Professor Agrees To Plea Deal In Revenge Kidnapping-Murder Plot
SANTA ANA (CBSLA.com) — A professor of psychology has pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter for her role in the 1995 revenge kidnapping and murder of a man she says raped her 19 years ago.
Norma Patricia Esparza, 40, whose plea deal calls for a six-year sentence, is now expected to testify against two co-defendants in the April 1995 killing of 25-year-old Gonzalo Ramirez.
Esparza, who worked as a professor of psychology in Geneva, will have to serve at least 85 percent of her sentence, according to defense attorney Jack Earley.
"She has a young daughter and she wants a guarantee she'll be out sometime to raise her child," Earley said after his client pleaded guilty. "If she was not a mother and had no children, she would have proceeded to trial. She thought it was time and the right thing to do to accept some responsibility. It was a hard decision, but the right thing to do, given the risks."
Esparza was living in France on the Geneva border with her husband and their then-4-year-old daughter when her bail was revoked after rejecting an initial plea deal offering her four years behind bars. She was taken into custody in November and ordered to stand trial in February.
She and her supporters insisted on her innocence and appealed to prosecutors to drop the case, arguing she was the true victim and did not know about the revenge plot. Investigators say Esparza met with Ramirez at a Santa Ana bar and pointed him out to one of the co-defendants, leading to his abduction and killing.
Another woman, Diane Tran, 45, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter on Jan. 24 in exchange for a four-year sentence. She is also expected to testify against co-defendants Gianni Van, 45, and Shannon Ray Gries, 43.
Gries and Van were indicted for murder, with a special circumstance allegation of murder during a kidnapping, by a grand jury last year. They have a Jan. 9 trial date.
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