A 42-year-old woman helped her drug-trafficking friend kill a marijuana dealer who owed him money by taking the victim on her fishing boat off Dana Point Harbor to be beaten, shot and drowned, a federal prosecutor told jurors Tuesday — while the defendant’s attorney said his client was surprised about the killing.
Sheila Marie Ritze of San Juan Capistrano is charged in connection with the killing of 44-year-old Tri “James” Dao on Oct. 14, 2019. Co-defendant Hoang Xuan Le was convicted Dec. 10 of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and using a firearm to commit a crime of violence, and in February he pleaded guilty to multiple other drug- and weapons-related charges.
Dao was texting his “longtime girlfriend” Natalie Nguyen before Le, Ritze and the victim left shore for a lobster fishing expedition, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Scally said.
“`We’re launching, love you.’ Those were the last words Natalie heard from James Dao,” Scally said.
“Only two people came back” from the fishing trip, Scally said. “James Dao never made it back.”
The body was found 36 hours later by fishermen, Scally said.
Dao had a graze wound to the back of the head and was shot in the back and suffered blows to the head, Scally said. The cause of death was drowning, Scally said.
Ritze, who worked at a property management office in Orange, met Le through her work, Scally said.
In 2019, Ritze’s “life was spinning out of control” as an affair she was having ruptured her marriage and she started drinking heavily, Scally said.
“She was having trouble at work, losing accounts,” Scally said. “Tragically, she had a serious drinking problem.”
Ritze was drawn to Le’s criminal lifestyle, Scally said.
“She was infatuated with Hoang’s drugs, guns and gangster lifestyle,” Scally said.
Dao, who dealt marijuana for Le, owed his boss money, but insisted that any debts he had were “secured” because he had a life insurance policy that his wife would use to pay any money he owed, Scally said.
When her common-law husband did not come back home from the fishing trip, Nguyen filed missing persons reports with authorities, Scally said. Ritze and Le did not, he added.
When Ritze was arrested Dec. 19, 2019, “she lied and she lied again and again and again and again in her interview,” Scally said.
“She said she had no clue why they were there,” Scally said.
“She eventually admitted she was on the boat,” Scally said.
“She said Hoang was a great guy,” but he “surprised her” when he shot the victim, Scally said.
Ritze said she was too frightened to come forward, Scally said.
But the two exchanged multiple messages following Dao’s death, even calling Le “my greatest catch of all,” Scally said.
The two also discussed the movements of Nguyen following the killing after Ritze helped Le put a GPS tracking device on her car, Scally said.
Le was angry that the device showed Nguyen going to Arizona at one point, Scally said.
“I want my money,” Le texted, Scally said. “(Expletive) is probably trying to stash (the money).”
Before the murder, Le and Dao joined Ritze on a trip with her mother-in-law Sandra to a Billy Idol concert in Las Vegas, Scally said.
Ritze is accused of telling her mother-in-law that she had plans with Le to “off” Dao that weekend, Scally said.
Le spoke of how easy it would be to take someone out on the ocean in Ritze’s boat to kill them, Scally said.
Scally said Ritze would brag to co-workers that her friend “was a gangster” and that “she had friends who killed people.”
The daughter of one of her co-workers surreptitiously video recorded on a smart phone Ritze making a comment to that effect, Scally said.
Defense attorney David Wiechert said his client had “nothing nefarious” planned when she went out on the boat with Dao and Le.
Ritze was an “amazing fisherwoman,” who took up the hobby with her husband, Wiechert said.
Ritze’s mother’s suicide triggered her descent into excessive drinking, Wiechert said.
Her husband put a GPS tracking device on her car, which led him to believe she was having an affair and when he confronted her about it the couple separated, Wiechert said. The couple agreed to share custody of their daughter, he said.
Wiechert said his client never made any threats about Dao during the trip to Las Vegas and accused the mother-in-law of gathering details from news accounts and lying to investigators because she wanted more time to spend with her granddaughter and felt Ritze was standing in the way of that.
Wiechert showed jurors a text-message exchange between Sandra Ritze and a friend in which they discuss how authorities will “keep that witch in jail,” making it easier for the grandmother to see her granddaughter.
Sandra Ritze contacted authorities and volunteered to provide information about the Vegas trip, Wiechert said.
Dao was an “avid gambler and he wasn’t a good one,” so he frequently borrowed money, Wiechert said.
The defense attorney said his client suffered a head wound when officers used flash-bang grenades in her arrest, so that affected how she was able to answer questions from investigators, Wiechert said. Also, she was consuming about five drinks a day at the time she was arrested, the attorney said.