Prosecutors announced Monday, Sept. 14, that an extradition decision by authorities in Montenegro have left them unable to proceed with murder charges against a man who allegedly masterminded the execution-style slayings of an attorney outside the victim’s Rolling Hills Estates home and a former employee who was shot in front of his children at his Whittier apartment, leaving two conspiracy charges remaining against him.
The judge granted defense attorney Hagop Kuyumjian’s request to dismiss the murder charges against Richard Wall Sr., and ordered the 73-year-old defendant to remain jailed without bail while awaiting arraignment Sept. 23 on the conspiracy charges.
“Based upon the extradition determination made by the Montenegrin authorities, the People are unable to proceed at this time on the two murder counts,” Deputy District Attorney Hilary Williams told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Louis Parise Jr. “This is not based upon any insufficiency of the evidence, nor upon any determination by the People that the charges are legally deficient. We respectfully note that this limitation arises from the extradition decision of the Montenegrin Ministry of Justice in connection with the defendant’s extradition, specifically their refusal to extradite on the murder charges due to penalty concerns.”
Wall — who was extradited from the European country — had been charged with two counts each of murder and conspiracy to commit murder for the fatal shooting Dec. 7, 2009, of Jeffrey Tidus, 53, and the Feb. 26, 2011, slaying of Juan Mendez, 35.
The murder charges included the special circumstance allegations of multiple murders, murder while lying in wait and murder for financial gain, which could have resulted in a life prison term without the possibility of parole.
The defense had filed court papers challenging the murder charges by noting that Wall was extradited from Montenegro for only the two conspiracy charges, not the murder charges.
“When Richard Wall Sr. lost lawsuits, instead of appealing the verdicts, he allegedly decided to kill those who opposed him in court,” District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement in June announcing the charges. “The families of these two victims have been waiting for over 15 years to get justice they thought may never materialize. These were vicious and callous murders that we believe came at the behest of Mr. Wall, who thought killing two people would end his legal problems. Such allegedly ruthless decision-making has landed Mr. Wall in far worse shape now.”
Wall is also a suspect in a third killing in Las Vegas, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Wall, the owner of the Whittier business Welded Fixtures, was named as a person of interest in 2017 in the two killings.
Tidus was shot once in the head as he stepped outside his home to retrieve his work laptop computer from his vehicle, and died a day later at a hospital, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in 2017.
The attorney had won a $1.7 million settlement in 2007 against a close friend of Wall, with an unnamed co-conspirator being hired to carry out the killing, according to the criminal complaint.
Wall is also accused of orchestrating the killing of Mendez, who was shot by a co-conspirator in front of his children when he answered a knock on his front door and then killed as he tried to run away, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Mendez had been awarded $300,000 in his unpaid overtime case, but the judgment had not been finalized and the lawsuit was dismissed in March 2012, according to the District Attorney’s Office.