PASADENA, Calif. — The Felicia Tang murder case again has been put on hold after the alleged killer's attorney in the case was substituted today.
But the prosecutor in the case, Philip Wojdak, told XBIZ that the trial will finally get underway on June 3 at Pasadena Superior Court.
Defendant Brian Randone's defense attorney was going through chemotherapy but the illness has taken a turn for the worse, said Wojdak, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney.
Randone, who has been held for more than a year and a half in lieu of $2 million bail, is accused of torturing, suffocating and murdering 31-year-old Tang, his live-in girlfriend at the time, inside the couple’s Monrovia apartment on Sept. 11, 2009.
Tang, whose birth name was Felicia Lee, became an online-adult top draw for seven years, from 2001 to 2008. She starred in several Playboy TV shows, appeared in several Peach DVD movies, and she starred in the pay-per-view series “Strip Poker Tournament.” She also owned FeliciaTang.com.
Wojdak, who says there is a large amount of evidence pointing against Randone, said that the case probably will attract a fair share of media attention.
"Because of the nature of the crime scene, it is going to be a colorful trial," Wojdak said.
At his arraignment last year, prosecutors said Tang had been beaten with a "coat hanger-like object," then suffocated by having her head held into a pillow or ground into the floor. Bruising on Tang's body led investigators to believe she was suffocated against a hard surface.
Even a judge last year sealed the photos of Tang's injuries at the arraignment, remarking that "the photos, needless to say, are gruesome."
Randone, an Omaha, Neb., native, is a former minister and mime who was featured on a 2000 Fox reality show "The Sexiest Bachelor in America."
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