Extradition Documents Allege Beresford-Redman's Affair, $5K Phone Sex Bill
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — In the months before his wife was murdered in Mexico, former "Survivor" producer Bruce Beresford-Redman was caught cheating with a co-worker and running up huge bills on phone sex lines, according to Mexican extradition documents filed Monday in Los Angeles federal court.
The 400 pages of documents describe a marriage that had been failing for months prior to the death of Beresford-Redman's 41-year-old wife, Monica, whose body was found April 8, 2010, in a sewage tank at the Moon Palace hotel in Cancun.
According to interviews with the dead woman's family members, Monica Beresford-Redman had found out about her husband's alleged affair with a TV casting director.
Jeanne Burgos is quoted saying that her sister had found e-mails and overheard phone conversations between her husband and his mistress.
Before the trip to Mexico, ostensibly to repair their marriage, Monica had decided to ask Beresford-Redman for a divorce, telling him they could split their savings evenly, according to Burgos.
Additionally, the papers allege the murder victim found out that her husband was spending hours on phone sex lines, at one point running up a bill for $5,000 that she found and sent to her mother-in-law.
When confronted, Beresford-Redman cried and apologized on his knees, saying he was bored at home, according to the documents.
Beresford-Redman, 38, has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles since his Nov. 16 arrest at his home in Rancho Palos Verdes by U.S. marshals and the FBI.
Mexico has requested that the United States send him to Mexico to face charges in his wife's murder.
In December, U.S. Magistrate Judge Suzanne H. Segal ruled that evidence presented by Mexican officials in support of an arrest warrant for Beresford-Redman was "sufficiently reliable, thorough and compelling."
At this time, there are no court hearings scheduled in the case, a U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman said.
The new documents in the case include sworn and unsworn statements, forensic and autopsy reports, written documents and descriptions of physical evidence.
Prosecutors said the extradition process could take a year or more.
Beresford-Redman allegedly killed his wife last April 5 by asphyxiating her. The couple had taken their two young children to Cancun in an attempt to repair their troubled marriage, but were heard loudly fighting just before she disappeared, according to Mexican authorities.
An employee of the Moon Palace told authorities that he saw a couple -- later identified as Beresford-Redman and his wife -- arguing in front of a restaurant at the hotel, and the woman was crying, according to the court papers.
Hotel guests reported they heard loud arguing coming from the couple's room the night of April 5, including "screams, crying for help and extremely loud banging" that sounded like "a woman in distress," according to the court papers.
The reality-TV producer had been ordered by Mexican police not to leave the Yucatan peninsula, but he returned to his Ranchos Palos Verdes home in late May.
The couple's two children are in the custody of their paternal grandparents.
(©2010 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
