A panel of Fourth District Court of Appeal justices Monday denied a request to postpone the sentencing of a 30-year-old convicted killer facing the ultimate punishment for the 2007 murders of his ex-girlfriend’s father and sister and the attempted murder of her mother in Anaheim Hills.
Attorneys Mark Fredrick and Scott Hughes declared a conflict and asked to be relieved from representing Iftekhar Murtaza. Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals last week rejected the request, indicating that he felt the defendant was just trying to delay his sentencing.
Goethals rescheduled sentencing for Tuesday to give Fredrick and Hughes time to ask appellate court justices to overturn the judge’s ruling. Goethals also has a motion for a new trial to rule on.
The appellate court ruling clears the way for Murtaza to be sentenced to death Tuesday.
Murtaza was convicted in November 2013. In December 2013, a jury recommended that he be executed, but no sentence has been handed down pending motions for a new trial.
Murtaza was initially represented by the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, then he hired attorney Jack Earley and at trial was represented by Doug Myers and Julie Swain. For the past year, he has been represented by Fredrick and Hughes.
Fredrick, who declined comment after Thursday’s hearing, would not say why he had a conflict. Goethals privately met with the defense attorneys and the defendant twice Thursday to discuss the issue, which was unusual, the judge said, because the requests to be taken off a case for a conflict is usually granted without question.
Fredrick denied that the defendant or his attorneys were seeking to delay the hearing. In fact, Fredrick said, Murtaza “urged me to go forward in representation of him.”
Murtaza was convicted in the May 21, 2007, killings of Jayprakash Dhanak and his 20-year-old daughter, Karishma Dhanak, and the attempted murder of Leela Dhanak.
Leela Dhanak said after the hearing that the delays were “very frustrating,” and added, “I want an end to this case. I want this case to end as soon as it can.”
Co-defendant Charles Anthony Murphy was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Vitaliy Krasnoperov’s conviction was recently overturned on appeal and a new trial is pending.
Krasnoperov dropped out of the picture the night of the killings when he broke his wrist during a motorcycle accident, but he previously tried to contact a hitman, according to Senior Deputy District Attorney Howard Gundy.
Firefighters found the bodies of Jayprakash Dhanak and his daughter near a bike trail at Mason Regional Park in Irvine around 4:15 a.m. on May 22, 2007. She appeared to have been burned alive and her throat was slashed.
Murtaza’s goal was to kill ex-girlfriend Shayona Dhanak’s family to create a void that he could then fill.
It is not clear how much religious differences between the two played a role in the murders. Murtaza was a non-practicing Muslim, but her family members were devout Hindus and her parents didn’t like Murtaza, Gundy said.
Leela Dhanak at one point suggested to her daughter that she blame religious differences when breaking up with Murtaza, although it wasn’t actually that serious an issue, according to Gundy.
Murtaza testified that he did not kill the victims and claimed that singer Bobby Brown’s son, Landon, was involved.
During the trial, Gundy characterized that claim as “ridiculous.”
In addition to two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, Murtaza was convicted of attempted murder for the attack on his ex-girlfriend’s mother. Jurors found true the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders, making him eligible for a death sentence.