Judge tosses death penalty case in Aryan Warrior indictment

A judge on Thursday dismissed a death penalty case against one of 23 defendants prosecutors had tied to a violent white supremacist prison gang in Nevada, the defendant’s lawyers said.

Tarik “Torque” Goicoechea, 34, had been accused of participating in the fatal stabbing of a fellow inmate at High Desert State Prison.

His attorneys, Dayvid Figler and Kristina Wildeveld, had argued that prosecutors did not properly serve him notice of an indictment in which he could have the opportunity to present evidence to prove his innocence to a grand jury.

“As we maintained all along, Tarik Goicoechea did not belong in this case,” Figler said.

While dismissing murder and racketeering charges against Goicoechea, District Judge Michelle Leavitt allowed prosecutors 10 days to decide whether they would appeal her decision with the Nevada Supreme Court. Goicoechea is expected to remain in custody during that time, his lawyers said.

Goicoechea and another inmate, Anthony Williams, who goes by the nickname “Mugsy,” were not charged in the slaying until late last year, after Williams was tried and convicted for his role in a string of robberies across Clark County that occurred after his release.

Prosecutors have said they planned to seek capital punishment for both Goicoechea and Williams, who is still awaiting trial.

After Thursday’s decision, Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Dickerson emailed a statement to the Review-Journal.

“The District Attorney’s Office has provided defendant’s attorneys notice of his right to testify in front of the grand jury and will be in communication with his attorneys about that matter,” the statement read. “However, I can neither confirm nor deny whether he will be testifying before the grand jury. The District Attorney’s Office will continue to pursue prosecution of the defendant for the murder of Andrew Thurgood and criminal involvement with the Aryan Warriors.”

A sweeping indictment against reputed members of the Aryan Warriors, including Goicoechea and Williams, came as a result of an investigation by a gang task force with representatives from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the Clark County district attorney’s office, the Metropolitan Police Department, North Las Vegas police, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Nye County Sheriff’s Office and the Nevada Department of Corrections.

The August indictment was the first time prosecutors publicly linked Williams and Goicoechea to the February 2016 slaying of 26-year-old Andrew Thurgood. No other crimes listed in the indictment occurred before January 2019.

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson has said that his office did not learn of Thurgood’s killing until after the joint investigation started.

A day before Thurgood was stabbed 52 times inside a locked cell, Williams wrote to a woman predicting he would soon be punished. That letter made no reference to Goicoechea.

In an internal email from late 2018, a top prosecutor in the state attorney general’s office, which oversees crimes in the prison system, recommended that no charges be filed against the suspects.

Goicoechea “had been thoroughly vetted by the Attorney General, and their decision to not prosecute should have been given more deference,” Figler said. “The state has never presented sufficient evidence that Goicoechea was an Aryan Warrior or that this was done for the Aryan Warriors. There is zero evidence that the racketeering charges that have been set forth against all those defendants had anything to do with Tarik Goicoechea. That I can say unequivocally.”

Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.