Trial Moves Ahead In Laguna Niguel Bar Stabbing Murder

LAGUNA NIGUEL, CA — Accusations of alleged misconduct during defendant Craig Matthew Tanber's arrest were dismissed Tuesday, court records show. Tanber will go to trial in the stabbing death of 22-year-old Shayan Mazroei at Patsy's Irish Pub in 2015.

Judge Richard Oberholzer, presiding over the evidentiary hearing due to Orange County Superior Court jurists being recused from the case, ruled "the alleged misconduct in the arrest of the defendant did not warrant dumping a murder charge."

According to a City News Service report, Alisha Montoro, Tanber's attorney of the Orange County Public Defender's Office, alleged sheriff's deputies used two confidential informants to track down the defendant in a motel room. She also alleged that they directed one of the informants, the mother of Tanber's son, to inject him with heroin before his arrest and then wrongly questioned the "incoherent" suspect.

"Montoro also argued that deputies withheld and destroyed evidence such as 'sexting' messages sent from the informant, Adrien Vasquez, to her handler, Deputy Victor Valdez, Paul Anderson of City News Service reported.

"When Oberholzer questioned the relevance of that evidence, Montoro argued that it should have been turned over to defense attorneys so they could use it to impeach Valdez before a grand jury, which indicted Tanber," Anderson wrote.

Oberholzer criticized defense motions in the case for implying Valdez and Vasquez had a sexual relationship when the evidence indicated otherwise.

Montoro countered that the two had an "inappropriate" sexually charged relationship based on the text messages, but Oberholzer said it appeared Vasquez was flirtatious and Valdez may have been playing off of that.

"She rather enjoyed the attention garnered by her physical appearance," Oberholzer was reported as saying. "The deputy who was her handler was using that trait ... for his law enforcement purposes."

Oberholzer also doubted the theory that deputies directed the informant to get Tanber high so they could elicit a confession. He noted that Tanber had a fear of needles and asked Vasquez to inject the drug into him.

The judge concluded that the allegations "do not rise to the level of governmental misconduct," and that the deputies were "working with a class of individuals in which you have to adjust your normal" behavior.

"None of these are governmental misconduct warranting dismissal of this case," the judge said.

Montoro said after the hearing that she was "disappointed in the court's ruling" and would consider an appeal.

"I don't think he accurately recounted the evidence," Montoro told reporters.
District Attorney Todd Spitzer, who attended many of the hearings, said the evidence "was disturbing at best." But Oberholzer "made the correct ruling," Spitzer added.

"My office takes very seriously any allegations of misconduct by members of law enforcement and will investigate such allegations as warranted by the evidence," Spitzer said. "All investigations will be done fairly and thoroughly, and the results will be disclosed to the public as permitted by law."

Tanber was on parole at the time of his arrest, having served time for beating another man to death, Patch previously reported.

City News Service, Patch editor Ashley Ludwig contributed to this report.