.”
A few minutes later, he addressed his uncle, saying, “You have no idea what my father did.”
William Crespo mumbled back: “Call 911 instead of shooting.”
Before issuing her ruling, Kennedy spoke directly to the couple’s son. “It wasn’t your fault,” she told him. “You did the best you could.”
The judge said that although Lyvette Crespo was “not Mother Teresa,” she believed the mayor “controlled all the levers in that relationship” and was “absolutely cruel to his wife.”
“It’s sort of hard to understand when someone looks from the outside .... They’d say, ‘Why didn’t she just get out? Why didn’t she leave him?’ ” Kennedy said. “But I’m familiar with the cycle of violence.”
Crespo, 45, sobbed throughout the hearing, occasionally turning to look at her children. Before she was taken into custody, the judge addressed her, saying, “Good luck.”
In November, Crespo struck a deal with the district attorney’s office: In exchange for pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter, she was offered a 90-day jail sentence and five years’ probation.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman told reporters at the time that although the shooting was a crime, spousal abuse played a factor in her decision to offer Crespo a plea. “Not every case is deserving of the max sentence,” the prosecutor said.
As word spread about the Sept. 30, 2014, killing, theories began to swirl through the southeast Los Angeles County city. Some wondered whether it was a politically motivated hit. The mayor had fielded his share of threats over the years, including the time a man posted a picture on Facebook of a dead rat on top of a Crespo campaign sign, prompting the city to cancel a public meeting.
So when the story line shifted to Daniel Crespo’s wife — his high school sweetheart — many in the community were stunned.
In extensive interviews after the shooting, Lyvette Crespo told sheriff ’s investigators that she shot her husband to defend her son, who had intervened as the couple was fighting. She said she grabbed a handgun and shot the mayor after he punched their son in the face.
Sheriff’s officials at the time said that both Lyvette Crespo and her son — who backed up his mother’s claim that she acted to save him — had facial injuries requiring treatment. Seven months later, a grand jury indicted her for voluntary manslaughter in her husband’s slaying.
The homicide investigation trudged up details of a fractured, violent relationship.
Daniel Crespo had numerous affairs, which he sometimes went out of his way to rub in his wife’s face, according to grand jury testimony.
He took a trip to Las Vegas with a girlfriend, presenting her with a ring for a faux wedding, and sent his wife an audio recording of him bragging to a colleague about his hook-ups. He rented out rooms in a sixbedroom home, but kept one free as a spot to meet up with women during his lunch breaks. His wife knew about the room, nicknaming it the “man cave.”
Prosecutors also presented the grand jury with a series of angry text messages between the couple, including some in which Lyvette Crespo appeared to threaten her husband, according to the transcripts.
“I’ll find out who … u got flowers for. Has to be a bell gardens whore,” read one of the messages sent to Daniel Crespo’s phone months before the shooting.
Soon came a reply from his number: “It better [be the] last time U threaten to shoot me in [the] head!!!”
In another exchange — sent less than an hour before the shooting — Daniel Crespo wrote: “When I get home, let’s see how you will respond .... With the rage I have, woman, you shouldn’t be pushing my buttons.”
The couple’s son testified to the grand jurors, saying his father had long been violent. He’d seen his father push his sister against a closet, one hand around her neck. In another incident, his mother was punched in the face. The punch happened on a drive home from church, he said, because his father thought he caught Lyvette Crespo looking at another man.
‘Lyvette chose to execute him in cold blood. Daniel was no angel but Lyvette surely is the devil.’ — William Crespo, describing his sister-in-law’s 2014 killing of his brother