Dibartolo’s Legal Bill Mounting Court Officials Ask County Commissioners For Some Help

Cash-strapped court officials are asking Spokane County commissioners for help in paying Sheriff’s Deputy Tom DiBartolo’s mounting legal bills.

So far, commissioners are giving the request a cool reception.

DiBartolo is charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of his wife last November.

Detectives say the 18-year veteran shot Patty DiBartolo, 39, in the back of the head, then shot himself in the abdomen to cover up the crime.

DiBartolo, who has pleaded innocent, insists he and his wife were shot by a pair of robbers at Spokane’s Lincoln Park. He is out on bail until his trial begins in June.

Last month, Judge Neal Q. Rielly ruled that DiBartolo is indigent and needs taxpayer help to pay his legal bills. DiBartolo earned $41,000 a year before being suspended without pay from the sheriff’s department after his January arrest.

Rielly allowed DiBartolo’s attorney, Maryann Moreno, to hire private investigator Jan Pfundheller at public expense. Pfundheller is being paid $40 per hour to help Moreno prepare for trial.

The money to pay her is currently coming out of a Superior Court account used to help indigent defendants pay for investigators.

But the $10,000 allocated for 1997 won’t be enough to cover the cost of DiBartolo’s investigator, much less anyone else’s, Superior Court Administrator Dave Hardy said.

DiBartolo’s investigator costs are expected to exceed $14,000, he said.

Most murder suspects can pay all their own costs or receive an attorney from the public defender’s office, which has its own investigators.

“… The court is requesting future DiBartolo pretrial preparation expenses either be paid out of the witness budget or a special budget to be set up for this case,” Hardy wrote in a memorandum to the county’s chief administrative officer, Jim Lindow.

The witness budget - $45,000 for this year - is used to pay hotel, travel and meal expenses for people brought in from out of town to testify in criminal trials.

County commissioners, who discussed the expenses Tuesday, haven’t decided what to do yet, but were clearly unhappy that they even had to consider it.

“This is bull,” Commissioner Kate McCaslin said. “Please. The guy was going to Hawaii with his girlfriend. He posted bail - $125,000. He must have assets somewhere.”

After his wife’s death, DiBartolo arranged a trip to Hawaii with a woman believed to be one of his mistresses, detectives said.

Commissioner Phil Harris also was perplexed by the request for more money to defend DiBartolo.

“This is one that makes you scratch your head and ask, why?” Harris said. “He’s got a house.”

DiBartolo, 42, has put up his Medical Lake house as collateral for his bond.

Hardy said the county has little choice but to pay the costs. State law requires the public to foot the bill for indigent criminal defendants.

Commissioners may have to take money out of the general fund and create a special line item in the budget just for DiBartolo, Hardy said.

“Mr. DiBartolo was able to hire Ms. Moreno because his mother loaned him money to cover his legal costs,” Hardy wrote in the memo to Lindow. “Because the court cannot direct Mr. DiBartolo’s mother to pay trial preparation costs and he is indigent, the county … is required to cover these costs.”

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Adam Lynn Staff writer Staff writer Dan Hansen contributed to this report.