Judge orders Century City slaying victim's husband held without bail
The federal jurist said James Fayed was a flight risk and a threat to the community. Prosecutors have called him the 'primary suspect' in the killing.
A federal judge this afternoon ordered a man deemed the "primary suspect" in the stabbing death last week of his estranged wife to be held without bail pending his trial in a federal case involving his business.
U.S. District Court Judge Otis D. Wright said he was persuaded by prosecutors' arguments that James Fayed was a flight risk and represented a danger to the community.
Though Fayed has not been charged with his wife's slaying, Wright said, "I think the risk is too grave and I think the possibility of flight is too grave." He added that "sooner or later the other shoe is going to drop. He is going to remain in custody pending trial."
Wright said he made his decision based in part on statements by prosecutors that they had traced a rented SUV believed to be used by the perpetrator of the attack on Pamela Fayed to a credit card found in James Fayed's wallet.
Wright said, however, that he set aside a prosecutor's assertion made Tuesday that James Fayed may have wanted to kill his wife because she had volunteered to cooperate in a criminal probe into the international gold trading business the couple owned. The judge made the decision not to consider that assertion after James Fayed's defense attorney disputed in court today the allegation that Pamela Fayed had notified federal prosecutors she intended to cooperate about a month before she was killed.
James Fayed, dressed in a white jail jumpsuit and brought into court in a wheelchair, has been in custody since Friday on a federal charge of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
Pamela Fayed's slaying came the day before she and her husband were due in court for a hearing in their divorce case.
In the Tuesday court filing, Assistant U.S. Atty. Mark Aveis said James Fayed was likely to be ordered to pay about $1 million in spousal support, attorney fees and court sanctions at that hearing.
Aveis called him "the primary suspect" in Pamela's death, and said he is a danger to the community and a flight risk and should be held without bail.
In an interview Tuesday, Mark Werksman, James Fayed's attorney, accused prosecutors of "trying to create this cloud over my client to prejudice a judge in a relatively minor money exchange case."
He added, "If they have evidence of him committing a murder to silence a federal witness, then they should file those charges."
