Today is the day As I Lay Dying frontman Tim Lambesis has been dreading. He will attend a preliminary hearing to determine if the prosecution in his case has enough evidence to warrant a trial.
Lambesis was arrested on May 7th for attempting to hire a hitman to murder his wife. The supposed hitman ended up being an undercover cop. Lambesis is currently out on $2 million bond after paying $160,000 to a bail bondsman. Lambesis has been on house arrest since release, with few exceptions.
During previous hearings, the prosecution revealed that they have audio evidence of Lambesis speaking to an undercover cop posing as a hitman named "Red" with Lambesis saying “that it’s better for his children to have one healthy relationship with one parent rather than two unhealthy ones.” He told Red he wanted his wife gone. Lambesis was specifically asked if he wanted his wife dead, and he said "yes, that's exactly what I want." Lambesis also allegedly handed Red an envelope with one thousand dollars in cash, Meggan's address, photos of his wife, security gate codes instructions on how and when to enter the home, when he would have the children in his custody, allowing for Meggan to be murdered.
Lambesis' defense attorney initially claimed that he was set up, but after a restructuring of his defense team, Lambesis' new lawyer then blamed steroid use for Lambesis' clouded judgement.
To reiterate, today's hearing will be about the prosecution revealing their evidence so that the judge can decide if there is enough of it for the case to go to trial.
For the most part, Lambesis has kept quiet during his house arrest, breaking his silence once with a vague message that he quickly deleted from his personal pages. As I Lay Dying's band page has been inactive, save for a weird post about a guitar auction which was eventually removed. It is assumed that while under house arrest, Lambesis managed to finish his crowd-funded solo album for Austrian Death Machine, which should see release shortly.
Update: The hearing results are in and the case is going to trial.
[Washington Post via MetalSucks]
