SAN JOSE
–– Ignacio Covian, who had been accused of helping his brother
Gustavo kill Gilroy restaurateur Young Kim for pay in 1998,
accepted a plea bargain Tuesday that will set him free in three
years.
SAN JOSE –– Ignacio Covian, who had been accused of helping his brother Gustavo kill Gilroy restaurateur Young Kim for pay in 1998, accepted a plea bargain Tuesday that will set him free in three years.
Covian, 32, formerly of Hollister, was on trial for first-degree murder.
Hanging over his head was a life sentence with no chance of parole. On Tuesday, however, he accepted Deputy District Attorney Peter Waite’s offer to drop the murder charge if Covian would plead guilty or no contest (He chose the latter.) to a felony count of voluntary manslaughter.
Waite required that Covian serve six years of the maximum 11-year sentence for voluntary manslaughter, and Judge Robert Ambrose agreed to this. Covian could also face a $10,000 fine and/or be forced to pay restitution, if a victim files a claim.
Judge Ambrose is scheduled to sentence Covian on April 2.
Covian’s co-defendants, Kyung Kim and Maria Zapian, are still engaged in a murder-one trial that began more than four weeks ago. Lawyers Tuesday morning were nearly done discussing which evidence to allow and which to suppress and had tentatively scheduled jury selection to begin today.
Covian’s plea doesn’t change the fact that he “absolutely” maintains his innocence, he told The Dispatch afterward as a bailiff led him from the courtroom.
Covian’s court-appointed defense attorney, Molly O’Neal, said he accepted the offer based on her recommendation.
“I advised him it’s a deal he couldn’t pass up,” O’Neal said.
Waite said his decision was “based on a review of the evidence against Mr. Covian.” Waite had planned to call three witnesses to testify that Covian told them about helping kill Young Kim. Covian has denied making such statements to these people. The basis of his defense was going to be that he was living in Vancouver, Wash. when Young Kim vanished, O’Neal has said. Two of these witnesses are currently incarcerated, but Waite said there was no deal to trade their testimony for earlier release.
“It doesn’t make much of a difference to me,” Waite said of Covian’s plea bargain. “I’m still trying the other two.”
As a condition for the plea bargain, Waite required that Covian be available as a witness for the trial of Zapian and Kyung Kim, but the prosecutor said afterward he doesn’t plan to call Covian to the stand.
O’Neal said she would advise her client to assert his Fifth-Amendment right not to testify. Covian still has a robbery case pending in Stanislaus County, according to O’Neal and Waite.
A year ago, a jury found Covian’s brother Gustavo guilty of murdering Young Kim for hire, even though Kim’s body was never found. Gustavo is now doing life in prison in Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad, with no chance of parole.
Kyung Kim, 48, stands accused of hiring Gustavo Covian to kill her husband and end a 24-year arranged marriage that had turned bitter.
Covian’s ex-wife Maria Zapian, 29, brokered the deal, the prosecution claims.
Zapian (then Covian) worked as a waitress at the Kims’ Gavilan Restaurant on Monterey Street, now called the Sunrise Cafe. Another waitress told police she overheard Kyung Kim tell Zapian she wished her husband was dead. Zapian allegedly replied that Young’s death could be arranged, for a price.
Zapian’s and Kyung Kim’s attorneys are expected to include in their arguments that, since police never found Young Kim’s body, he may still be alive. Gambling debts and a girlfriend may have prompted him to flee to Mexico, defense lawyers have said.
For O’Neal and Ignacio Covian, the trial is over.
“In some ways I’m sad to be out of it,” O’Neal said. Given the lack of a body, jailhouse witnesses and not one but two female defendants – a rarity in homicide cases, O’Neal said – she described this case as “messy” and unusual but very interesting.
