Ark Valley News - PEREZ FOUND GUILTY OF ALL CHARGES

Daniel U. Perez is led out of the courtroom after the jury delivered its verdict Feb. 18.

PEREZ FOUND GUILTY OF ALL CHARGES
By David Dinell
Last Updated: February 26, 2015

Daniel U. Perez is guilty.

A Sedgwick County District Court jury returned the verdict about 11:15 a.m. Feb. 18.

The six-man, six-woman jury found Perez guilty of all 28 charges against him, including first-degree murder.

Sentencing will be March 24.

Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett finished questioning Perez, 55, late Feb. 12 after Perez took the stand and denied all wrong-doing on the charges, which also included sexual exploitation of a minor, sodomy, rape, criminal threat and providing false information.

After the Feb. 12 wrap-up, attorneys spent Feb. 13 writing instructions.

Feb. 16 was holiday, so the courthouse was closed, but action began again Feb. 17 and with it, a major change: Bennett announced that nine of the original charges were dropped and Perez had 28 charges instead of 37. He didn't provide a reason for the change, which involved some dropped charges and some consolidated ones.

The murder charge stems from a claim that Perez was responsible for the drowning death of 26-year-old Patricia Hughes in a north Sedgwick County swimming pool on June 26, 2003, at a multi-family compound called “Angels Landing" to collect a life insurance settlement for a group known as the “family."

At that time, Perez was known as “Lou Castro," one of a number of different names he used in his life. Members of the clan considered Perez to have special powers and to be a “seer." There were at least three other mysterious deaths of clan members, all resulting in large insurance payouts.

Like the Hughes death, all were termed accidents.

Suspecting drug dealing, authorities — who had been keeping watch on Perez since 2003 but had nothing on him for seven years — received a detailed email in 2009 providing inside information.

That was followed by a witness who came forward stating that the story about Hughes' death was a fabrication.

They managed to get Perez arrested on federal charges concerning his purchase of a false identity and Social Security number and, in the meantime, worked to build their case.

Enough evidence was found to justify a jury trial, which started Feb. 2 in Sedgwick County District Court.

Before heading for deliberations, the jury heard closing arguments, wherein each side argued the merits of their cases.

Along with Bennett, the prosecution team includes deputy district attorney Kim Parker. Perez is represented by defense attorney Alice Osburn and the case is being presided over by District Court Judge Joseph Bribiesca.

After receiving their written instructions, the judge read through all their points before handing the floor over to Bennett, who led the state's closing argument.

The judge also reminded the jury that, according to law, a person who abets or aides in a criminal activity also is responsible for violating the law.

“Who is this man?" Bennett asked as he kicked off his closing argument. “Is he ‘Lou?' Or is he ‘Dan,' the man who got knocked on his head?"

Perez, Bennett said, led people to believe that he had power over life and death.

“I'm not telling you that he had something, but the girls believed him," he said.

In this argument, Bennett again referred to a “love contact" one of the girls wrote to him and was found during a search of the group's home in Tennessee.

“If this meant nothing to him, why did he hold on to it all these years?" Bennett asked.

Perez's actions, including escaping to a tiny North Dakota town near the Canadian border in the late 1990s, speak much about him, Bennett said.

“Why do you want to go where no one would look for you?" he asked.

As for Hughes' death, an accident “doesn't make any sense."

“How do you drown yourself?" he asked. “Someone put their hand on her head and pushed her in."

Perez was a big spender, and had an endless appetite for money, Bennett said, thus the need for another life insurance settlement.

“But he got greedy," Bennett said.

The three houses, the 20 to 35 cars, the horses, the ATVs, model airplanes and other costly items got the attention of authorities, who watched and waited.

When they got the break they were waiting for in early 2010, they moved in.

“It wasn't until he was in custody that the armor started to crack," Bennett said.

Now, he said, Perez's run has come to an end.

As he wrapped up his 80-minute argument, Bennett addressed the jury one last time: “I'm only asking you to hold this man accountable."

During her 45-minute closing argument, defense attorney Osburn worked to discredit the state's case, and repeatedly reminded the jury that it's up to the prosecution to prove guilt — that Perez is innocent until proven otherwise.

“If you have reasonable doubt, you must find the defendant not guilty," she said, pacing back and forth in front of the jury box.

She discussed the three deaths other than Hughes' that were associated with the family, and said they were all well-investigated and all classified as accidents.

The investigators included the insurance company, a private investigator, the Butler County Sheriff's Office, and in the case of an aircraft incident, the National Transportation Safety Board — with all the results stating that they were circumstantial situations.

The death of Hughes was exactly what it was first termed, Osburn said, an accident.

“He (Perez) wasn't there," she said.

Witnesses verified that he was at a car dealership. Furthermore, she asked, “if you're going to commit a murder, why would you tell a child?"

And why, Osburn questioned, would the story of an alleged murder be held back for nine long years? In any case, Hughes couldn't swim, Osburn said, and she died from drowning after taking a fall and hitting her head.

Also, there was no odd or unusual behavior that day, Osburn said, which included a routine lunch out at a local eatery.

Osburn discounted a prosecution witness, Kris Sperry, saying he was paid, from out of state and didn't conduct the Hughes' autopsy.

The jury, Osburn contended, also should be dismissive of the witnesses who were alleged sex crime victims at the compound.

“Why did they do it?" she asked. “They knew they were being investigated."

Their reward for coming forth with their testimony is that not one of them have been charged with crimes in association with false information or documents that the group provided to banks or insurance companies, she said.

One witness, she said, merely wanted to get the law involved because she didn't want to live with her father.

As for Bennett's open-ended question of “who is he?" that's not something the jury even has to consider, Osburn said.

As she did in her opening arguments, Osburn painted a picture of the compound as being an “open" place, where people were free to come and go as they pleased.

Perez, an outgoing, social person, welcomed all as friends, even members of the Kechi Police Department.

“They all had the opportunity to leave," she said. “If it was such as terrible place, why didn't they just go?"

They didn't, she said, because they were actually the beneficiaries of an affluent lifestyle that they otherwise would not have access to.

“All these people had the nice homes, the nice things, the nice cars," Osburn said.

In addition, according to testimony, it was the women of the compound who were in charge, not Perez, she said.

They were the ones who made the financial decisions and signed the paperwork. And they were legitimate buyers, too, she said.

“No one got ripped off. These people were great customers," she said.

Following Osburn's closing arguments, deputy assistant attorney Kim Parker took on the second part of the state's closing arguments.

She focused on what she said was the fear, intimidation and manipulation that Perez used on his alleged victims. The girls, she said, were small of stature and insecure, immature and trusting of an adult such as Perez.

Like her fellow prosecutor, Parker said Perez killed Hughes for the money, and didn't want her to leave the group.

Parker asked the jury to find Perez guilty on all counts.

If jury members had an inclination on their direction, they hid it well Feb. 17. On the last day, like they have throughout the trial, their faces remained nearly emotionless.

As the attorneys finished their work, Perez was escorted out of the courtroom by two sheriff deputies.