hey declared Tony Villegas mentally incompetent to stand trial for the murder of Melissa Britt Lewis.
I haven't said much about it because I'm not sure I could add anything important to the discussion. In a nutshell, I don't like it. Guilty or innocent (and the evidence, including DNA, points to the former), crazy or just depressed, Villegas needs to stand trial for the crime. But if you want to try to get a peek into TV's mind, here's a link to his diary (hat tip to my colleague Lisa Rab for that one). Page after page of sometimes incoherent scrawls about bad days, loneliness, missing his family, losing his house and money in the divorce ("I feel like she rob me"), his anger ("Remember Tony, she don't love you, she laffing at
you"), despair at missing his son's birthday, and his still loving Debra Villegas despite it all.
Then there was the time he spied on DV at the Round Up Country Western Club in Davie and saw her making out with a guy (believed to be her new husband, Daniel Coffey) for three hours. Rab summed it up in a recent blog post on the Juice:
"Missing my family. My babe I love you so much. How this all happen," he wrote on November 19, 2007. "I hope to see you at Round Up on Wednesday. I miss u lips."
A month later, the theme was the same. "Hard to sleep. Missing my family," reads a December 12 entry. "Mad at her but loving her so that it hurts... (very lonely). She look like she in love. At Round Up with some guy for 3 hrs. outside making out.."
"Tony you don't like flys [sic] on you meat. Forget her."
Yes, it's sad, like poems from the damned. More than that, it's clearly the product of a deeply disturbed and stunted human being. Who knows what kind of shape he's in now.
But it's also not unlike how millions of people have felt after divorces in the past. And I'm sure a lot of people sitting in jail on first-degree murder charges have their bad days as well. Sorry, I don't feel sympathy for the guy. Call me a Neanderthal, but I just can't get past that whole brutal murder thing.
The state has five years to restore Villegas' competency, and I think the prosecutor needs to see to it that it happens. No way does Lewis or her family deserve not to see justice done in this heinous case.
Meanwhile, it's just another instance of justice deferred in all things Rothstein. It's a trend that's getting old fast.
-- In other news concerning horrible marriages, did you see that Dwyane Wade's estranged wife has filed a batshit lawsuit in Chicago against Wade's girlfriend? Siohvaughn Wade claims actress Gabrielle Union inflicted emotional distress on her and her children, sons aged 8 and 2, by engaging in "sexual foreplay" with the basketball star.Yeah, they were kissing. Throw the book at them. There's more:
The suit also claims Wade's oldest son was allowed to play unsupervised in or around the Miami home's pool at night. Wade and Union ignored the boy, whose "screams and cries" eventually got the attention of Wade's mother, Jolinda Wade, who took the boy inside, according to the suit.
The 8-year-old later told court-appointed child representative Lester Barelay what happened and asked him "to put his father in jail..." so he would not have to return to the home, which he calls "the house where the woman kissing daddy lives," the suit said.
The suit also claims the younger child nearly drowned while in his father's care and Union drove the boys to the park with his oldest son in the front seat.
On one visitation, Wade allegedly orchestrated a meeting between Union and the boys, where he introduced the actress as his "girlfriend" and said "that is why your mom and I are going to divorce," according to the suit.
You have to wonder if all Siohvaughn Wade has to do with her high school sweetheart's money is file frivolous lawsuits aimed at him. Because it looks like she's doing way more harm to her children by engaging in these petty conflicts than what she's alleging about Wade.
-- Another one to note is the Channel 7 report on prosecutor Kataya Pisman and BSO deputy Robert Hager. A DUI defendant's attorney is alleging they were having an affair when the guy was arrested.
Pisman was doing a "ride along" with Hager when the defendant was arrested. On the webcam, you can see her reach over and scratch Hager's arm affectionately.
Look, this whole thing is pretty silly. She's not even the prosecutor in the case -- they allege he made the arrest to impress her. Like I said, silly. But it is sort of interesting on the sociological front. And please don't disagree with me when you watch the video on the link above that no woman ever scratches a man like that if they (a) aren't having an affair already or (b) she wants to start having one very soon.
