Judge in Kleber Cordova Hearing Calls Out Sick

What was expected to be the resuming hearing for Kleber Cordova, who is accused of drowning his wife in a bathtub in a Western Avenue apartment two years ago, was delayed Tuesday morning, Sept. 7, when it was discovered Judge Thomas V. Manahan had called in sick.

Court Clerk Ellen Journey said a new date would hopefully be set by later in the day.

The hearing was expected to resume by 9 a.m. Tuesday. Both defenders and prosecuting attorneys, as well as Journey, were in court on Tuesday when Journey made a phone call to the judge at about 9:20 a.m., then asked the council to convene in the back for a conference with Manahan by phone. Journey soon after said the day's session would be rescheduled, saying the judge would not be in court that day as he had called in sick.

Miranda hearings began last month for Cordova, who has said he found his wife, dead and naked, in his apartment at 85 Western Ave. the morning of May 9, 2008.

But prosecutors have said Cordova has confessed to killing his wife, Eliana Torres. In a tape, played during a hearing concerning Cordova's Miranda rights, however, Cordova repeatedly said he came home from his cleaning job at Pazzo Pazzo May 9 to find his wife in the apartment's bathtub with water covering her face.

When he tried to lift her out of the bathtub, he said in the recording, he realized her body was limp. He then said in the recording he did not lift her body entirely out of the tub.

At issue in the hearing is whether Cordova knowingly waived his right to an attorney. His side has said his statements to Frisk and Widdis should not be used against him during a trial.

At the previous session on Aug. 26, Manahan said there was a separate, off-the-record issue that had come up that required the Miranda hearing to be adjourned until Sept. 7. Attorneys said after the court proceedings were over that they could not comment on that issue, and Manahan said he did not want it to be brought up in court on Aug. 26.

Cordova only speaks Spanish and has had a translator with him at previous appearances. He did appear in court on Tuesday.