Joshua Isaac Wandrey Sr., 35, Deborah Ann James, 47, and Thomas Loyd Dudney, 59, were in Judge Richard Martin's Department 2 courtroom on Friday morning for a preliminary hearing.
They're being tried on charges in connection with the Oct. 20 attack on 49-year-old Ronald Greiner of Lakeport, who was shot, brutally beaten – suffering numerous broken bones all over his body, including his face – and hogtied with barbed wire, with 10 pounds of marijuana in his home stolen.
“He would have died had he not been discovered,” District Attorney Jon Hopkins told Lake County News on Friday.
Wandrey and Dudney are charged with premeditated attempted murder, aggravated mayhem, torture, home invasion robbery in concert with another, first degree burglary with a person at home, assault with a firearm, assault with a blunt force object, assault likely to cause great bodily injury and serious battery, a gang charge and special allegations of use of a firearm and a gang enhancement, Hopkins said.
James is charged with attempted murder, robbery and burglary. She is out on bail, while Wandrey and Dudney remain in custody in the Lake County Jail.
The prosecution alleges that Dudney is a member of the Misfits motorcycle gang, and that Wandrey was a membership prospect who took part in the crime to earn his stripes.
The violence of the attack, said Hopkins, is a trait connected with the Misfits, which don't have a large presence on the North Coast, based on this investigation.
“Their size has greatly diminished over the years and so they are smaller than they used to be,” Hopkins said, adding that most of the members are getting on in years or in prison.
Regarding the gang allegations, Stephen Carter, Wandrey's defense attorney, said he was disappointed in Hopkins for trying the case in the press “when our trial is probably not very far in the future,” and potential jurors could be reading about it.
Hopkins recently dropped the charges against Dudney and refiled them in order to add the gang charges and consolidate his proceedings on the main charge in the case with those of Wandrey and James.
“I want to try the three together,” Hopkins said.
Court didn't convene until about 9:30 a.m. Friday, when Martin called the case.
Hopkins told the court he was ready to proceed with the exception of one detective who was out ill and another one who was ill but planning to stay in the event the case was called.
He said they could proceed if the defendants were willing to waive the sole session rule for the preliminary hearing, which would allow a portion to be held Friday and the rest the following week. Otherwise, he suggested the proceedings be pushed back entirely.
“That was the reason for the delay, so each of you could speak with your clients,” Martin said to defense attorneys Komnith Moth, Carter and Doug Rhoades, representing James, Wandrey and Dudney, respectively.
Before court had convened Martin had called the three attorneys into his chambers.
Moth waived the time limits for his client, which Rhoades and Carter didn't do. Martin said he found good cause for the date change because of the circumstances and he ordered the matter continued one week. The preliminary hearing for the three will be held at 8:30 a.m. Friday, Feb. 26.
Later that afternoon, two other defendants in the case – Joseph Henri Deshetres, 62, of Santa Rosa and Cheryl Ann Reese, 57 of Lakeport – were in court along with Dudney for a separate preliminary hearing. All are being charged with gang membership or participation, a gang enhancement and witness intimidation, said Hopkins.
Deshetres, like Dudney, is accused of being a Misfits gang member, Hopkins said. Both Deshetres and Reese also remain in the Lake County Jail.
The preliminary hearing on those charges began last Thursday, continued Friday and will need to be continued next week, as the prosecution's gang expert didn't complete his testimony Friday, Hopkins said.
“The prosecution has not yet shown any definitive evidence that Mr. Dudney was directly involved in threatening or attempting to dissuade any witness from testifying,” Rhoades told Lake County News late Friday.
The witness Dudney is accused of threatening had moved into a Sonoma County home where he was staying, and Rhoades said the subject had moved into Dudney's room, took his belongings and was getting rid of them, as well as allegedly lying about Dudney's involvement in the case.
Rhoades said when Dudney told his landlord, the witness' brother-in-law, that he wanted to “get rid of her,” he meant to get her out of room and the house.
“Nothing more nefarious was intended, and the prosecution has not shown as yet any evidence that either Mr. Dudney nor anyone he was in contact with threatened or intimidated that witness in any way,” Rhoades said.
While they don't yet know how Judge Arthur Mann will rule in the case, at this point “we do not feel that the prosecution has met its burden of providing sufficient evidence for a holding order,” Rhoades said.
The investigation is continuing in the case, Hopkins said, however, as to the likelihood of further arrests, “I couldn't say either way right now.”
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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