by Prof Hex » Wed Oct 26, 2005 7:34 pm
From the Sacramento Bee:<br><br>Teen: Father feared a plot<br><br>The attorney believed a cult was out to murder him, his son says.<br><br>By Ramon Coronado -- Bee Staff Writer<br><br><br>Armed with a paintball gun, a Taser and a derringer, Sacramento defense attorney Richard W. Hamlin loaded his wife and four children into the family van and went to Granite Bay in search of a woman who wanted to kill him, the lawyer's teenage son testified Tuesday.<br>"He told me to take frozen paintballs to shoot out the windows," 18-year-old Ryan Hamlin told jurors on the first day of trial in El Dorado Superior Court.<br><br>The younger Hamlin, the first witness to take the stand in a trial expected to take up to seven weeks, said his father believed he was the target of a murder plot involving a satanic cult.<br><br>A well-known veteran defense attorney and former Sacramento County prosecutor, Richard Hamlin is charged with 18 felony counts of torture, spousal abuse, making death threats, negligent discharge of a handgun and child endangerment. If convicted, the 45-year-old faces a life term in prison.<br>In opening statements to the jury of eight women and four men, Deputy District Attorney Vicki Ashworth said the case had nothing to do with conspiracies or devil worshippers.<br><br>"This case is about domestic violence and abuse," Ashworth said. No one else connected with the case has been charged.<br><br>Richard Hamlin's world began to crumble in late 2003, the teenager testified, after 20 years of marriage and a successful legal career that provided the family with a $1 million hilltop mansion in El Dorado Hills.<br><br>Hamlin would beat his wife, Susan, "five days out of seven," Ryan Hamlin testified. When Richard Hamlin was arrested in February 2004, she had a broken nose and fractured ribs.<br><br>Susan Hamlin, also a lawyer who formerly worked at one of the largest firms in Sacramento, was a prisoner of fear in her own home, according to the prosecution.<br><br>Richard Hamlin is representing himself and, in his opening statement, told jurors that his 48-year-old wife had turned the couple's children against him and is lying about the domestic violence to avoid being prosecuted for her role in a murder plot to have him killed as a "Christian trophy."<br><br>Her injuries were caused by satanic cult members who were angry with her for not going along with the plan, Richard Hamlin told jurors.<br><br>In a tape recording of her statement to police that Hamlin played for jurors, Susan Hamlin admits to most of what her husband claims.<br><br>"Stick to the plan or I was going to end up dead," Susan Hamlin is heard saying in a noticeably tired voice in the recording made two days before Hamlin's arrest. She later recanted, saying she made the admission out of fear of her husband.<br><br>Richard Hamlin told jurors that his wife was suffering from emotional turmoil as she was beginning to deal with repressed memories of being molested as a child by her father.<br><br>Hamlin accused his wife's father of using satanic cult worship and videos depicting murder, commonly called "snuff films," as tools to control his family members and others from going to police.<br><br>"There is no way that I manipulated this or put things in her head," said Richard Hamlin, who was dressed in a black suit, white shirt and a red stripe tie.<br><br>In tracing two years of domestic violence, the younger Hamlin told jurors that his father, who had two other handguns in the house and a sword, had the family living in terror. They couldn't answer the phone or have friends over, he said.<br><br>His father started going off the deep end, the teen said, when he would go through his mother's family pictures and school yearbooks.<br><br>"He found some code in the books," said the younger Hamlin, who avoided looking at his father during most of his testimony. At one point, when he was describing how he was separated from his brother and two sisters, he and his father exchanged stares.<br><br>On the night of the trip to Granite Bay, the teenager said his father first dropped off his two little sisters, leaving his little brother and him with their parents as they drove aimlessly through Placer County streets. After his wife couldn't produce a street address for a woman named Lisa, Richard Hamlin pistol-whipped her with his .38-caliber derringer, Ryan Hamlin testified.<br><br>At one point, the father stepped out of the van and ordered the boys to keep an eye on their mother.<br><br>"I was pointing my paintball gun at her. My dad said if she moved to shoot her," Ryan Hamlin said.<br><br>Later, Richard Hamlin took his wife out of the van to an abandoned field.<br><br>"We thought my dad was going to shoot my mom. It seemed like he was going to kill her," the teenager said.<br><br>Ryan Hamlin's testimony resumes this morning before Judge Eddie T. Keller in the Placerville courtroom.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>