"El Cajon electrician was convicted Friday of murdering a homeless man his ex-girlfriend had befriended."

Lutz's slimebag lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Arturo Herrera sets a new threshold for sleazy by trying to pin the blame on "the homeless guy" for his own death by suggesting he "may have been dealing drugs from the woman's car because marijuana was found in the car along with a baggie of white powder which was never analyzed."

Not sure now who the bigger fecal fleck is, scumbag killer Lutz or slimebag Herrera attorney. Frankly, both appear to belong in the Bighouse and both deserve a punk's welcome...


Man convicted of murdering girlfriend's homeless acquaintance

By Ray Huard

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

4:44 p.m. August 15, 2008

EL CAJON – An El Cajon electrician was convicted Friday of murdering a homeless man his ex-girlfriend had befriended.

Jeremy John Lutz, 29, also was convicted of kidnapping and raping his former girlfriend following the Sept. 15, 2005, shooting of Thomas Benjamin in a park-and-ride lot off of Interstate 8 at Los Coches Road in Lakeside.

The jury returned its verdicts after less than three hours of deliberations after getting the case late Thursday afternoon following a week-long trial.

Judge J. Lantz Lewis set an Oct. 7 hearing at which Lutz faces a sentence of life in prison.

Benjamin, 49, was shot eight times as he sat in a parked car eating double cheeseburgers with Lutz's ex-girlfriend, who said she curled up in a ball to take cover as Lutz repeatedly fired a handgun through the passenger window of her Ford Taurus.

The woman was not injured, but witnesses testified that a bullet was found embedded in the driver's door inches from where she had huddled.

Lutz also was convicted of violating a September 2005 court restraining order which prohibited him from going near his ex-girlfriend or her three children, two of whom were his.

In an unrelated matter, Lutz was convicted of making a criminal threat in in July 2005 when witnesses said he threatened to shoot a man whom he saw talking to his ex-girlfriend outside a Lakeside mini-market where she worked.

Dressed in a black shirt, gray patterned tie and dark gray pants, Lutz joked with his lawyer before the verdicts were returned and showed little emotion as they were read. Members of his family, who were sitting in the audience, wept.

Lutz's ex-girlfriend testified during the trial that she saw Lutz first punch, then shoot Benjamin, whom she had known for several years after meeting him at a Lakeside bar where he sometimes spent the night.

After shooting Benjamin, Lutz picked her up out of her car, put her in his car and drove to a remote hilltop in Santa Ysabel, where he forced her to have sex, the woman said.

Lutz testified that he didn't shoot Benjamin, never went near the park-and-ride lot and went to the Santa Ysabel lot with his ex-girlfriend in search of her car, which she had loaned to another man.

Sheriff's deputies testified that the gun used to shoot Benjamin was found in a cow pasture where Lutz was arrested. The gun wasn't discovered until June 2006.

Deputy District Attorney Allison Batstone said that shell casings found in and near the car where Benjamin was shot came from the semi-automatic handgun deputies found near the field.

She said Lutz was obsessed with his former girlfriend and felt threatened when other men showed an interest in her.

Lutz's lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Arturo Herrera, said that the woman was a heavy methamphetamine user and that Lutz often went in search of her when she left to party with drug-taking friends.

Herrera said Benjamin may have been dealing drugs from the woman's car because marijuana was found in the car along with a baggie of white powder which was never analyzed.