Lois Goodman, tennis referee and alleged ‘coffee cup killer,’ pleads not guilty (VIDEO)
Serena Williams of the United States (R) argues with the chair umpire during a break in play against Samantha Stosur of Australia during the Women’s Singles Final on Day Fourteen of the 2011 US Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on September 11, 2011 in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City.
Lois Goodman, the professional tennis referee charged with bludgeoning her husband to death with a coffee cup, has pleaded not guilty.
Goodman, 70, who had been due to work at the US Open, instead fronted a Los Angeles Superior Court, where the judge set bail at $500,000 and adjourned the case to October, Agence France-Presse reported.
She won a reduction in bail from $1 million at her arraignment in Van Nuys, and Superior Court Commissioner Mitchell Block ruled that she could be released to home confinement with electronic monitoring, the Daily Mail wrote.
Goodman was staying at a Manhattan hotel preparing for the US Open grand slam tournament when arrested last week over the murder of her 80-year-old husband, Alan Goodman.
Police took her away still wearing her official US Open uniform, according the ABC News.
Alan Goodman was found dead at the couple's condominium in Los Angeles on April 17.
The mother of three told authorities she had arrived home to find him lying in bed not breathing after apparently falling down the stairs.
However, the prosecution had accused Lois Goodman of smashing a coffee mug over her husband's head and stabbing him to death with the broken handle.
The victim was struck 10 times on the head, they said, while evidence pointed to Lois Goodman's premeditation and lack of remorse.
It has been claimed that the mother of three was also having an affair, with police finding emails and letters to another man during a search of the house.
"Lois minimized what she had seen," Detective Jeffrey Briscoe of the Los Angeles Police Department reportedly said of an interview four days after the death.
"Lois’ emotional reaction to what she had seen and the loss of her husband was not typical of a grieving spouse."
However, Goodman's attorneys claim she is too physically frail to have killed her husband in the manner charged.
"It is physically impossible for her to have committed this offense," ABC News quoted Alison Triessl, Goodman's attorney, as saying.
"She has had two full knee replacements, she has had a shoulder replacement. She wears two hearing aids, and has rheumatoid arthritis."
And attorney Robert Sheahen said on "Good Morning America": "I mean, you'd have to have Herculean strength to kill with a coffee cup, wouldn't you?"
