A Denver District Court judge Monday rejected Amber Torrez’s request to plead guilty to charges that she viciously stabbed two men to death last year.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Bonnie Benedetti, who is prosecuting the case, remarked after the hearing that such a ruling was rare, one she had never seen before.
Torrez, 20, is charged with stabbing to death John Hand, 55, founder of the Colorado Free University, and Ethiopian taxi driver Mesfin Gezahegn, 45, in two separate incidents hours apart early in the morning of March 28, 2004. She told police that morally she had done nothing wrong because both men had offered her money for sex and that she was a government agent ridding the streets of prostitutes and johns.
Torrez’s lawyers asked Judge Christina Habas to accept a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, which Torrez objected to. After a conference in her chambers with Torrez and her lawyers, Habas didn’t rule on the defense lawyers’ request. Instead, she ordered the lawyers, Holly Lucas and Michael Vallejos, to turn over to prosecutors Benedetti and Tom Clinton a sealed evaluation by psychiatrist Karen Fukutaki on whether Torrez was insane at the time of the murders.
Habas continued the case to Friday to give prosecutors enough time to read the psychiatric report and decide whether to accept it or have another psychiatric evaluation done on Torrez. If prosecutors are convinced that Torrez was insane that night, they can recommend that she be committed to the state mental hospital indefinitely, or if and when doctors determine Torrez is no longer a threat to the community.
If the prosecutors aren’t convinced she was insane, they have the right to prosecute her for the murders.
Earlier Monday, Habas ruled that enough evidence exists for the case to go to trial.
Staff writer Mike McPhee can be reached at 303-820-1409 or at mmcphee@denverpost.com.
