Sacto 9-1-1

By Andy Furillo
afurillo@sacbee.com

The judge in the Chu Vue murder trial issued a tentative ruling today that he will not block an effort to put the defendant's wife on the witness stand next week to testify about other affairs she may have been having at the time state correctional officer Steve Lo was shot and killed two years ago.

Chia Vue's lawyer, Gregory Foster, filed a motion today to quash a subpoena for her to testify as a witness in the case that was sought by her husband, the former Sacramento sheriff's deputy accused of arranging the shooting death of state correctional officer Steve Lo nearly two years ago.

Foster argued in his motion that she shouldn't have to testify on grounds that it would violate her marital privilege of not having to testify against her spouse.

Foster also said that Chia Vue's testimony could be self-incriminating if it gets into accusations that she helped harbor Chu Vue's younger brothers, the purported gunmen in the case, while they were murder fugitives in the years prior to Lo's death.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Steve White ruled later in the day that the marital privilege does not apply to Chia Vue. Deputy District Attorney Eric Kindall said in the earlier hearing that Chia Vue filed divorce papers against her husband in May.

Defense attorney Donald Masuda said during the late-afternoon hearing that he intends to bring in evidence next week that Chia Vue was engaged in several extra-marital affairs at the time of Lo's death.

He said that the number of affairs would help his case by showing the wife was going to bed with so many men that it wouldn't make sense for him to target only one of them for murder.

Kindall said that such testimony would turn the trial into "a circus."

"We should not be having a parade of people going through this courtroom saying, 'I slept with her. No, I didn't,'" Kindall said.

Masuda, meanwhile, told the court that Chu Vue will be testifying in his own defense when the trial resumes next week.

Also in the morning session today, the trial reached one of its dramatic high moments when the prosecutor probed co-defendant Lang Vue about the younger Vue brothers using his house as their base of operations before they purportedly shot and killed Lo.

Lang Vue had testified under direct questioning that he thought murder fugitives Gary and Chong Vue were in the Sacramento area to pay respects to their ill parents before they headed back to Minnesota to turn themselves in.

In his questioning of Lang Vue, deputy D.A. Kindall noted that a cell phone linked to Gary and Chong Vue pinged off a tower near Lang Vue's house at 4:33 a.m. on the morning of Oct. 15, 2008 - just 13 minutes a car believed to be the pair's was seen on a surveillance video tape driving down Steve Lo's street.

Another 12 minutes after the sighting of the black Chevy Blazer, Lo's wife called 911 to report that her husband had been shot in the garage of their home on Tambor Way. Lo died a few hours later.

"Isn't it true, sir, that they were using your home as a base from which to go out and kill Steve Lo?" Kindall asked Lang Vue.

"Probably," the defendant replied, in front of the eight-man, four-woman Sacramento Superior Court jury. "I would guess so."

Thirty five minutes after the shooting, the accused gunmen's cell phone pinged again off the tower closest to Lang Vue's house.

"Is it true that Gary Vue was back at your house making calls right after the murder?" Kindall asked.

"I was sleeping," Lang Vue replied.

Lang Vue had testified earlier in the trial that he gave Gary Vue a key to his Elk Grove house and that he didn't know the precise movements of the suspected shooter around the time of the Lo killing. He has insisted repeatedly during his two days on the witness stand that he did not know the intended to kill Lo.

Chu Vue, 45, a former Sacramento sheriff's deputy, is accused of arranging the Lo killing because the correctional officer was having an affair with his wife.

Lang Vue, 27, is accused of aiding and abetting the shooting death by obtaining motel rooms, rental cars and then buying a car for Gary Vue, 29, and Chong Vue, 31.

Call The Bee's Andy Furillo, (916) 321-1141.