The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 39

LOS ANGELES TIMES FRIDAY. FEBRUARY 10, 1995 B3 METRO NEWS Mistrial Again for Woman Accused of Castrating Husband Court: Defense contended that the scissors attack came after years of abuse. Second jury to hear the case deadlocks. charge of battery with serious bodily injury. This time, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury announced that it was unable to reach a verdict after deadlocking 7 to 5 in favor of acquittal.

Prosecutors said the defendant attacked her 40-year-old husband, Jaime Macias, in a fit of rage over his repeated infidelity. Defense attorneys said the woman acted in self-defense after years of spousal abuse. Testimony during the trials indicated that just before the attack, the Maciases had spent several hours at a baptismal party next door. Prosecutors said that during the party, Jaime Macias drank and flirted with other women. The couple went home, and there are two versions of what happened next.

Aurelia Macias testified that her husband was drunk and tried to force her to have sex while she was attempting to give milk to their 6-month-old baby. She said she attacked Jaime Macias with a large pair of scissors, snipping off his testicles, after he grabbed her. Prosecutors said she attacked her husband as he slept. They said Jaime Macias awoke with an agonizing pain in his groin and staggered into the bathroom to find he had been castrated. The Maciases resolved their differences after the attack and did not want the case to be tried, but the state pressed charges anyway.

Officials said Jaime Macias can have normal sexual relations but cannot father children. Aurelia Macias was ordered Thursday to return to court Feb. 28, when the district attorney's office will announce whether it will seek a third trial. By ERIC MALNIC TIMES STAFF WRITER A mistrial was declared Thursday after a jury failed to reach a verdict in the case of a woman charged with castrating her husband with a pair of scissors. It was the second time a jury has deadlocked in the case, and Deputy Dist.

Atty. Lydia Bodin said she was not sure whether Aurelia Macias, 36, will be tried a third time on a mm mi jiiji. miiirT miii tmn nut JuiU-J wwlw. 10 uinMim muuii in. ipwwwhiiu'wiiwmi mnwpimnnurURi iiwt in nun, i jbu I 1 Tvn fx i "rirr -VJL i Motorists on Pacific Coast Highway drive around barricades where mudslides spilled onto pavement at Tuna Canyon Road.

Caltrans wants to Caltrans Planning to Scrape Away Malibu Hillside Before It Slides DOCTOR Continued from Bl authorities, provoked outrage throughout Latin America and severely strained U.S. -Mexico relations. i The gynecologist, allegedly a personal physician for Guadalajara drug kingpins, was forcibly taken to1 the United States and charged with complicity in the kidnaping and murder of Enrique Camarena, an agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. A federal judge in Los Angeles acquitted Alvarez of all charges in December, 1992, calling the government's case wild speculation.

I Alvarez was released after more than 32 months in U.S. custody. He immediately returned to Mexico. ACLU officials arranged Thursday's telephone hookup and briefed U.S. and Mexican journalists on the status of Alvarez's civil suit, which working its way through the system.

The doctor sued the U.S. government, two DEA agents who helped arrange the abduction, two former high-ranking DEA officials, and seven Mexican citizens Who allegedly participated in the abduction, some of whom are believed to be living in the United States under government protection. Alvarez is seeking damages orra variety of claims and alleged 'It has been very difficult for me and my family. I have a lot of confidence that, in my I I case, there will be i HUMBERTO ALVAREZ MACHAIN I constitutional violations, including kidnaping, torture, arbitrary detention, false imprisonment and assault. U.S.

officials have sought to have the suit dismissed, denying any wrongdoing against Alvarez. Last month, U.S. District Judge John G. Davies in Los Angeles gave Alvarez a partial victory in the civil case, denying the government motion to dismiss the doctor's lawsuit. Alvarez called the judge's action very courageous, adding that it helped boost his faith in the U.S.

legal system. "I have a lot of confidence that, in my case, there will be justice," said Alvarez, 47. Carl Stern, a Justice Department spokesman in Washington, declined to comment on the judge's ruling. I The doctor says he is short of cash and unable to return to private practice in Guadalajara, working instead in a federal clinic and living off that limited income and receipts from his family's restaurants. He says he can't get over the fact that his father suffered a fatal heart attack while he was in jail an attack he attributes in part to the stress associated with the abduction and incarceration.

The trauma of separation also sent two of his children into psychological counseling, Alvarez said. However, while allowing the case to proceed, Davies' ruling was by no means a total victory for Alvarez. Davies rejected parts of Alvarez's sweeping suit, narrowing, for instance, any pbtential government liability before July, 1991 more than a year after Alvarez was abducted and brought to the United States. Claims against the United States must be filed within two years, Davies noted, and Alvarez did not file his claim until July, 1993. The judge also ruled that the U.S.

government was immune from Alvarez's claims of prolonged arbitrary detention. In addition, Davies rejected claims filed under the Torture Victim Protection Act, a 1991 law designed to help compensate victims. The statute was inapplicable, Davies ruled, because the alleged mistreatment of Alvarez occurred before the act was in effect. The doctors' attorneys are contemplating an appeal of those find-ihgs unfavorable to Alvarez, said Robin S. Toma, an ACLU lawyer.

"Our purpose is to vindicate Dr. Alvarez's human and civil rights," Toma said. I Among other things, Toma said that the ruling would allow Alvarez to pursue damage claims based on the government's alleged withholding of evidence that may have cleared Alvarez. Jan. 27.

Geologists surveyed the slide over several days and have concluded that the hillside is enough of a threat to require the estimated 50-day excavation project, which is scheduled to begin next week. A second slide, also in Malibu, slammed onto the highway Monday between Big Rock Drive and Las Flores Canyon, forcing temporary closure of the highway while Caltrans workers built a fence to catch boulders that continued to tumble toward the road Monday night. "What happens is the hillsides get completely saturated and the rainwater gets to a point where it reaches a layer of clay," said David Servaes, regional manager for Caltrans. "It greases the hillside up, and down it comes." While debris from both slides has been cleared, traffic has been FRANCINE ORR For The Times excavate hillside to prevent sliding. crete rails or a retaining wall along Pacific Coast Highway at the base of the mountain.

A massive retaining wall was built along the highway just east of Big Rock Drive in the late 1980s. That wall has proved its worth several times, including one recent instance when it prevented a boulder from tumbling across the road into homes on the beachside of the highway. Caltrans officials say they have not ruled out excavating portions of the slide. Unlike the situation at Tuna Canyon, the option would pose further problems because it would mean buying out homeowners in the Big Rock neighborhood above. Whatever the solution, the officials said, it will be put the ultimate test.

Hansen said: "It's Mother Nature's grand design to make those mountainsides come down." using the baton as a hoist. At a nearby hospital where Soltero was treated for a bruise on his elbow and what the report referred to as "other complaints," doctors concluded that his condition was "within normal limits." After the videotape was televised, Arnulfo Alatorre Comp-ton's Latino Chamber of Commerce president, complained that "Latinos are treated worse by city officials than blacks were treated by whites in South Africa." Thursday, members of the Soltero family gathered at the Monte-bello office of attorney Gregory Moreno to denounce the decision not to prosecute. Enriqueta De La Cruz, mother of Felipe Soltero, told reporters that the district attorney's office would have pressed charges "if it had been a member of the white or black communities suffering a beating at the hands of Officer Jackson." The district attorney's report on the beating was prepared by Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Goul, who acknowledged Thursday that the videotape "looked very ugly." "I was shocked when I first saw the videotape," Goul the tape has to be placed in context." Goul said that after studying the tape in the context of the violence against the officer that preceded it, "we conclude that the force used by Officer Jackson in subduing and arresting Mr.

Soltero was not excessive by a legal standard." Jackson, 34, has had a "minimal disciplinary record" during his six years on the police force, Chief Taylor said. Jackson has received four com- mendations, one of them for showing restraint in the use of force during an arrest. Times staff writer Duke Helfand contributed to this story. with resistance from homeowners or environmental groups. After each of the six slides that have closed Pacific Coast Highway in the last 30 days, Caltrans has methodically scooped up, scraped away and dumped the debris.

Caltrans officials say the agency felt that the time had come for more drastic action. "We can't just have (closure of Pacific Coast Highway happening every other day," said Russell Snyder, a Caltrans spokesman. "The nature of these slides is if you scoop and move them enough you destabilize them and more comes down. It's sort of like trying to build a mountain out of sand." Caltrans has not yet decided how to shore up the slide between Las Flores Canyon Road and Big Rock Drive, across from Moonshadows restaurant. Among the solutions being considered is to install con- BEATING Continued from Bl Rodriguez said that when Felipe Soltero, 17, refused to let her enter his family's trailer, she called her supervisor, and Jackson was dispatched to the scene.

The report states that when the boy refused to let Jackson enter, the officer "ordered Felipe to turn around to be handcuffed. Felipe refused. Officer Jackson placed his arm on Soltero to turn him around. "Five witnesses state that Soltero struck Officer Jackson in the head with a closed fist," the report continues. "Felipe Soltero denies ever hitting the officer." According to the report, a struggle ensued, with both Soltero and the officer ending up on the ground.

During the struggle, Felipe's sister, Brenda Soltero, struck Jackson on the head, according to six witnesses The youth and the officer then got to their feet. "It is at this point that the videotape, shot from two trailers away, begins," the report says. The 59-second tape, shot secretly by a neighbor and subsequently aired on several local television stations, shows Jackson lunging at Soltero and apparently knocking him to the ground with a sharp blow from the butt of his baton to the youth's cheek. Bystanders can be heard screaming in the background. The district attorney's office said the boy then appears to try to kick Jackson, and "the officer responds by striking Soltero four or five times in the torso as Soltero falls to the ground." The report said that when Soltero ignored Jackson's commands to place his hands behind his back, Jackson struck the youth in the legs, jumped on him, handcuffed him and yanked him to his feet, restricted to one lane at the Tuna Canyon site and to two lanes at the slide between Las Flores Canyon and Big Rock Drive.

The rerouting, which so far has not caused major traffic tie-ups, will continue until Caltrans workers finish working to stabilize the hillsides. The work at the Tuna Canyon landslide, which runs along an earthquake fault, will involve removal of active portions of the slide amounting to 150,000 cubic yards of earth, or about 18,750 full dump trucks. Before starting work, Caltrans is seeking permission from owners of the property, which is undeveloped. "We are going to remove earth back to where the mountainside is stable," said Jim Hansen, Caltrans superintendent for the West Los Angeles and Malibu areas. Such projects are unusual for Caltrans, Hansen said, because they meet "As a social problem, AIDS concerns everybody," she said.

"But as business people it's not good for us that they're doing it on the street. We have to keep an eye open because we don't want drug people all around us." Weiner said the city grant will keep the exchange running for a year. It will be continued only if Tarzana Treatment Center can secure more money, he said. Perez said that despite the light turnout Thursday, more addicts will appear once word spreads about the exchange. "I had a hard time finding this place," said Al, whose mother drove him to the alley to collect clean needles.

"I'm 52 years old and I still have to have my mother drive me." Transportation: Officials OK $2-million venture to prevent further closures of Pacific Coast Highway. By KATHLEEN KELLEHER SPECIAL TO THE TIMES Worried by mudslides that have closed Pacific Coast Highway six times in the last month, state transportation officials have approved a $2-million project to remove nearly 19,000 dump-truck loads of earth from one active slide and are studying ways to deal with a second. The slide scheduled for excavation, just east of Tuna Canyon in Malibu, sent 100,000 cubic yards of mud and rock toward the highway NEEDLE Continued from Bl tium of private agencies that support needle exchanges provided another $1,000 grant for buying needles, he said. Despite the health benefits, needle exchanges have sparked intense political controversy. Gov.

Pete Wilson has twice vetoed legislation that would have created pilot needle exchanges in California cities. Last fall, angry Hollywood residents made citizens' arrests of three volunteers trading syringes on local street corners. A week earlier, Mayor Richard Riordan had declared AIDS a local health emergency, ordering police not to interfere with exchange workers, even though furnishing needles without a prescription is a violation of state law. LAPD Capt. Ronald Bergmann, commander of the Foothill Division, which includes the Pacoima exchange site, said police would take no action unless residents complain.

If that happens, police will try to mediate, but will arrest exchange workers if an offended citizen insists, he said. Tarzana Treatment Center members carefully reconnoitered about half a dozen possible sites for the exchange before picking the alley, located in a low-income; mostly Latino neighborhood near the Simi Valley Freeway where neighbors said drug traffic is common. Staffers spoke at length with residents, explaining the need to combat AIDS and how they planned to refer addicts to local treatment agencies. Mario Perez, the treatment center's AIDS prevention coordinator, said his group "has support from every resident -j- JILL CONNELLY For The Times Drug treatment official hands bags of clean syringes and other supplies aimed at reducing the spread of AIDS to client at exchange site. around here." But several residents and business owners interviewed Thursday were sharply divided over the exchange.

Pedro Palma, a janitor who lives near the alley with his 12-year-old son, said he supported the exchange because Latinos need to get more information about how needle sharing and unprotected sex can lead to AIDS. He added that exchange organizers also cleaned up numerous discarded needles in the alley, keeping them out of the hands of his son and other children. But Angela Gutierrez, an office manager at a nearby business, said she worried that the presence of drug addicts would hurt business at the small auto lots, body shops and markets near the exchange..