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Andrew Burton / Reuters file
Former tennis official Lois Ann Goodman is led away from the Manhattan Criminal Court on Aug. 23.
A tennis umpire whose murder case was dismissed on Friday said she was relieved the case is over so she can go on with her life and her career officiating tennis.
“I’ve been treated fairly now,” Lois Goodman told reporters after the court hearing in Van Nuys, Calif. “It was just a tragic accident.
“I’m glad it’s over, so I can go on with my life.”
Goodman’s attorney, Alison Triessl, said she hopes the news sends a clear signal of her client's innocence.
“This is a wonderful woman whose name was tarnished all over this country,” Triessl said. “And hopefully today everybody knows that she didn’t do anything.”
The news came during a preliminary hearing for Goodman, 70. She had a broad smile when she heard the news of the dismissal in court.
She was accused of stabbing her former husband of nearly 50 years, Alan Goodman, using a coffee mug as an improvised knife, prosecutors said.
"The District Attorney’s Office asked the court to calendar this matter today because we received additional information regarding the case," said Los Angeles County District Attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said. "Based upon this information, we announced that we are unable to proceed with the case at this time.
"The court granted our request to dismiss the case without prejudice."
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Gibbons declined further comment, saying that "because there is an ongoing police and District Attorney’s investigation, we will not make any further statements that might compromise that investigation."
Alan Goodman's bloodied body was found in their Woodland Hills home on April 17. Officers ruled the death suspicious, because they initially couldn’t determine if foul play was involved, according to an LAPD press release.
But after launching a full homicide investigation and working closely with the L.A. County Coroner’s Office, detectives determined on Aug. 2 that Alan Goodman was killed, and they named his wife as the prime suspect, the LAPD said.
Goodman was arrested on Aug. 21 in New York, where she was set to work as a line judge at the U.S. Open. She pleaded not guilty to murder and had been under house arrest.
Veteran tennis official Lois Ann Goodman, 70, was scheduled to work the U.S. Open currently underway in New York but is instead home in California, out on bail after being charged with murdering her husband last April. NBC's Mike Taibbi reports.
Goodman’s attorneys claim the police botched the investigation and argued that Goodman was not physically capable of committing the slaying. They also said that her DNA was not found on the coffee mug and that she passed a lie detector test.
A website and a Facebook page were set up to raise bail for Goodman. Family members praised Goodman in court records, arguing for her bail.
In a character reference letter in support of a motion to reduce Goodman’s bail on Aug. 28, Goodman’s youngest daughter, Allison Goodman Rogers of San Diego, wrote that her mother “is the most honest, loving, kind, generous, funny and trustworthy person you could ever meet.”
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Goodman Rogers wrote that she was raised in a “normal Jewish family” in the San Fernando Valley and looked up to her parents as role models. She believes the death was an accident.
“She would do anything for anyone,” Goodman Rogers wrote in court documents. “Happily married to my father just shy of 50 years, there was never once a foul word between the two of them. There was never once any sort of violence between the two of them.
"For her to even be accused of something like murdering my father is ludicrous! It’s simply not possible.”
Goodman’s eldest daughter, Joan Goodman, 48, of Glendale, wrote about fond memories of family trips to Palm Springs every other weekend. They went cherry picking and visited arts festivals in Laguna Beach.
Joan Goodman wrote that her mother was not physically capable of such an act. She said her mother had many ailments, including a hearing aid, arthritis, two knee replacements, a shoulder replacement and back issues.
“My parents were adorable together,” Joan Goodman wrote in court documents. “He was the yin to her yang. They were united in all their decisions.”
Leave a Comment:
The husband was playing tramploeen on his bed impailing himself with the broken coffee mug after each bounce. WTF could they have found to drop this case like this?
alright now she can get her job back refereeing tennis.. I can't wait till one those players try and argue a call with her..they will be found after the match with a racket sticking out of there neck.. game set match !!!!
the judge judy of tennis !!!
"WTF could they have found to drop this case like this?"
Maybe the real killer?
Why of course it's the spouse! It's always the spouse, don't you all know that? They could be 5000 miles away in front of a thousand people and it would STILL be the spouse. What? Did they give her a bionic shoulder replacement? Did he just sit there and get stabbed repeatedly? What else could they have found that explains it? I dunno, maybe something that makes sense.
"...using a coffee cup as an improvised knife, prosecutors said" --- Sooooooo using one of several knives in the drawer next to the coffee cup never crossed her mind? Somehow, I imagine the defense team would have all kinds of ways of poking holes in the prosecutor's coffee cup murder theory, which could be the reason for dropping the charges and looking for additional evidence before proceeding with the case.
How does one "accidentally" kill themselves with a broken coffee cup?
This story is just too weird.
I remember that OJ Simpson was "incapable if killing" his ex-wife.
Poor guy had arthritis and a bad back.
How about the fact that she wasn't physically capable of it?
Cops ALWAYS go for the easy way to 'solve' a case and make rank. Typical 'cop mentality', they could care less if they are right or wrong. Richard Jewel was tormented and harrassed for weeks before the cops finally conceeded he was innocent of the 1996 bombing at the Olympics. There is no surprise here....
Since you seem to know exactly what happened, you should be in charge of the case starting tomorrow.
Most hit men or gang members do not kill with a coffee mug. This points to someone inside who did this on the spur of the moment like an angry wife.
Duh, they need to dig deeper............
LOL - haven't you ever seen the Bourne movies? They can kill you with any random object laying around the house. Sometimes they have to because maybe they are running away from the CIA and other assassins too so maybe they already used all their real weapons on them and now they have to use whatever is handy at the moment to do their dastardly deeds...
Great deep cover too - tennis umpire, who would ever guess. Check in the back yard for missing CIA agents and assassins and then you will know why she had to use the coffee mug.
"Officers ruled the death suspicious, because they initially couldn’t determine if foul play was involved". Guy stabbed to death with a coffee cup...'doesn't look like foul play to me...how about you Sarge?'
He was stabbed multiplte times in "De-calf"!!!
What evidence did they even have in the first place pointing at her as the killer?
none...she was convienient and an easy 'solve' ....cause cops are ALWAYS right...just ask them...
Coffee cup murder case? Why would anyone want to murder a coffee cup?
Odd they would think the death suspicious. After all, bloodied bodies are a common sign of a natural death.
Since the case was dismissed without prejudice, it's still entirely possible for the charges to be refiled at a later time, despite what the whole rest of the article seems to suggest.
Supposedly she used a coffee cup instead of a knife? In my experience coffee cups aren't very sharp. Maybe they need better investigators, like ones that can recognized an edged weapon.
There was just a guy in the news that stuffed a beer bottle in his pocket, at his own wedding, and when he fell the bottle broke and severed his femoral artery, killing him. Anything is possible.
No man would have gotten off in a case like this with the roles reversed. Sexism lives ...
pfffffft... don't hate.
They were obviously fighting over some Palestinian's home.
That's crude.
motives?
opportunity?
ability?
and most important of all: evidence?
failing all these 4 tests and they still go forward with the charge???? The DA must be a real tard
the DA wants to enter politics where common sense if totally absent....
Typical police detectives pin it on the spouse so that they don't have to strain themselves to investigate a crime.
Just a cleaning lady because that is all you are qualified to do. At least you can say you strained yourself making that post. ; 'p
*rollseyes*
she shows more brains than you do.................."rolls eyes"
From what I've read about this case, it appears he tripped, slipped or fell on his coffee mug, breaking it, resulting in multiple puncture wounds from the shards. Case closed.
Multiple? That is stabbing. A cup doesn't stab when you fall on it. It likely won't even break.
When they arrest the spouse, it seems all to often that is, in effect, an admission they have no clue who the actual culprit is, and they want to have something to trot out in front of the press to demonstrate their prowess and commitment.
There's a very gigantic stack of pieces missing from these accounts. As Jeff stated, dismissal without prejudice means they just wiped the chalkboard clean, but they can file the exact same charges later. The DA only dropped them now because the evidence was too thin, and if they tried her and lost, double-jeopardy laws would prevent another try...but no laws protect citizens from having charges filed and withdrawn over and over. Defense attorney gets a slew of billing time racked up answering the charges only to have them go away, then starts over later, billing again for the same thing using the same forms, changing the dates and charging 10 billing hours for doing so.
DA looks to be "trying to be fair-minded", police look efficient, the lawyer looks at his watch, while the citizen sees her bank account rapidly deplete. The double-jeopardy law should be expanded that if the DA elects to withdraw the charges before trial, the government that DA works for is liable for the bills accrued by the accused. That would prevent this spurious filing of charges just for appearances.
It appears that the whole family was more distraught about the mother rather then what the hell happened to the father. In Jewish families the mother rules and the father is only the ninth hole on the fiddle. If she didn't kill him ,she surely knows who did because she must have payed them for services performed.
Would be nice to know if she was at home when the coffee cup "accident" happened.
These cops and prosecutor's need a reality check. Murdered with a coffee mug? Really? Your going to say that in public? Really? Did they think about it for even a minute, or say it out loud to themselves? A little old lady? With a coffee mug?? And these people are on a the public payroll...
I don't buy the daughter saying they never had a cross word between them. They were married, and for a long time. That does not mean she did it, but the daughter overdid her testimony.
My wife and I have been married for 16 years and there has never been cross words between us. When we disagree over something we talk it out. So, yeh, it's possible.
bartman
we do it even easier, she picks up a skillet and i STFU. works every time.
It was obvious that the D.A. doesn't have grounds for a case.
he didnt have the "grounds" to make a decent cup...let alone case......
"What did they find that caused them to drop the case?" is the wrong question. "What did they find that caused them to arrest Goodman?" is the right question. This article mentions no evidence justifying the arrest.
They "dismissed the case without prejudice." Sounds to me like the prosecution just needs more time. They can bring the charges back when they find more evidence.
Maybe the LA Police Department has been taking notes from the Italian courts as to how to invent scenarios for murder cases. This isn't the first time the LA Police Department has botched an investigation, either.
This old bitch deserves the gas chamber or a nice lethal injection.