OFFICERS TESTIFY IN DEFENSE OF DALLY; PROSECUTORS' PORTRAYAL OF VICTIM'S SPOUSE COUNTERED.

Byline: Don Holland Daily News Staff Writer

After five weeks and more than 100 prosecution witnesses, the defense opened its case Tuesday in Michael Dally's murder trial, with attorneys trying to prove he knew nothing of his lover's plan to kidnap and kill his wife.

With their opening witnesses, the defense sought to counter prosecution claims that Dally was a drug-using womanizer, who masterminded the abduction and slaying of his wife, Sherri, in May 1996. The defense maintains Diana Haun acted alone in killing Sherri Dally so that she could have Michael to herself.

But during Haun's trial, which ended in a first-degree murder conviction, prosecutors sought to portray her as merely a pawn of Dally's - although one so obsessed that she may have even offered up Sherri Dally as a human sacrifice for him.

Among the initial witnesses Tuesday were Ventura police officers who suggested that a leak within the department - not firsthand knowledge - may explain how Dally learned of key details in the case.

Officer Marina Duffner said she told a friend, who also knew the Dallys, that Sherri Dally had been abducted by someone posing as a police officer and that handcuffs had been used. Duffner eventually told her boss of the breach, and was subsequently bounced from the detective division back to patrol.

And Detective Robert Slay said that when police talked with neighbors while investigating Sherri Dally's disappearance, some residents asked whether rumors of the handcuffs and police impostor were true.

Police officers also testified that Michael Dally cooperated with the investigation and provided them with pager codes he and Haun used to communicate.

And Ventura police Sgt. George Morris said Dally called more than 10 times asking about the progress of the investigation into his wife's disappearance. When Morris told Dally that his wife's remains had been discovered, Dally seemed concerned, the detective said. But under cross-examination, he conceded that he was unsure whether Dally was worried for his wife - or for himself.

Ventura police Detective Glen Young said that a few weeks after Sherri Dally had vanished, he had warned Michael Dally that Haun could pose a danger to him and his two young sons.

``She ain't getting close to me and the boys,'' Young recalled Dally telling him.

Yet Dally continued his romantic relationship with Haun, whom he met while both were working at supermarkets in Ventura County.

Police witnesses also recounted that Dally had told them Haun could not have been involved in Sherri Dally's murder. They also said that when they had asked him to verify Haun's signature on a rental contract for the car used in the murder, Dally had told them it did not look genuine, Young testified.

The defense may finish its case as early as this week.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

PHOTO (Color in Simi Edition only) Michael Dally

Details of case possibly leaked