Elsa E. Segura lured Monique Baugh into a fatal ambush that took place Dec. 31, 2019, prosecutors said. (Mug shot: Minnesota Department of Corrections)
The former probation officer who admitted on the stand that she set up a sham house-showing appointment with a realtor who ended up getting murdered will receive a new trial because the trial court flubbed jury instructions on her case.
The Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday determined that while there’s enough evidence to show that Elsa E. Segura, 31, participated in the kidnapping and felony murder of Monique Baugh, 28, the majority of justices ruled that botched jury instructions possibly contributed to her conviction.
From the ruling, quoting the trial court’s jury instructions (emphasis belonging to the state Supreme Court):
The elements of kidnapping to commit great bodily harm/terrorize are first, the defendant or another (or others) confined or removed Monique Baugh from one place to another without her consent …
Second, the defendant or other persons acted for the purpose of committing great bodily harm on the person of Monique Baugh or terrorizing Monique Baugh … It is not necessary that the defendant or that other person(s) actually caused great bodily harm to Monique Baugh or have terrorized Monique Baugh so long as the defendant or that other person(s) intended to do so.
Third, some part of the defendant’s act took place on or about December 29th through 31st, 2019, in Hennepin County.
…
If you find that each of these elements has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant is guilty of this charge; if you find that any element has not been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant is not guilty of this charge, unless you find the State has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is liable for this crime committed by another person according to the instruction below.
The Supreme Court opined, “When viewed together, these instructions materially misstate the law because they — by their plain language — allow the jury to convict Segura of kidnapping for the actions of others without reaching the issue of her liability under an aiding-and-abetting theory. The jury could find that the State proved beyond a reasonable doubt that (1) another person confined or removed Monique Baugh from one place to another without her consent, (2) the other person acted for the purpose of committing great bodily harm on the person of Monique Baugh or terrorizing Monique Baugh, and (3) that Segura took some action on December 29–31 in Hennepin County. Under the plain language of the instructions, the jury could convict Segura of kidnapping based on these findings alone. Thus, we conclude that the district court abused its discretion by providing hybrid instructions that materially misstated the law.”
The underlying conflict behind Baugh’s murder did not even involve her or Segura. The defendant’s boyfriend, Lyndon Wiggins, harbored a grudge against the victim’s boyfriend after both men had a falling out while working at the same record label, documents show. Then, when Wiggins was arrested for a drug case, he believed that Baugh’s boyfriend had informed on him to authorities, according to the court ruling.
He had Segura, posing under the name “Lisa Pawloski,” call Baugh to set up the fake house showing. When the victim, a mother of two, showed up on Dec. 31, 2019, however, it was not Powalski she met, but Cedric Berry, 45, and Berry Davis, 44. The men bound Baugh’s hands and neck with duct tape and forced her into a U-Haul van.
“After about 2 ½ hours, the men eventually drove to Baugh’s home in Minneapolis, where J.M.-M. [the victim’s boyfriend] was watching the couple’s two children, and shot J.M.-M. several times,” documents said. “Berry and Davis later shot Baugh in an alley in Minneapolis. J.M.-M. survived his injuries, but Baugh died from her gunshot wounds.”
Wiggins, Berry, and Davis are each serving life in prison without parole for their role in the crimes.
The question before the courts was how far Segura’s liability went. Despite being in law enforcement, she knew Wiggins was involved with drugs and even helped him in his business, according to the ruling.
“Over the course of their relationship, she assisted Wiggins in many ways, including renting a condominium for him, leasing a truck for him, buying pill presses for his drug trafficking business, and booking flights, bus tickets, hotel rooms, and Uber and Lyft rides for him,” they wrote. “Segura always used her own name, contact information, and financial information.”
At trial, Segura testified that though she admitted scheduling the house showing, she denied knowing of a plan to kidnap Baugh and kill the woman’s boyfriend. She said she believed she was helping Wiggins with his drug business.
According to the ruling, however, Segura clearly knew this was going to be more serious than the usual things she did for Wiggins.
“The circumstances proved, as a whole, make it clear that Wiggins’s plans were different — and more serious — than the drug trafficking Segura knew Wiggins was involved in,” they wrote. “Wiggins told Segura to call ‘Monique’ using a fake name, whereas she had previously done things for Wiggins using her own name and her own financial information. Moreover, Segura followed Wiggins’s instruction to make the calls and texts from places other than her house, which shows she did not want the set-up phone being traced to her home.”
The court, however, reasoned that Segura did not necessarily anticipate murder.
“It is reasonable to infer that Wiggins’s plan could include murder. But it also could have included a kidnapping of Baugh followed by a serious assault on J.M.-M. ,” they wrote. “Moreover, the circumstances proved in this case do not inescapably lead to the conclusion that Wiggins, Berry, and Davis originally planned to kill Baugh after kidnapping her and locating her boyfriend. If Baugh’s murder was not part of the original plan, then Segura could not have known of and intended to further a plan to murder Baugh when Segura set up the sham house showing. The circumstances proved, when viewed as a whole, do not rule out these reasonable possibilities.”
The court agreed that the district court’s jury instructions misstated the law.
“Because we are not convinced that this error was harmless, Segura is entitled to a new trial,” they wrote.
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