Lawyer: Vegas murder defendant traveled across Canadian border
By Chris O'Connell
Court TV
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (Court TV) -- Greg Chao admitted to driving back across the Canadian border under cover of darkness to avoid authorities a day after the body of Donald Idiens was found in the stairwell of a casino, a witness told jurors Monday.
"[Chao] indicated he did not want to be detected coming back," said Peter LaPrarie, a Canadian lawyer who questioned Chao during an extradition hearing in British Columbia.
LaPrarie testified about several details that Chao, 31, revealed about his trip to Las Vegas in the first week of December 1997.
Among the incriminating details that LaPrarie said Chao told him under oath in Canada were that he was a professional gambler, that he had tried to conceal his identity while in the United States, and that he bought a duffel bag in the Imperial Palace Hotel but did not bring it back with him to Canada
Chao also acknowledged meeting Idiens at the tables in the Mirage poker room, but denied borrowing $1,000 from the man.
Chao is charged with robbery and murder with a deadly weapon in the brutal slaying of fellow Canadian and avid poker player Donald Idiens, 53, on the night of December 8, 1997.
Prosecutors say Chao went to Vegas on a desperate bid to win enough money to pay back Canadian loan sharks, to whom he owed tens of thousands of dollars. Chao borrowed $1,000 from Idiens, lured him back to his hotel room to ask for more, then killed the land developer for his bankroll when he refused to lend any more money, prosecutors have said.
Idiens' battered and nearly naked body was found in a stairwell one floor below room 18136, where Chao was staying. Police also found Idiens' blood in the room.
A DNA analyst said Monday that a blood sample taken from a strip of carpet was identified as belonging to Idiens. The chance of the sample coming from someone else, a police DNA analyst told jurors, is 1 in 600 billion.
Chao's public defender, Timothy O'Brien, has said that his client merely lent Idiens his hotel room for a meeting with the person or persons who must have killed him. When Chao returned to his room, O'Brien claims, nothing was astray, save for some liquor bottles on a dresser.
If convicted on both counts, Chao faces life in prison without parole.
Judge Nancy Saitta allowed LaPrarie to testify only after she listened to the strenuous objections of Chao's lawyers, who argued that Chao's testimony was in a foreign country and at a separate hearing from his extradition hearing, which would make it inadmissible in the United States.
But Saitta agreed with prosecutors, who argued that Chao's testimony was part of the extradition hearing and that the defendant had been warned his testimony could be used against him in the U.S.
"Everybody told this guy it would come back to haunt him, and he took the risk," Deputy District Attorney David Schwartz told Saitta.
LaPrarie's testimony could complicate Chao's defense strategy because Chao was on parole in Canada for extortion charges at the time of the murder. O'Brien has argued outside the presence of the jury that Chao was using an alias in the U.S. and sneaking back into Canada to avoid being arrested for violating his parole.
On Friday several hotel employees testified about how Chao attempted to have his name removed from his hotel bill and tried to get into his room after checking out.
Saitta previously ruled that jurors could not hear the extortion conviction in Canada. Now Chao's defense faces the difficult question of whether to bring up the extortion conviction to explain his suspicious behavior, or to have Chao take the stand to explain everything.
Chao's admission about the duffel bag could prove particularly damaging to his defense.
"[Chao] indicated he did not have the duffel bag with him when he went back to Canada, and he indicated he went to Las Vegas with one suitcase," LaPrarie said of Chao's testimony.
Imperial Palace video surveillance cameras show Chao buying the bag before he checked out of his hotel room on December 9.
Although he was fully clothed when seen entering the Imperial Palace on December 8, Donald Idiens was found only in underwear and socks the next morning, and no murder weapon was ever located during the investigation.
Prosecutors allege Chao used the bag to carry out Idiens' clothes, shoes and the weapon and then discarded it before he drove back to Canada from Washington state.
Court TV Extra is streaming the trial live.
