LOS ANGELES (AP) - The attorney for a reality TV producer arrested for his wife’s killing in Mexico says his client is innocent and should not be extradited to Mexico.
Attorney Richard G. Hirsch wrote in a statement Tuesday evening that he believes Bruce Beresford-Redman has been wrongfully accused of killing his wife at a swank Cancun resort in April.
The producer was arrested Tuesday without incident at his home in Rancho Palos Verdes. He is expected to make his first appearance Wednesday in federal court in Los Angeles.
Hirsch says he is disappointed by Beresford-Redman’s arrest, and that he hopes his client will not be returned to Mexico to face an aggravated homicide charge.
Beresford-Redman is a former “Survivor” producer and co-creator of “Pimp My Ride.”
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ A TV producer whose wife was killed on a vacation in Mexico was arrested as a fugitive in Southern California on Tuesday, six months after the Mexican government issued a warrant for his arrest.
Bruce Beresford-Redman was taken into custody at the request of the Mexican government by U.S. Marshals and FBI agents at the home he shares with his parents and kids in Rancho Palos Verdes, according to a written statement from U.S. Attorney’s spokesman Thom Mrozek.
A U.S. magistrate judge signed a warrant for Beresford-Redman on Friday in conjunction with a complaint that outlines Mexico’s case against the producer, Mrozek said.
The complaint said Beresford-Redman, 38, is charged with aggravated homicide in the death of his wife Monica Beresford-Redman, whose body was found in a sewer in Cancun in April while the two were on vacation.
The complaint, which was automatically unsealed on Beresford-Redman’s arrest, alleges that on April 5, Beresford-Redman killed his wife by asphyxiating her at the Hotel Palace Nizuc in Cancun.
Mexican officials had issued a warrant for the former “Survivor” producer’s arrest in May, but he had already returned to California.
Jeane Ferreira Burgos said in a sworn statement that her sister Monica Beresford-Redman told her about six weeks before she was killed that her husband was having an affair with another woman, according to the complaint.
She confronted her husband and he apologized, but when she learned that he still had contact with the mistress, she asked for a divorce, according to the complaint.
Burgos said her sister had the locks changed on the couple’s home before the vacation, and told their children’s schools that her husband should not be allowed to pick them up.
Beresford-Redman’s parents were granted permanent guardianship of the couple’s 5-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son last week, after a settlement with two of the children’s aunts.
Bruce Beresford-Redman was being taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, and was scheduled to make an initial court appearance Wednesday, Mrozek said.
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