May 05--The wife of Bell Gardens Mayor Daniel Crespo knew he had had multiple girlfriends -- including one woman with whom he went through a "faux wedding" in Las Vegas -- before his wife shot him dead in their home last year, according to court records made public Monday.
A prosecutor told grand jurors that Lyvette and Daniel Crespo had a "very rocky...very difficult, dysfunctional relationship" and that the mayor was far from discreet about his many affairs.
Crespo owned a six-bedroom house that he rented out, but he kept one bedroom there that his wife referred to as his "man cave," where he would bring his girlfriends during lunch breaks and after work, Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman told the grand jury.
The girlfriend who went through the "faux wedding" ceremony in Las Vegas in 2013 testified before the grand jury that Daniel Crespo told her his wife had threatened to shoot and poison him.
Silverman, the prosecutor, said Daniel Crespo was obsessive about recording himself and his conversations with others, and one recording captured an exchange with his wife in which he asked: "Why would you threaten to shoot me?"
"Well, if you cheat, that's what I would do," Lyvette responded, the prosecutor told grand jurors.
Last month, after hearing from the prosecutor and numerous witnesses, the grand jury indicted Lyvette Crespo on a charge of voluntary manslaughter with an allegation that she was armed with a handgun at the time of the crime. Voluntary manslaughter is defined as killing without a prior intent and during a sudden quarrel or heat of passion.
Lyvette Crespo, 43, has pleaded not guilty.
The transcripts of the testimony presented to the grand jury provided new details about the Sept. 30 killing in which Lyvette Crespo shot her husband, her high school sweetheart, striking him in the chest.
Lyvette Crespo's lawyer, Eber Bayona, has insisted that the killing was justifiable and in defense of Lyvette Crespo and her son. The lawyer said Lyvette Crespo had suffered decades of abuse by her husband and was trying to protect her son when she opened fire.
The couple's son, Daniel Jr., testified before the grand jury that moments before the shooting, his father had punched him in the face, knocking him down the stairs. He said he got up, ran down the remaining stairs to the interior door to the family's garage. As he reached it, he looked back and saw his mother on a landing above his father on the stairs.
"That's when I saw him get shot," Daniel Jr. testified. "I heard three gunshots and then saw him fall."
He told grand jurors that he saw his father abuse his mother and his sister. On one occasion, he witnessed his sister being choked by their father against a closet. On another, he said his father punched his mother in the face while they were driving home from church, believing that she had looked at another man.
Daniel Jr. said he told a school counselor about the abuse in 2011.
A Bell Gardens police officer testified that immediately after the shooting, Daniel Jr. told him that his mother had shot his father and then screamed, "No more!"
Silverman, the prosecutor, told grand jurors that the Bell Gardens mayor mistreated his wife.
"He goes out at night, he comes home, he treats her, like ... a secretary. He treats her like she's his housekeeper," Silverman said.
Nevertheless, she said Lyvette repeatedly goaded her husband, showing that she did not fear for her own safety.
"She is extremely angry with her husband, and possibly with very good reason," Silverman said.
She and another prosecutor presented the grand jury with texts between the couple, including some in which Lyvette threatened her husband, according to the transcripts.
"I'll find out who ... u got flowers for. Has to be a bell gardens whore," read one of the messages sent to Daniel Crespo's phone number months before the shooting.
"It better [be the] last time U threaten to shoot me in [the] head!!!" came the reply from Daniel Crespo's phone.
"People don't like to be played with or be made a fool," she responded. "I've put up with a lot of .... Don't play with me. Don't play with me."
Silverman read texts she said were exchanged between the pair on the day of the shooting, the transcripts show. In the texts, Lyvette warned him about boasting of his affairs to his co-workers, the prosecutor said.
"Rot in hell," he responded in a profanity-laden text. "You will regret it."
After another brief exchange, he wrote to her at about 2 p.m.: "When I get home, let's see how you will respond....With the rage I have, woman, you shouldn't be pushing my buttons."
The shooting occurred about half an hour later.
Authorities said the mayor, who also worked as a probation officer, was shot during a heated family argument. After the mayor punched his son, Daniel Crespo Jr., in the face, Lyvette Crespo grabbed her husband's 9-millimeter pistol and shot him, according to a Los Angeles County coroner's report.
In an anguished 911 call after the shooting, Daniel Crespo Jr. told a dispatcher: "He hurt me. He hurt me. He's on the floor dying. He hurt me."
The couple's adult daughter, Crystal Crespo, told investigators that her father was "verbally and physically abusive to her mother over 20 years," according to the coroner's report.
That abuse, she said, had become more physical in the last two years as her parents argued over his infidelity. The daughter, however, acknowledged that the abuse did not leave her mother with serious injuries and that it had never been reported, the report said.
UPDATE
4:58 p.m.: This post was updated throughout to include more details from the grand jury transcripts.
This post was originally published at 3:58 p.m.
