David Replogle (Riverside County Prosecutor”s Office).
A 76-year-old lawyer has been sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in the murder of an art dealer, whose body was interred on a mountainside in Southern California.
Nearly two years ago, David Replogle was found guilty of the 2008 murder of Clifford Lambert, an art dealer and socialite from Palm Springs. The jury convicted Replogle of eight serious offenses, including first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit a crime, burglary, grand theft, identity theft, and forgery. On Friday, a judge imposed a life sentence on the now-disbarred attorney, as reported by the Riverside District Attorney’s Office in a press release.
Replogle was part of a group of six individuals who plotted to fatally stab Lambert, 74, at his residence on December 5, 2008. The group then moved Lambert’s remains to a mountainside in Los Angeles, where he was buried. Authorities eventually discovered a jawbone and skull, which were confirmed to belong to Lambert.
Prosecutors said Replogle used his legal credentials to forge power of attorney documents so the suspects could drain some $185,000 from Lambert’s bank accounts and gain access to his home and art collection.
Replogle was found guilty in 2010 but that verdict and those of his co-defendants was thrown out “due to prosecutorial misconduct,” per the press release. NBC News reported the misconduct stemmed from a comment a judge allegedly made about not wanting to touch an envelope because one of the co-defendants was HIV positive. Replogle’s sentencing was held up because of multiple motions for a new trial that were subsequently denied, according to prosecutors.
The defendant professed his innocence earlier this year in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter.
“This is right out of Putin’s Russia, and you can quote me on that,” he told the outlet, claiming he was unable to call witnesses during trial he thinks would have made a difference in the case.
Co-defendants Kaushal Niroula, Daniel Garcia, Miguel Bustamante, Craig McCarthy, and Russell Manning were convicted for their roles in the scheme. Manning and Niroula died after their convictions, prosecutors said. Garcia and Bustamante also received life sentences while McCarthy pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in exchange for his testimony against the other men, per the Reporter. McCarthy is reportedly eligible for parole next year.
The case gained notoriety in part because Niroula posed as an exiled prince from Nepal, per NBC News.
