MOTION SAYS RATHBUN NOT READ MIRANDA RIGHTS.

Byline: Jaxon Van Derbeken Daily News Staff Writer

Police who questioned the man accused of killing model Linda Sobek failed to read him his Miranda rights and continued to interrogate him even though he asked for a lawyer at least 12 times, a defense motion revealed Wednesday.

In the 33-page motion, filed Tuesday in South Bay Municipal Court, the attorney for Charles Rathbun claims his client's rights were violated and that all evidence obtained as a result of the questioning should be suppressed - including the slain model's body.

Rathbun was arrested Nov. 22 and, after questioning, led officials to a shallow grave in the Angeles National Forest where the body of the missing Hermosa Beach model and ex-Los Angeles Rams Raiderette was found buried.

"They decided to ignore his constitutional rights in order to get the body at any cost," attorney Mark Werksman said Wednesday. "They got the body, but they did it in a way that was unconstitutional. And now they will have to pay the consequences."

A Los Angeles County sheriff's lieutenant in charge of the Sobek investigation acknowledged Wednesday that detectives knew there could be legal risk when they questioned Rathbun after he told them he didn't want to talk and asked for his attorney.

But he said, investigators were desperate to find the missing model.

"After he asserted his rights, we did in fact talk to him about the location of the body," said Lt. R. David Dietrich. "There is some question of admissibility of those comments.

"We continued to question him in an effort to simply find the body - for the family's sake," Dietrich said.

But prosecutor Stephen Kay said police followed the rules, and prosecutors will file their own brief late today or Friday to respond to the defense's claim.

"I think the police did a good job on this case, and I'm willing to go to court to defend it," Kay said.

"When somebody's life hangs in the balance, you don't have to read (Rathbun) his Miranda rights," Kay asserted. "They didn't know if Linda Sobek was alive or dead, and they just wanted to rescue her."

Kay said courts in California, along with the U.S. Supreme Court, "have said that the right to life of a victim supersedes the rights of the suspect to exercise his rights against self-incrimination."

Rathbun has pleaded not guilty to murder and sexual assault in the November slaying.

Rathbun, who photographed models for truck and car magazines, had hired Sobek for a photo shoot and initially claimed that he accidentally killed her while showing her how to do tricky driving maneuvers on a dry lake bed.

An autopsy, however, found that she died of asphyxiation and had been sexually assaulted.

In his legal motion, Werksman asserts that no evidence gathered based on Rathbun's statements should be admitted.

The motion claims that "the entire course of dealings between the police and the defendant was compromised by a blatant, sustained, and systemic disregard for Mr. Rathbun's Fifth Amendment rights not to incriminate himself."

According to the motion, Rathbun was questioned in a police holding cell following his arrest. At his home earlier, detectives learned Rathbun had sent a fax to Shannon Meyer, then a reserve sheriff's deputy, in which he "allegedly discussed the death of Linda Sobek."

The motion claims Rathbun was drunk and suicidal when Hermosa Beach police Detective Raul Saldana and sheriff's Investigator Mary Bice interrogated him in a session that was tape recorded.

"At no time did either Detective Saldana or Officer Bice inform Mr. Rathbun of his Miranda rights. (Nor to this day has Rathbun ever received Miranda warnings)," the motion says.

After Rathbun indicated he wanted an attorney, the investigator said:

"Uh-hum. OK. I realize that, OK? And the reason we're in here talking now is, if anything, what we wanted to do is - there's a lot of people who really care about this gal, OK? And we'd like to make them feel better, make them feel whole, OK?"

In continued questioning, the motion asserts, Rathbun asked for an attorney as many as 12 times.

"Rather than provide Mr. Rathbun with counsel, officers Saldana and Bice unrelentingly exploited Mr. Rathbun's precarious physical and mental state. Mr. Rathbun was exhausted and noticeably intoxicated. Only a few hours earlier, he had been on the verge of suicide."

Werksman claimed that the interview amounted to "psychological torture."

Lt. Dietrich explained that detectives did not read Rathbun his Miranda rights because he had invoked them.

"The first thing he said was, I want an attorney, I don't want to talk," Dietrich said. "Then he said 'Well, I'll talk to you a little bit.' "

Werksman's motion contends that the officers took advantage of Rathbun's condition.

". . . Saldana and Bice by turns smooth-talked, badgered, and guilt-tripped Mr. Rathbun into making an extensive statement regarding his involvement in Ms. Sobek's death," the motion says. "Then, by repeatedly assuring Mr. Rathbun that he help himself and 'make right,' and give her grieving parents 'a little peace' by locating Ms. Sobek's body for proper burial, the officers skillfully manipulated Mr. Rathbun into agreeing to help them locate the corpse."

Rathbun's preliminary hearing, before Los Angeles Municipal Court Judge Benjamin Aranda, is scheduled for Feb. 26 in South Bay Municipal Court.

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PHOTO

Charles Rathbun Accused in Sobek murder