Off the Record: The Trial of Larry Millete Week 2 recap

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]A murder trial, an outburst, an alleged affair, and a phone call. The people versus Larry Millettee. Week one is now done. [music] My colleague Laura Acavedo has been following this case since 2021 and was in the court all week. I asked her to join me and take us through everything that happened in week one of court, from opening statements to emotional testimony. All right, let's go [music] off the record.

[00:00:27]All right, Laura, there was a lot that happened in court this week. Take us from the beginning. Opening statements, what went on?

[00:00:38]>> Yeah, Adam. So, basically, opening statements, the prosecution went for several hours. They started at about 9:40, went all the way through 2:30, including a lunch break. But basically, we got to look at to how they're going to lay out their case. And basically, what the prosecution was laying out is that Maya had plans. That phrase was repeated at least five or six times.

[00:00:59]They were trying to make the jury understand that she had plans to be with her children, to do family vacations in the year 2021. They also say she had plans to divorce her husband, Larry. And so that was kind of how they laid out their case for the jurors. when the defense had the chance to do opening statements, they um focused a lot on an affair that was disclosed in the court case and basically saying that investigators didn't look into that affair enough. And so that was kind of what happened um as things got started.

[00:01:31]And then we started to hear from witnesses. We started to hear from the woman who took a phone call that Maya made to a law firm when she was starting to ask about getting a divorce. and that call was made on the last day that she was ever seen. Um there was also um investigators. There was an NCIS investigator. There was two Chula Vista police officers. And then there was two of Maya's family members. So we heard from Mary Chris Drewle. She is the sister that we've gotten to know over the years. She's the woman that's kind of led the charge in looking for her sister. Her testimony was about her sister's life leading in the year leading up to the day she disappeared and when she started to find out that her sister was having marital problems and a trip to Glamis on New Year's Eve where she disclosed that she was going to file for divorce. So we heard testimony from the sister and then the most explosive testimony that we heard was from Maya Mali's father Pabo Tabalonza. He was testifying on the stand and it led to the most emotional moment of the week where he was answering the prosecution's questions and then suddenly he had an outburst and he started screaming directly at Larry who's been sitting in the courtroom the entire time and and he started saying why did you do this to my daughter? Why did you do this? I loved her very much in a very He was screaming. He was sobbing.

[00:02:58]>> That's different for court. You're not supposed to address anybody sitting at the tables. You're only supposed to answer the questions.

[00:03:04]>> Correct.

[00:03:05]>> So things must have gotten a little weird at that point.

[00:03:08]>> It it got a little bit chaotic. So you're not supposed to do that. He starts screaming at Larry who was in like a diagonal position. Um Judge Camaretta turned to him and said, "Sir, please don't do that." The prosecutors went up to, you know, their witness and were trying to calm him down. Judge Camaretta ordered all of the jurors out of the courtroom and then ordered us in the gallery out of the courtroom. But as we were all escorted out, he was still screaming. He was still crying. It took several minutes. After that happened, when we came back into court, the defense asked for a mistrial because of that outburst of emotion. The judge >> throw it out.

[00:03:46]>> Get rid of everything.

[00:03:47]>> Yes. They wanted to end the case right then and there, made that request immediately. Um the judge decided that he he ordered so when the jurors came back he ordered them to ignore the statements that Pablo Tabalonza had made and not count them as fact. Um and so he ordered them to do that everybody nodded in agreement. They were dismissed for the day.

[00:04:08]>> And so the judge when he made his decision to not declare a mistrial he explained I gave the jurors instructions. They nodded that they would understand and not take them at fact as fact and we will be moving forward. And that's what happened. Trial continues.

[00:04:22]>> But that wasn't, as my understanding, not the only time that they tried to get a mistrial during this first week of testimony. There was another kind of weird thing that happened this week as well involving a phone call.

[00:04:34]>> Yes. So, in this one, in this case, they didn't request a mistrial, but there was mention of it. So, it happened um after the jurors were dismissed. Again, um this would have been Thursday because there's no court on Fridays. Um, so Thursday, jurors are dismissed, but court kind of continues and the prosecution said, you know, in so many words, "Hey, judge, we would just like to get on record that Larry called a media outlet after court on Tuesday and we would just, you know, like to make it known that he's trying to communicate with the media criticizing he thinks that he's not getting a fair trial." And you know, the defense had tried to get a change of venue, gag order. And so the prosecution was like, "We just want it to be known that this was this attempt was made. The defense immediately was like, "Judge, we would like it for you to know that we didn't know this call was going to happen. We found out the night before by some friends who called us." Um, so there was kind of this chaos there where the judge said, you know, you speak to your client. The defense said they would speak to Larry about this call. Again, trial continues, but he was trying to communicate with the media. He thinks he's not getting a fair trial after the outburst.

[00:05:46]>> After the outburst, that's that's a wild move because you we question, and I know we've talked about this, whether Larry will take the stand at any point. So, it almost is like, is he taking the stand through the media? Is he trying to get his side out because he's not going to take the stand? I mean, I know that's a long way away from where we are right now, but in also in a very interesting point to this, what's the emotion like in the courtroom for people that can't be there every day? What's the seating arrangement? What are the emotions that are coming out, if there are any >> there? There are. So, Larry is not showing very much emotion. He's listening intently. He takes notes at times. He looks directly at the witnesses and sometimes kind of whispers back and forth with his with his defense team. Um, there haven't been, aside from Maya's father, real tears on the stand.

[00:06:37]While Maya's sister, Mary Chris, was testifying. She did get emotional several times. She choked up and kind of took a pause, but never any, you know, real crying. We have seen crying in the gallery from friends of Maya's, from family. Um, I know Mia's niece, Mary Chris's daughter, at one point was so emotional, she stood up in tears and walked out of the courtroom. from the baiff followed her out with some tissues. So, there have been moments of emotion when people are testifying. Um Larry has been in court every day wearing, you know, a dress shirt with a collar a dress like a sweater with a collared shirt under. Um some days he wears glasses, some days he doesn't. He does have a hearing aid in his left ear.

[00:07:20]Um and so that's kind of the the makeup and you know the jurors are all seated um paying close attention. Yeah, they've got a they've got a heavy task ahead of them in a lot of weeks.

[00:07:30]>> Week two is coming. It's a holiday week, so it's going to be a little bit shorter on this. Have they given you any indication on who's taking the stand, where this trial is headed next?

[00:07:39]>> What I can tell you is that the officer that was on the stand Thursday when court went into recess will continue Tuesday morning. The defense now has a chance to do cross-examination, which means they get to ask questions about the testimony that he gave to the prosecution. Besides that, we don't know because the prosecution and the defense have not shared a or the prosecution, they're the ones that are bringing the witnesses. They have not shared a list of who is going to be testifying. So, it's kind of a wait and see. We do know that Maya's boss or former boss will be testifying because they mentioned that in court, but we don't know what day. We don't know if that'll be next week, but he's the only one that we were kind of they we knew he's on the schedule. Sure, there's a lot of stuff that's going to come and I'm sure that we're going to continue to see people that have been involved in this that we've never heard about. I know we know a little bit of the story from what's been going on, but there just continues to be [music] more and more to this trial. We'll bring you all of it. Laura's going to be back down in court next week and [music] we'll have the same wrap-up right here on ABC10 News and ABC10news.com.

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