Criminal Justice
Disbarred lawyer sentenced in murder of art dealer, plot to steal his possessions
A Riverside County, California, judge on Friday sentenced disbarred lawyer David Replogle, 76, (left) for a 2008 murder of a Palm Springs, California, art dealer and a plot to steal the slain man’s money and possession. (Photo from the Riverside County, California, district attorney’s office’s July 18 press release)
A disbarred lawyer has been sentenced to life in prison without possible parole after his conviction in a retrial for his role in a 2008 murder of a Palm Springs, California, art dealer and a plot to steal the slain man’s money and possessions.
Former lawyer David Replogle, 76, was sentenced in the Riverside County Superior Court in California on July 18, according to a July 18 press release.
Prosecutors said Replogle was part of a six-person scheme in which the art dealer, 74-year-old Clifford Lambert, was fatally stabbed and his bank account drained of more than $185,000. Replogle forged power-of-attorney paperwork that allowed co-conspirators to take the money and tried to liquidate Lambert’s home and art collection, prosecutors said.
The home sale wasn’t completed after Lambert’s personal lawyer saw grant deeds transferring the property, according to previous coverage.
Lambert’s body had been buried off a mountainside in Los Angeles.
Replogle was convicted of eight felonies in the August 2022 retrial, including first-degree murder, criminal conspiracy, burglary, grand theft, identity theft and forgery.
Replogle and two other co-defendants were retried after a judge in the initial trial was caught on a co-defendant’s laptop saying he feared catching HIV from envelopes containing pro se motions because they had been licked closed.
“Lord knows where his tongue has been,” the judge reportedly said, referring to a co-defendant who was gay and HIV positive. The co-defendant, Kaushal Niroula, was killed in prison before his retrial.
The two other retried defendants, including the man who allegedly carried out the stabbing, have been sentenced to life in prison without parole, according to the Bay Area Reporter. A fourth co-defendant pleaded guilty to manslaughter and a fifth pleaded guilty to fraud, the Desert Sun reports via Yahoo News.
Replogle was the final defendant to be sentenced. He told the Bay Area Reporter in a previous interview that the trial was unfair, and he was not allowed to call witnesses that would have helped his case. He has said he acted under duress, ABC 7 News reports.
One of the co-defendants, Miguel Bustamante, told the Bay Area Reporter that he thinks that Replogle acted under threat from Niroula, who implied that he would harm Replogle’s mother if he didn’t cooperate.
Bustamante was accused of carrying out the fatal stabbing after Niroula let him and Bustamante’s roommate into Lambert’s home. Niroula had posed as an attorney who had information about an inheritance.
Replogle has indicated that he will appeal, according to the Desert Sun.
Replogle had previously represented one of the co-defendants in a sexual molestation case and obtained a $10 million settlement, according to previous coverage.
Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.
