Death Penalty Trial of Los Alamitos Actor to Begin after Years of Delays

After years of delays, the capital trial of an actor accused of murdering and dismembering a man at a Los Alamitos theater then killing a woman to cover it up will begin on Monday.

Prosecutors allege Daniel Patrick Wozniak killed his friend Samuel Eliezer Herr after luring him to a theater the Los Alamitos Joint Forces military base in May 2010.

He then used Herr’s cellphone to trick another friend, Juri Kibuishi, into going to Herr’s Costa Mesa apartment, where Wozniak shot her and then made it look as if Herr killed her during a sexual assault, say police.

Wozniak, who then allegedly returned to the base to dismember Herr’s body, is accused of committing the crimes to steal from the victims to pay for his honeymoon and wedding to a former Disney Princess.

The trial was delayed repeatedly as the case became entangled with the scandal surrounding the Orange County District Attorney’s Office’s use of jailhouse informants. Woznaik’s Public Defender Scott Sanders succeeding in having the district attorney’s office removed from the trial of Seal Beach mass murderer Scott Dekraai by alleging long-standing prosecutorial misconduct in enlisting informants to get information from inmates already represented by attorneys. Since then, multiple convictions have been overturned because of the use of jailhouse informants, and Sanders has made several motions to have the district attorney and Orange County judges thrown off Wozniak’s trial. According to to Sanders, authorities violated Wozniak’s rights when they enabled producers for MSNBC’s “Lockup” to interview Wozniak in jail. In a 500-page motion, Sanders failed to convince the court, and the trial will finally begin more than five years after the murders.

Steve Herr, Samuel Herr’s father, had begged the judge to start the trial after attending more than a 100 court hearings and watching scheduled trial dates come and go over the years.

“Fifteen months ago, the first trial date was set. In October, the trial was delayed a year until this March. Then in March it was delayed again” said Herr while urging the judge to start the trial. “I’m fed up and I’m fed up with the delays.”

“We’ve been waiting five years,” Herr said.

If convicted, Wozniak would face the death penalty.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.