Mother Will Face Trial on Bribery Charges in Sons’ Cases : Courts: Buena Park woman allegedly offered money and jewelry in exchange for silence of two witnesses to gang robberies. One changed testimony, prosecutors say.

WESTMINSTER —  A 43-year-old Buena Park woman will stand trial on charges that she attempted to bribe a pair of witnesses to dissuade them from testifying against her sons in two separate gang robberies, a judge ruled Wednesday.

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The trial for Maria Trinidad Rodarte, who authorities said offered witnesses money and jewelry for their silence, will begin Jan. 24, Orange County Municipal Judge Donald S. Macintyre ruled.

Rodarte has been held in Orange County Jail in lieu of $40,000 bail since the day after Christmas.

Rodarte allegedly offered to give a woman $500 if she would change her testimony about a robbery the woman had told police was committed by Lino Rodarte, 21, and other members of the West Trece gang. Investigators’ accounts, culled from taped phone conversations between Rodarte and the witness, also allege that the elder Rodarte made veiled threats to the woman.

The taped exchanges led to charges involving an earlier, unrelated case in which a witness allegedly accepted Rodarte’s overtures and abruptly changed her testimony in a robbery and sexual battery case against 24-year-old Raul Beruman Rodarte.

Macintyre refused a request by the pastor of Rodarte’s church, who asked to speak in open court on her behalf in hopes of having her bail lowered. The pastor, who met privately with the judge Monday, described Rodarte as “a good woman who made a mistake that any mother could make.”

While prosecutors have called Rodarte’s alleged crimes an affront to the sanctity of the judicial process, her attorney, Malcolm Gulesarian, said his client is being unduly targeted because of her sons’ gang affiliations.