Secret audio, overturned convictions and a jail death: The legal saga of an art dealer's murder

Secret audio, overturned convictions and a jail death: The legal saga of an art dealer’s murder

INDIO, Calif. — For people who were close to Cliff Lambert, the still-unresolved legal saga surrounding his brutal killing more than a decade ago has been agonizing. 

Lambert, a retired art dealer described by a friend as a “rich, gay socialite” in the California desert city of Palm Springs, was fatally stabbed in 2008 in what prosecutors have described as an elaborate plot orchestrated by two grifters — one who posed as an exiled prince from Nepal and the other who once captured media attention when he accused a prominent San Francisco financier of sexual abuse. 

With four accomplices, prosecutors have said, Kaushal Niroula and Daniel Garcia took Lambert’s money, identity and life.

Daniel Garcia at his second trial.DatelineA series of arrests, trials and convictions for murder and other crimes followed. But nearly 16 years after Lambert’s murder, the case remains unfinished.

In 2020, four murder convictions were overturned after illegally recorded courtroom audio revealed that the judge in the proceedings made derogatory and biased comments about two defendants, including remarks suggesting that he hadn’t reviewed filings because of Niroula’s sexual orientation and HIV status.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/palm-springs-cliff-lambert-murder-rcna177916

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