The wife of slain Bell Gardens Mayor Daniel Crespo Sr. posted bail and was released from sheriff’s custody Friday afternoon, a day after pleading not guilty to a grand jury indictment charging her with voluntary manslaughter for her husband’s shooting death last fall.
The grand jury indictment was unsealed Thursday against Lyvette Crespo, 43, who allegedly shot her husband three times in the right side of the chest at their condominium last Sept. 30.
She was taken into custody yesterday in lieu of $150,000 bail, and was released about 4:40 this afternoon, according to sheriff’s online jail records.
Crespo, who faces up to 21 years in state prison if convicted, is due back in Los Angeles Superior Court on May 29 for a pretrial hearing.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators have said the mayor and his wife were arguing when their 19-year-old son, Daniel Crespo Jr., intervened, leading to a struggle between father and son.
Lyvette Crespo claims she was protecting the couple’s son when she grabbed a handgun and shot her husband, who had allegedly punched the young man in the face.
Her attorney, Eber Bayona, contends that she was a longtime victim of domestic violence. He repeated that contention Thursday, and said Daniel Crespo “was a man who abused not only his wife but other women” and mentally and physically abused his children.
“From the beginning, from day one, I have told you that Mrs. Crespo was a battered woman, an abused woman,” Bayona said. “And at trial, she will avail herself of self-defense, defense of others and the battered-woman’s syndrome.”
“I want to ask the public to maintain an open mind and to wait until all the evidence has been presented before they make a final opinion about what happened,” Bayona said. “I’m asking you not to try Miss Crespo in the media.”
Daniel Crespo’s brother, William, has denied allegations that Daniel was abusive, but said the mayor had a series of extramarital affairs that angered his wife.
A civil lawsuit filed last Oct. 20 by Daniel Crespo’s mother alleges her daughter-in-law picked a fight with him knowing that their son would intervene, then opened a safe, grabbed a gun and killed her husband “with malice and in cold blood.”
— City News Service