Judge excludes victim’s letter
Prosecutors: records don’t apply in murder case against Montalvo’s ex-husband and father-in-law
Several motions were granted by a judge in the trial of two men accused of killing St. Cloud woman Nicole Montalvo, including one that excludes as evidence records showing she attempted to lift a domestic violence injunction against her estranged husband.
Prosecutors said Friday that they sought to exclude those records, among them a letter written to a judge by Montalvo pleading to lift the order, because they don’t intend to argue at trial that Montalvo was afraid of Christopher Otero-Rivera and his family.
Otero-Rivera and his father, Angel Rivera, are charged with second-degree murder, abuse of a dead body and tampering with physical evidence in the October 2019 killing and dismemberment of Montalvo. Their trial is scheduled for April 5.
Migdalia Perez, Otero-Rivera’s lawyer, said excluding the records would “handcuff the defense” by undermining their ability to establish that Montalvo was looking to co-parent the couple’s child before she was killed. But prosecutors said they don’t plan on bringing up the injunction at all.
“If we were to admit a statement that Ms. Montalvo was fearful of the defendants, I think it would be relevant that she had written a statement,” Assistant State Attorney Ryan Williams said. “We have no intention of doing that.”
Circuit Judge Keith Carsten granted the motion, with the caveat that the decision could change depending on trial strategies and witness testimony.
Carsten also granted a motion to exclude evidence of gun ownership by the Rivera family after the defense argued that the weapons and ammunition couldn’t be tied to the murder. Rivera, Otero-Rivera’s father and co-defendant, was initially charged with possessing guns as a convicted felon, charges which were later dropped.
But the judge ruled to allow photo evidence of machetes, saws and knives found inside a workshop on the Riveras’ Hixon Avenue property, despite claims from defense attorneys that tests performed on the tools showed no evidence that they were used to kill or dismember Montalvo, whose remains were found on that and another property owned by the family.
Frank Bankowitz, Rivera’s lawyer, said it was an attempt by the state to “throw stuff at the wall and hop[ing] something sticks.”
Prosecutors countered that they are prepared to include expert testimony that the dismemberment of
Montalvo’s remains, including the absence of significant amounts of blood, was “an involved process where multiple tools were used.”
“We believe that it’s relevant that there were tools on the property capable, according to expert testimony, of creating this dismemberment,” Williams said. “I will not argue that they are tools, because I can’t say [for sure that they were the ones used during the crime].”
Carsten also decided to defer judgment on a defense motion to exclude certain “gruesome” crime scene photos from evidence, an argument Perez made last May, saying they are “extremely inflammatory and prejudicial” against Otero-Rivera. But on Friday, both sides said they would work together on a mutually agreeable set to introduce at trial.
“I think the experience of the attorneys is adequate to make some of those determinations pre-trial,” Carsten said.