A 40-year-old man made a decision that money was worth more than the life of a Palm Springs retiree, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday, but a defense attorney asked jurors to look at his client through a lens of presumed innocence and conclude that his client was not involved in the 2008 killing.
Miguel Bustamante is charged with one felony count each of murder, conspiracy to commit a crime, grand theft over $950, using personal identity information of another to obtain credit, and forged instrument, and three felony counts of burglary, according to court records. He additionally faces a misdemeanor count of unlawfully receiving stolen property.
Bustamante was convicted in 2011 with David Replogle, 74, for the Palm Springs killing of Clifford Lambert, resulting in sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole. However, they appealed their verdicts based on appeals successfully lodged by co-defendants Daniel Carlos Garcia, 40, and Kaushal Niroula, 41, who were convicted in 2012 and sentenced to life terms, but were granted new trials because of the behavior of the judge in the original trial. Niroula was killed at the Cois Byrd Detention Center on Sept. 6, 2022.
Replogle was convicted again on Aug. 11, 2022, of the same felony charges that Bustamante is charged with, and is yet to be sentenced.
Other co-defendants Russell Manning, who is now dead, and Craig McCarthy pleaded guilty in 2010 to felony charges.
Deputy District Attorney Robert Hightower told jurors during closing arguments of Bustamante’s retrial Wednesday at the Larson Justice Center in Indio that the defendant risked everything for money and is now doing anything he can to avoid responsibility. He ran jurors through a timeline of events that allegedly led up to Bustamante killing Lambert, dumping his body in the middle of the desert, getting arrested, and denying his role in the crimes.
“It’s time for this to end. The lies, the fraud, the scheme. This defendant by his own hands made a decision that money was more important than Mr. Lambert’s life,” Hightower told jurors. “This defendant is guilty of all the charges put forth in front of you.”
Bustamante’s attorney, Bosky Kathuria, told jurors his client is presumed to be innocent, and contended the prosecution failed to prove his client’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. He said his client was only meant to run errands and it was actually McCarthy who killed Lambert, put his body in the trunk of a car, and went to pick up Bustamante, who had no idea about it being there.
“All of the items of circumstantial evidence is legally insufficient to overcome the presumption of innocence,” Kathuria told jurors. He said the direct and circumstantial evidence offered by the prosecution failed to undo that presumption.
Kathuria will continue his closing argument at 9 a.m. Thursday, followed by a prosecution rebuttal and jury deliberations.
Prosecutors contend the six defendants teamed up to take advantage of and kill Clifford Lambert, who was fatally stabbed in the kitchen of his Palm Springs home on Dec. 5, 2008, for financial gain.
“Sometimes the promise of a fortune will make a man risk it all,” Hightower told jurors.
He told jurors that Lambert was on an online dating site, where he met Garcia, who was living in San Francisco and allegedly utilized the victim’s credit card to upgrade his flights when flying out to see him.
Hightower then took jurors through a timeline of events between November 2008 and January 2009, which he believes is when the actual plan was put into motion.
The day after Thanksgiving 2008, Replogle and Niroula flew from Burbank to Palm Springs in an effort to recruit Manning in the Coachella Valley into the scheme, Hightower said. On Dec. 2, 2008, in an attempt to get access to Lambert, Niroula allegedly posed as an attorney and called Lambert to tell him he would be inheriting a large amount of money, then set up a meeting with him the following day.
In the meantime, McCarthy and Bustamante allegedly broke into Lambert’s home and armed themselves, but didn’t follow through with anything, so Niroula set up a second meeting at Lambert’s Palm Springs home for Dec. 5, 2008. Niroula excused himself and walked to the kitchen, where he allegedly let McCarthy and Bustamante in through the side door, the prosecutor said.
“Both of them are armed with knives and as they enter the kitchen, at some point Mr. Lambert comes out, sort of a `What’s going on,’ type of moment and Mr. Bustamante stabs Cliff Lambert with the assistance of Craig McCarthy,” Hightower alleged. “Once Mr. Lambert is dead, they clean up, they wrap Mr. Lambert up in a rug … they load Mr. Lambert in the trunk of the Mercedes and they leave with the dog as well.”
The following day, the two allegedly dumped Lambert’s body along the way to Daly City, which is near San Francisco, Hightower said. After two days, Lambert’s friend filed a missing person report, while Niroula and Replogle started to go into Lambert’s accounts to try to sell his home.
Parts of Lambert’s body started to be found in 2016, when pipeline workers found a jawbone along Templin Highway in Castaic, Hightower said. His skull was found near the same area in 2017.
“(Lambert) was a man who was simply seeking out someone for companionship, to care about him and to love him. Instead, what he met was pure evil,” Hightower said.