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Saturday, December 19, 1998
Woman gets life in 1996 slaying of ex-boyfriend
On top of two life terms without parole, Amy DeChant gets 12 years for robbery.
By Caren Benjamin
Review-Journal
For the murder of bookmaker Bruce Weinstein, his former girlfriend was sentenced Friday to two consecutive terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
District Judge John McGroarty also tacked on at least another 12 years to Amy DeChant's punishment for robbing Weinstein after shooting him.
Robert Jones, the man who helped DeChant hide the crime, was sentenced to at least two years in prison. Jones has already served 14 months of that time.
DeChant, 50, met Weinstein, 46, in October 1995. He disappeared July 5, 1996, and his decomposed body was found in the desert about two months later.
DeChant skipped town, was found by police with a wad of cash in the fall of 1996, and returned to Las Vegas. At that point she was only a suspect. As police built the circumstantial case against her she again fled. She was found in January 1998 in a Florida nudist colony and returned to Nevada to face the murder charge filed in her absence.
At the nearly three-week trial, witnesses testified that she told a number of lies when Weinstein disappeared and hinted to friends before the murder that she wanted him -- but not his money -- out of her life. Weinstein was known to deal in cash and to keep substantial amounts of it around the house, according to testimony at the October trial. Police found no money in his home after he disappeared.
DeChant's story was that Weinstein was killed by mobsters angry at him for some aspect of his bookmaking and gambling business. She tried to hide what happened when he was slain because the mobsters threatened her life, DeChant's attorney, Dan Albregts, told jurors.
Jones was also charged with murder. He was an employee of DeChant's carpet cleaning business. Prosecutors claimed he supplied the gun then helped hide the evidence by cleaning up bloody carpets and disposing of the body. The jury convicted him of accessory to murder after the fact.
At the sentencing Jones asked the judge for leniency, saying he had a number of job offers and only wanted to be free and help support his family.
His attorney, Deputy Special Public Defender Lee McMahon, also asked the judge to impose probation, noting the jury essentially convicted him of cleaning the carpet. With Jones' family sobbing in the audience, McGroarty refused her request and instead imposed the maximum possible sentence.
Weinstein's mother, Sylvia White, did not push for a specific sentence. Instead she asked the judge to give her and the others in her family "peace of mind." Weinstein left behind two sisters, a brother and a young daughter in a close-knit family whose members spoke to each other nearly every day, she told the judge.
"There are family gatherings and there is a chair that is always vacant," White said.
Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger reminded McGroarty that the state could have sought a death sentence against DeChant but chose not to. A sentence of life with the possibility of parole would send the wrong message to anyone looking at the case in the future, including appellate courts and the Pardons Board, he said.
Weinstein's murder "wasn't a result of passion. It wasn't a spur-of-the-moment situation. This was a murder based on greed. This was a woman who loved the dollar," Roger told the court.
DeChant said nothing at the sentencing on the advice of her attorney, who earlier this week asked that the verdict be thrown out and has promised to appeal.
Albregts pointed out that even a sentence of life with the possibility of parole would make DeChant eligible for release when she is 90.
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Amy DeChant listens Friday as District Judge John McGroarty sentences her to two consecutive terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Standing with her is her attorney, Dan Albregts.
Photo by Gary Thompson.
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