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Criminal Justice

Allegations that murder defendant was ‘a drug ho’ who practiced witchcraft leads to tossed conviction

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 25, 2025, 9:15 am CST

The New Mexico Supreme Court has overturned a woman’s 2022 murder conviction and barred a retrial because of “severe and pervasive prosecutorial misconduct, exacerbated by a lackluster defense.”

The state supreme court tossed the conviction and the case against Desiree Lensegrav, concluding in a Feb. 20 opinion that her “entire trial was filled with theatrics, hyperbole and disparaging inflammatory statements.”

In his opening statement, the prosecutor called Lensegrav “a worthless mother” and “a drug ho—not my words!” the opinion said. During the trial, the prosecution called a witness who accused Lensegrav of witchcraft. In closing statements, the prosecutor encouraged jurors to convict Lensegrav “for the stench of death that permeated this courtroom.”

The prosecutor was referring to the introduction of “foul-smelling” physical evidence that was attached to the victim’s body, which caused a trial adjournment.

The Legal Profession Blog posted highlights from the opinion, while the Taos News and KOB had coverage. The state supreme court also issued a Feb. 20 press release.

The opinion identified the lead prosecutor as Assistant District Attorney Cosme Ripol of the Eighth Judicial District in New Mexico. He will not be commenting in response to an ABA Journal request, according to the district office manager.

Eighth Judicial District Attorney Marcus J. Montoya issued a statement.

“Though we prepared fully to present this case at trial, secured a conviction and would have preferred to keep this truly bad actor in prison, we accept the opinion of the supreme court, and we will always learn and evolve so as to continually improve,” Montoya said.

Lensegrav’s husband, Aram Montoya, pleaded guilty to murder in the killing in 2021 and received a life sentence. In his opening statement, Ripol told jurors about Aram Montoya’s statements incriminating Lensegrav, even though he was not on the prosecution witness list.

Referring to Lensegrav, Ripol said jurors will hear a story “of a strong, smart, determined, manipulative, vengeful, capable, controlling, resilient, cunning human being with a profound drug problem” who used her “needy, insecure” husband to commit murder.

Ripol also told jurors about expected testimony from the owner of a drug house. The owner would testify that Lensegrav suggested on several occasions that she was a witch, and she “would put menstrual blood concoctions” in her husband’s food to control him, Ripol said. The owner saw Lensegrav’s eyes turn “black. With fury. And rage,” Ripol said. “And it was like a Hollywood movie. He could feel the wind coming out of her.”

Lensegrav and Aram Montoya became suspects in 2020 after Aram Montoya was accused of trying to kill Lensegrav by repeatedly stabbing her in the neck and back with a paring knife. After Lensegrav came out of a medically induced coma, police gave her a Miranda warning and began to question her about the 2019 murder of Joseph Morgas. Police told Lensegrav that her husband had confessed to the murder, and her husband had thrown her “under the bus.”

Lensegrav told police that she wanted Aram Montoya to beat up Morgas because of his statements at the drug house. Morgas was a relative of a man who raped and impregnated Lensegrav when she was a teenager.

Lensegrav said Morgas laughed at her, called her a drug whore, and said she deserved to be raped. He also said he had video of Lensegrav at the drug house, and he would share it with his family, so they could get custody of her child.

Aram Montoya and Morgas fought outside the drug house, Lensegrav told police. Aram Montoya put Morgas in a headlock and “choked him out,” causing him to turn purple and go limp, she said. Lensegrav said she helped dispose of the body, fearing that Aram Montoya would kill her, too, if she didn’t cooperate.

Ripol told jurors that Lensegrav had confessed to strangling Morgas with twine, directed her husband to burn the body and to cut off Morgas’ head with a shovel, and had thrown the shovel and head in the river.

“None of these allegations would conform to the evidence,” the New Mexico Supreme Court said.

“Inexplicably,” the state supreme court said, “defense counsel did not object to the vast majority of instances of prosecutorial misconduct that defendant identifies on appeal.”

The New Mexico Supreme Court concluded that the prosecutorial misconduct was so unfairly prejudicial that it presented a double jeopardy bar to a retrial under the New Mexico Constitution.

“Prosecutors are held to the highest ethical standards in all courtrooms, and any time that standard is not maintained, reversal and this type of circumstance is the result. Like many trials get, this case became emotionally charged,” Montoya said in his statement to the Journal.

“Fortunately, the person we know was physically guilty of taking Mr. Morgas’ life is still in prison, and he will stay there,” Montoya said.

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Editor’s Note: When a parent is in hospice, there may be wishes to voice things that have been unsaid and for your loved one to somehow return to at least a bit of their old selves, for conversations if nothing else. Dan Caldwell, a 76-year-old retired political science professor who died in January, gave his family that gift during the recent Southern California wildfires. His daughter Beth Caldwell, a Southwestern Law School professor, shared their story with the ABA Journal.

My father, Dan Caldwell, a distinguished professor emeritus at Pepperdine University, was diagnosed with an incurable form of blood cancer several years ago. We were very close. In fact, my husband; our two children, ages 9 and 11; and I lived with my parents in order to support them with their needs and spend as much quality time together as possible. We knew our time was limited given my dad’s cancer diagnosis; in addition, my mother has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She is still very sharp and aware but cannot drive and needs some support with cooking meals and remembering daily tasks.

In the week leading up to the fire, my father’s body had started shutting down. He entered hospice care at our home in Pacific Palisades, which was where I had grown up and my parents lived for 46 years. By Tuesday, it seemed clear that his hours were numbered. He gathered me, my mom and my brother and sister around him on his bed, had us hold hands and said a poignant goodbye. He told us the word he wanted us to think of when we think about this experience is “aloha,” which means hello, goodbye and I love you all at once. My mother grew up in Hawaii, so this was a particularly meaningful concept for all of us. His eyes were rolling back in his head, and his breathing was labored. It was clear that the end was near.

And then we looked out of his bedroom window and saw flames in the hills. They were moving quickly down the hillside. My dad always told us that if you can see flames, a fire was dangerously close and you had to get out. But at the same time, in all of the 46 years we had lived in the Palisades, a fire had never come down the hill and into the town itself. We lived in a residential neighborhood, not in the hills, and evacuated in an abundance of caution a handful of times in our lives. But we didn’t think a fire could really reach our home.

We didn’t know if we could move my dad, how much pain it would cause him to move or if he would die during a car ride. We didn’t think we could really leave. Then the planes that my dad told us Canada generously lends to fight fires in the United States started flying very low right over our house picking up water from the ocean, dumping it on the fire and circling back again. My father was aware enough to express his chagrin at the anti-immigrant sentiment so many Americans seem to have, in contrast to the generosity of Canada sending its planes to come to our aid in times of need. He undoubtedly would have felt similarly if he had known about Mexico’s generosity in sending its firefighters to aid a country whose leader has boasted about building a wall to divide us.

Then the kids’ schools called and said they were evacuating. I rushed to pick them up and brought them home. We kept watching the fire, sure that it would be extinguished soon. The wind was blowing toward the ocean, so the fire was moving in the opposite direction. But then the winds changed direction and the fire was headed toward us. We realized we had to leave. We started running around the house frantically grabbing things—some photo albums, a binder of important financial information my dad had prepared to guide us after his death, a few framed photos.

We were still running around grabbing things when my dad somehow appeared downstairs. He had gotten out of bed, gotten dressed, packed his wallet and medication in a bag and walked down the stairs on his own. We didn’t know how—he hadn’t been able to get out of bed without help before. He said, “It’s time to go,” and we left.

We drove about four hours to a family home in San Clemente, California. Somehow, my dad’s awareness kicked in during the ride. He gave my husband directions for shortcuts, informed by nearly 50 years of navigating Los Angeles traffic. He told my kids stories about his childhood and shared information about landmarks we passed. We listened to his favorite songs. He said he couldn’t believe how surreal it was to be close to death, in his bed and then all of a sudden be on a road trip with his grandkids.

When we made it to our home in San Clemente, he wanted to take “one last view” of the ocean, which you can see from the living room. It was his favorite view in the world. When we were on vacation in Hawaii and Costa Rica, he would often say, “This is great, but I would rather be on the deck in San Clemente.” He said goodnight and goodbye to my children, and I tucked him into the bed where he would die the next day.

He was spared the knowledge that his home had burned down. Spared the worry about what we would do without our home. And I am so grateful for that.

Losing our home with all of our possessions pales in comparison to losing my dad. But the things also matter. So many special mementos he had kept for his entire life to pass down to us—letters, photos, memories from our childhoods. Things from our grandparents, from our mother’s childhood. Scrapbooks from our parents’ youths, which, thankfully, we had looked through in the week before the fire because of our father’s impending death. We had spent a lot of time reminiscing and looking through these gems that are now all gone.

In the aftermath, the losses keep hitting us. Sometimes it’s something practical, like we realize we don’t have any socks. Other times it’s more devastating, like the illustrated children’s Bible my parents had read with us and I had just started reading with my son.

The semester had just started, and I shared what happened with my students in an announcement, in which I asked for some patience and empathy if I was slower to respond to emails than I otherwise would be. The outpouring of support from my students touched me profoundly. My father was a professor for more than 40 years, and every day since his death I have received emails from his former students talking about how much he touched their lives. And I’ve found correspondence he shared with his former students about how much they touched his life in return. I can only hope to have that kind of lasting impact—and relationships—with my students.

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Beth Caldwell is a professor of law at the Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, where she worked as a public defender before becoming a professor. She is the author of Deported Americans: Life After Deportation to Mexico, which was a 2021 finalist for a PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction.

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ABAJournal.com is accepting queries for original, thoughtful, nonpromotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors to run in the Your Voice section. Details and submission guidelines are posted at “Your Submissions, Your Voice.”

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

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Ethics

Lawyer’s mistaken Zelle transfer leads to ethics complaint

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 5, 2024, 9:30 am CST

An Ohio lawyer mistakenly sent $550 via money transfer app Zelle to an Illinois resident, peppered him with emails and texts while a bank fraud department investigated, and then sued him after the money was returned, according to an ethics complaint by the Dayton Bar Association.

An Oct. 31 ethics complaint alleges that Dayton, Ohio, lawyer Christine M. Baker violated attorney ethics rules by filing a lawsuit with false statements without basis in law or fact.

The ethics complaint also alleges that Baker engaged in conduct that adversely reflects on her fitness to practice law by “aggressively waging a campaign of attack” against the mistaken Zelle recipient and his wife.

The Legal Profession Blog summarized the ethics complaint.

Baker denied the allegations in an interview with the ABA Journal. Everything in the suit is true, she says, and one of its aims was to recover damages for the “serious legwork” that she did trying to get her money back.

Baker had intended to send $550 to her husband, Zachary Reynolds, on Sept. 19 and 20 in 2023. Instead, she typed an email address that apparently differed from her husband’s by one character and sent the money to an Illinois resident named Zack Reynolds, the ethics complaint says.

On Sept. 21, 2023, Reynolds in Illinois contacted his bank after noticing the mistaken transfer. He was informed that the bank’s fraud department would handle the matter, and he should not send funds related to the Zelle transfer.

By Sept. 22, 2023, Baker had learned Illinois Reynolds’ cellphone number, email address, personal address, employer, charity affiliations, wife’s identity, contact information for his wife’s employer and his wife’s email address.

According to the ethics complaint, Baker sent electronic communications Sept. 22, 2023, that allegedly included:

  • A text to Illinois Reynolds, telling him that his retention of the money is “unlawful,” and if he did not return the money in 24 hours, “collection, garnishment and all available recovery methods will commence, including notifying your employer of your conduct.”

  • Another text threatening to sue Illinois Reynolds, informing him that he is a “thief,” threatening to tell a charity affiliated with Reynolds that he committed a “theft,” and saying she should share the information with “anyone with a basic internet connection.”

  • Yet another text telling Illinois Reynolds that he and his wife were being named in a civil action for unjust enrichment. The text included an address thought to be his “in an effort to intimidate” him and his wife, according to the complaint.

  • An email threatening a suit to Illinois Reynolds’ wife, a third grade teacher, using her school email address.

In additional texts, Baker forwarded materials to Illinois Reynolds’ employer and co-worker “in an effort to cast him in a negative light and to disparage him,” the ethics complaint says.

On Sept. 24, 2023, Illinois Reynolds was advised that the funds were being returned to Baker.

“At no time did Mr. Reynolds try to prevent the funds from being returned or attempt to keep the funds,” the ethics complaint says. “He simply followed the advice of his bank about not returning the funds himself since the nature of the transaction was suspicious for fraud.”

The funds were available in Baker’s account Oct. 3, 2023, yet Baker filed suit Nov. 17, 2023, the ethics complaint says. She filed an amended suit in December 2023.

The suit was removed to federal court and dismissed without prejudice at her request, according to a February order.

Court records for Montgomery County, Ohio, indicate that Baker filed a new suit
for alleged defamation, conversion and emotional distress against Reynolds on Oct. 30.

Alleged false statements in the amended suit included:

  • An allegation that Illinois Reynolds advised Baker “that he would take no steps to return the money.” In reality, Illinois Reynolds said, “Considering this is your error, I find your threats offensive, and they are noted. You can follow the appropriate channels with [name of his bank] to recoup your mistake.”

  • An allegation that Illinois Reynolds told Baker that she would have to serve him with papers to recover her money. In reality, Reynolds said, “As I mentioned to you, as advised by my bank and attorney, [name of bank]’s fraud department is handling the dispute. … Based on your behavior, all involved assume this is a scam. If it’s not a scam, you should be ashamed and embarrassed by your behavior.” Baker responded by saying if Illinois Reynolds is represented by a lawyer, he should refer the lawyer to her. Reynolds responded, “I suggest you call [bank’s name] or formally serve me papers. I will no longer respond to any attempts to contact me.”

Baker told the Journal that the ethics charges are “if not inflated, falsified.”

“I think the DBA alleges that I filed a lawsuit with misleading or untruthful information, and that I didn’t cooperate with the DBA’s initial inquiry,” she says.

“I of course deny both of those claims. Everything I’ve ever said to anyone about this matter was, is and will always be true. I also was very cooperative with the Dayton Bar Association. What they referred to as my noncooperation was my request, rather insistence even, to meet with the Dayton Bar Association’s broader panel via Zoom,” she says.

Baker said her suit had claimed that Illinois Reynolds defamed her in statements during the Dayton Bar Association investigation and to a representative in Illinois. It also sought $2,500 in damages for conversion.

“Conversion is taking or keeping something that isn’t yours,” Baker says. Illinois Reynolds “told me that he wasn’t going to return my money unless I pursued it, and it took me hours of time to pursue it.”

“And for that, the DBA is responding I think disproportionately,” Baker says. The conversion allegation is “a true claim, it’s a claim with a basis in law and fact.”

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U.S. Supreme Court

Did ‘grand bargain’ fail to materialize in Trump ballot case? Metadata leads to speculation

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 5, 2024, 10:07 am CST

The U.S. Supreme Court left “a big clue dangling in the metadata” about potential negotiations when it issued a unanimous decision Monday that kept former President Donald Trump on the ballot in Colorado, according to an article in Slate.

Although all the justices agreed that Trump should remain on the ballot, four justices said the majority should not have gone further by ruling that Congress had the exclusive power to enforce the constitutional ban on insurrectionists holding office.

The four justices expressed their views in two separate concurrences. One was jointly written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson—the high court’s liberal justices—and the other was written by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett. The liberal concurrence was angrier in tone than Barrett’s, who emphasized unanimous agreement on the ballot issue and stated that “this is not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency.”

But the metadata shows that Sotomayor was initially a partial dissenter, according to Slate, Above the Law and Law360.

One way to see the metadata, on some computers, is by copying and pasting the top of the liberal justices’ concurrence that says “Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson J.J., concurring in judgment” into a Microsoft Word document. The pasted version reads “Sotomayor, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part.” The same metadata shows when you search for the word “dissent.”

“What happened?” Slate asks. “Most obviously, the Supreme Court rushed out this opinion and forgot to check the metadata. … The deeper question remains, of course: Why was an opinion originally authored by a lone justice as a partial dissent transformed into a concurrence authored by all three liberals together?”

Paul Schiff Berman, a professor at the George Washington University Law School, thinks that Sotomayor’s opinion may have become a concurrence in an attempt to emphasize unanimity.

“I think they really wanted to try to make this a unanimous opinion in order to say this is not about ideology and it’s not about politics,” he told Law360.

Slate offers further speculation. One explanation is that Kagan and Jackson “were keeping their votes fluid” in the hopes of joining with Barrett to seek a fifth vote for a narrow holding that did not address whether Congress had exclusive authority to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. When Kagan and Jackson failed in that quest, they teamed up with Sotomayor.

“Broaden the scope of the potential negotiations, though, and things get more interesting,” Slate says. “After oral arguments, many smart court watchers mused that the justices might reach a grand bargain that tied this case to a separate dispute involving Trump’s claim of immunity from criminal prosecution for election subversion. The liberal justices might agree to keep Trump on the ballot if the court also refused to take up the immunity case.”

If the Supreme Court had refused to hear the immunity case, the federal appeals court decision holding that Trump did not have immunity from prosecution would remain in place. And that would mean that his criminal trial in the federal election-interference case might take place before the presidential election.

“That, of course, didn’t happen,” Slate says. “The court sided with Trump on the ballot issue and took up his immunity case last week on a less-than-speedy timeline, helping him run out the clock to November.”

Slate raises other possibilities, including that Barrett agreed to hear the immunity case “on a marginally expedited basis” this term, rather than push the case onto the docket for next term.

Or maybe evidence of a bargain will turn up when the Supreme Court issues its opinion in the Trump immunity case, according to Above the Law.

“Perhaps buried in the metadata,” Above the Law says.

See also:

“SCOTUS agrees to hear Trump’s presidential immunity claim”

“What happens next after Supreme Court agrees to hear Trump immunity case”

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3. Accusation that naked ‘idiot’ lawyer injured…

Ethics

Accusation that naked ‘idiot’ lawyer injured Phish fan while rushing stage leads to legal discipline for writer

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 30, 2024, 2:38 pm CST

A Colorado lawyer’s “demeaning and unprofessional language” and threats of disclosure in a demand letter seeking $50,000 for her client’s injuries at a Phish concert have led to a public censure.

Lawyer Sarah Jay Schielke of Colorado received the public censure for her demand letter to another lawyer who is identified as V.D. in a Jan. 25 stipulation to discipline.

Law360 covered the case, while the Legal Profession Blog published parts of the Jan. 26 opinion imposing censure and a KDVR report on her successes as a civil rights lawyer.

Schielke’s letter alleged that V.D. rushed the Phish stage, while naked, at a February 2022 concert in Mexico. Schielke claimed that her client, who was a close friend, was injured when the naked lawyer pushed her while on his way to the stage. The client had previously had spinal surgery.

In the letter, Schielke called V.D. a “violent psychopath,” “a violent a- -hole,” “an idiot,” “obnoxious,” “stupid,” “a shameless, ridiculous boasting s- – -,” “a terrible f- – -ing attorney” and “a disgrace to the Colorado Bar, the Phish community and [his] family.”

Schielke sought $50,000 for her client plus an agreement to never touch or contact her again and to stand at least 25 feet away from her at future Phish concerts. In exchange, the letter said, Schielke’s client would not sue over the incident and would not disclose it to the lawyer’s employer and his undergraduate university.

If the lawyer did not agree to the proposal, Schielke wrote, she would file lawsuits in the United States and Mexico, issue a press release, report the incident to police, and release an unredacted video said to show the lawyer interacting with security at the concert.

The opinion by the presiding disciplinary judge of the Colorado Supreme Court said Schielke’s conduct violated two disciplinary rules. One says a lawyer representing a client can’t use means that have no substantial purpose other than to embarrass, delay or burden a third person. The other says a lawyer can’t threaten criminal, administrative or disciplinary charges to obtain an advantage in a civil matter.

Schielke had no prior discipline, and she cooperated in the disciplinary proceedings.

Schielke forwarded this statement to the ABA Journal, which was also provided to Law360:

“This guy decided to strip naked and violently stampede through a peaceful crowd at a beach concert. In so doing, he injured and traumatized someone I love and care about. Then, using his actual name, he went online and bragged about it, in multiple public forums, causing my friend even more distress. It was a lot.

“I stand by everything I said about the guy, but I recognize that none of that content should have been included in a demand letter from an attorney. I lost my objectivity, and that was a mistake. Lesson learned. When you’re close to the client and emotions are high, the better way to help a best friend is to just refer the case out.”