Defense Attorney Tries to Sideline Prosecutor
An attorney for Benjamin Vargas — accused of stabbing to death Vincent Velasquez in an Isla Vista brawl last year — has filed a motion to recuse prosecutor Hans Almgren, alleging the prosecutor overstepped his bounds by indicting Vargas’s sister and girlfriend. Ron Bamieh, Vargas’s attorney, said Almgren did so to silence the two women — expected to be defense witnesses when the trial commences in the coming weeks. Judge George Eskin threw out the indictments last week. Almgren said the motion is “without merit.”