Convicted child molester testifies

The testimony of a convicted child molester may help a jury decide the fate of a Cheney man charged with killing his pregnant girlfriend.

After attorneys completed their arguments in the double murder trial Monday afternoon, jury members deliberated just 20 minutes before court officials sent them home for the evening. They will meet again today to deliberate on the case of John E. Lipinski, 21, who faces two counts of second-degree murder.

Lipinski is charged with the Aug. 11, 2004, death of his girlfriend, 19-year-old Melissa Saldivar, who suffered a fractured skull. Doctors kept her alive long enough to deliver their baby, Mataya, but she died Oct. 1, 2004.

Spokane police detectives believe that Lipinski, who has a history of domestic violence, either pushed or kicked Saldivar out of a moving car, according to court testimony. Lipinski told police several versions of what had happened, but in his last statement, he told police that Saldivar jumped out of the moving car.

On the final day of testimony, Deputy Prosecutor Steve Garvin called Eric Shane Buck, 26, an inmate in the Spokane County Jail. Buck said he recently had overheard Lipinski describe what he called the perfect crime, which was punching Saldivar in the face before pushing her out of the car.

Lipinski “said (Saldivar) had bruises on her the night he pushed her out of the car from beating on her,” Buck testified.

Garvin asked Buck why Lipinski thought it was a perfect crime. “Because there were no witnesses,” he replied.

But Assistant Public Defender John Stine ripped Garvin for calling Buck to help prove a case that Stine said is based on theatrics, exaggeration and distraction.

“Do you think that if there was any confidence they had in proving their case that they would put a convicted child molester back on the street?” Stine asked the jury. “All (Buck) is doing is parroting what had come up in the case before. So his testimony is completely unbelievable.”

To a point, Garvin agreed. He told jury members that their starting position should be that they don’t believe anything from Buck, whom he called a “despicable, despicable human being.” Buck, who received a deal to avoid prison time, was convicted in 1994 of molesting a 12-year-old child when Buck was 15.

However, Buck testified that he had heard Lipinski say he had punched Saldivar in the face, an injury that had not been included in previously released documents. Only detective Tim Madsen, medical officials and a couple of others knew that detail, Garvin said.

“Mr. Buck knows details that have only one source - Mr. Lipinski,” Garvin said.

Garvin also called a second inmate, Robert W. Compton, who is serving a sentence and got no deal for his testimony. Compton said he had overheard a voice that he recognized as Lipinski’s.

“The only thing I remember I heard was a statement about pushing someone out of the car,” Compton said. “It sounded to me like John” Lipinski.

Stine then called several other inmates who said they had tried but failed for months to get Lipinski to talk about his charges. It wasn’t until earlier this month – when inmates began chanting “Free Lipinski” and a jailer told them about how Lipinski was charged with murder – that a group of inmates came forward to testify.

“The prosecutor has tried to put a much more evil spin on this than supported by the evidence,” Stine said.

To demonstrate, Stine said Garvin used what he calls the “desperation exception,” in which he called several witnesses to document past allegations of domestic violence against Lipinski.

“The prosecutor had a strategy _ make Mr. Lipinski look as bad as possible,” Stine said. “Because when you can’t prove what you need to prove, just drag him through the mud.”