Jury acquits on murder charges in jail beating death

A jury found Telea Lui not guilty of both first- and second-degree murder in the 2021 beating death of his cellmate during a lockdown at the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center.

But jurors failed to reach a verdict on a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter against Lui, 28. The split verdict sets up the possibility that Lui may be retried on that charge.

Both defense and prosecution attorneys agreed that Lui fatally beat 41-year-old Leon Casiquito in a cell the two men shared at the jail on Oct. 25, 2021.

Nancy Laflin, a spokeswoman for the 2nd Judicial District Attorney’s Office, said prosecutors plan to retry Lui and will seek a new trial date at a future hearing.

Lui’s attorney, Camille Cordova, declined to comment on the verdicts, citing the possibility that Lui may face a future trial for voluntary manslaughter.

Staffing shortages at the jail and the absence of a full-time guard in the Echo 8 pod where the beating occurred emerged as issues in the four-day trial.

But prosecutors argued this week that staffing shortages played no role in Lui’s decision to repeatedly strike Casiquito while the two men were locked in a cell together.

“Would it be better to have a jail that’s fully staffed? Sure,” Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Lawrence Hansen told jurors Wednesday. “But the fact that it’s understaffed doesn’t mean you get to kill your cellmate — doesn’t mean you get to beat him to death.”

Prosecutors argued that Lui attacked his cellmate because he felt “disrespected” by Casiquito.

Lui’s attorney argued that Casiquito had engaged in escalating intimidation that put Lui in fear for his safety.

“As it goes on and on, it becomes torture,” Cordova said in closing arguments. “Mr. Casiquito started with a series of behaviors that were annoying and disrespectful and caused fear.”

Casiquito’s behavior was “verbally abusive and physically abusive,” she said.

“Mr. Lui responded just like a human to the situation he was in,” Cordova told jurors. “He didn’t intend to kill this man. He was sorry afterwards.”

MDC staff responded around 5:45 p.m. to the fight inside the men’s cell and found Casiquito not breathing, with severe trauma to his head, witnesses testified this week. He died at the scene.

One staff member testified that Casiquito was beaten so badly that his face was unrecognizable.

Other inmates in lockdown in the Echo unit could hear the beating from their cells and began calling for MDC staff to intervene, witnesses testified.

A union representative told the Journal at the time that MDC was not fully staffed at the time.

Five officers, plus two relief officers, were overseeing all eight pods at the jail the evening of the killing, a leader of the correction officers’ union told the Journal.

Had the jail been fully staffed, eight officers and two relief officers would have been overseeing the pods.

Jail staffing was largely excluded from the trial testimony because prosecutors argued that staffing issues were irrelevant to the case against Lui.

Lui was arrested in July 2021 on charges of aggravated battery and false imprisonment for allegedly striking his mother with a 20-pound dumbbell.

Lui’s mother told police that Lui had schizophrenia but did not take his medications, according to a criminal complaint. Lui “would often have hallucinations” but was never violent, she told officers.

Casiquito had been charged in December 2020 with armed robbery and aggravated assault for allegedly pulling a knife on a liquor store owner, according to a criminal complaint.

Both men had been ordered to remain in custody pending trial.