Vancouver real estate agent makes surprise guilty plea in murder trial
Credit to Author: Mike Raptis| Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2020 03:52:38 +0000
A surprise guilty plea was entered in a Kelowna courtroom Tuesday to a murder charge.
Tejwant Danjou startled his own lawyers when he admitted at the outset of what was to have been a three-week trial that he killed Rama Gauravarapu in a West Kelowna motel room.
“I’m guilty,” Danjou, a 70-year-old Vancouver real estate agent said when asked how he was pleading to the charge of second-degree murder.
Asked by Judge Allison Beames if he had consulted with his lawyer, Donna Turko, before entering the plea, Danjou responded: “I don’t need to speak to anybody. I’m guilty.”
Danjou said Crown counsel had offered him the mandatory minimum sentence for second-degree murder of 10 years before parole eligibility in exchange for a confession.
Beames asked Danjou if he fully understood the implications of the guilty plea. She also told him that, despite whatever deal the Crown might have offered him, it would be up to her to impose the sentence, which for second-degree murder means imprisonment for between 10 and 25 years before parole eligibility.
“I need to be sure that you know what you’re doing,” Beames told Danjou. “Do you understand that only I can make a determination as to what the appropriate sentence is?”
“Yes, m’lady,” responded Danjou, dressed in red prison clothes.
Given the surprising turn of events, a short recess was declared.
After proceedings resumed, Turko said she’d spoken with Danjou and confirmed his desire to plead guilty to second-degree murder.
“He’s very clear about it,” Turko told the judge.
Crown counsel Simone McCallum was also surprised by Danjou’s guilty plea: “This has come on the sudden, a little bit,” she said.
Proceedings will resume at 10 a.m. today, when it’s expected there will be a joint submission from Crown and defence on a statement of facts, describing events surrounding the murder.
Sentencing is expected on March 13.
Police were called to the Best Western Hotel Plus on Carrington Road in West Kelowna on July 22, 2018.
Inside one of the hotel rooms, they found Gauravarapu’s body. Police said Gauravarapu and Danjou, both from the Lower Mainland, were known to one another.
Danjou has been in custody since July 2018. After he was arrested and charged with murder, his licence to sell real estate was suspended by the Real Estate Council of B.C.
Gauravarapu had worked as a financial planner for a Royal Bank branch in Surrey.