April 23--The wife of slain Bell Gardens Mayor Daniel Crespo has been indicted by a Los Angeles County grand jury on a charge of voluntary manslaughter in his shooting death.
Lyvette Crespo pleaded not guilty after the indictment was unsealed Thursday. The indictment includes an allegation that she personally discharged a handgun.
If convicted, she faces up to 21 years in state prison.
She was remanded into custody on $150,000 bail.
Crespo, 43, shot her 45-year-old husband three times in the chest in their home on Sept. 30.
Prosecutors on Thursday said that the members of the grand jury made the call on the charges against Crespo, who has claimed self-defense.
"It was a grand jury decision," said Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman. "Faced with everything from murder to manslaughter to justifiable homicide, they chose."
She is due back in court May, 29.
Just before the shooting, Crespo was arguing with her husband when their 19-year-old son, Daniel Jr., intervened, sheriff's officials said.
The mayor punched the teen in the face and then his wife grabbed his handgun, a 9-millimeter pistol, and shot him three times in their home's master bedroom, according to an L.A. County coroner's report.
In an anguished 911 call after the shooting, Daniel Jr. told a dispatcher: "He hurt me. He hurt me. He's on the floor dying. He hurt me."
Crespo admitted shooting her husband, telling authorities that she was a battered wife and that the killing was in self-defense while he attacked her son.
However, Daniel Crespo's family has alleged that she was jealous of his relationships with other women.
In the hours after the shooting, the couple's adult daughter, Crystal, told investigators that the mayor 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 decedent and his wife were not sleeping in the same bedroom, and he was known to drag her by the hair to force her to do so," the report said.
The Crespos' daughter said the abuse did not leave her mother with serious injuries and that it had never been reported, documents said.
Prosecutors chose to refer the case to a grand jury because of the large amount of evidence that had been gathered, officials said.
Voluntary manslaughter is consider a killing where the offender had no prior intent to kill and acted during "the heat of passion."
Lyvette Crespo's lawyer has insisted the act was justifiable homicide in defense of herself and her family.
But text messages she apparently sent suggested that Crespo held considerable animosity toward her husband before she killed him. William Crespo, the mayor's brother, provided The Times with text messages that appeared to be angry exchanges between Daniel Crespo and his wife regarding his inolvement with other women.
William Crespo said he found them on an old phone of Lyvette Crespo's that his brother had given him to use a few months ago and turned them over to detectives. Los Angeles County sheriff's officials told The Times that investigators believed the messages were a "legitimate" exchange between Crespo and her husband.
"I'll find out who ... u got flowers for. Has to be a bell gardens whore," read one of the messages sent to Crespo's phone number this year.
"It better last time U threaten to shoot me in head!!!" Crespo replied.
UPDATE
1:22 p.m. This story was updated with background on text messages purportedly exchanged by Daniel and Lyvette Crespo.
12:58 p.m.: This story was updated with comments from the deputy district attorney.
Noon: This story was updated throughout with background on the shooting and investigation.
This story was first published at 11:37 a.m.
