Minister may have to testify in murder trial

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    Minister may have to testify in murder trial of man who belonged to his church
    10:00 PM PDT on Sunday, March 8, 2009

    By TAMMY J. McCOY
    The Press-Enterprise

    For the second time in a year,a judge should decide Friday if a minister with the Jehovah's Witnesses has to testify about conversations he had with a Murrieta man or if those statements are confidential.

    Prosecutors want Jose Cespedes, an ordained minister with the Spanish Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses in Temecula,to testify at the trial of Kelle Lee Jarka.

    Jarka is charged with murder in connection with his wife's bludgeoning death at the family's Tamarisk Street home April 28.

    After receiving a subpoena from Jarka's attorney, Cespedes filed the motion asking that the court excuse him from taking the witness stand.

    In court Friday, prosecutor Burke Strunsky said he was surprised by this development because Cespedes had already been interviewed three times.

    "This is an important witness," Strunsky told Judge Judith Clark.

    The motion will be heard by Judge F. Paul Dickerson III, who handled a similar issue that arose in a child molestation case prosecuted by Strunsky.

    In March 2008, Dickerson ruled that elders from another Jehovah's Witnesses congregation had to testify against Gilbert Simental because his statements were never intended to be kept confidential.

    Dickerson determined Simental was not seeking guidance or forgiveness when he talked to the elders during an in-house investigation into reports of child molestation. Simental was ultimately convicted of molesting two young girls.

    Documents filed by Cespedes on Wednesday say Jarka was seeking spiritual guidance when he spoke to Cespedes and expected their conversations would be held in the strictest of confidence. Cespedes should not be ordered to testify because a law commonly referred to as the penitent-clergy privilege protects these conversations, the court papers say.

    Isabelle Jarka, the defendant's wife, called Cespedes on the night of April 27 because her husband did not tell her that a family friend had died of AIDS and was spending a lot of time with the dead man's family, Detective Andrew Spagnolo testified last year.

    Cespedes left the Jarka home at 4 a.m. -- about five hours before Isabelle Jarka, 40, was pronounced dead, according to Murrieta police.

    She was hit in the head 11 times and her body was found on the floor of her home, according to police.

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