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Court: Man Charged With Wife's Murder Can Use Insurance Money For Legal Costs

DENVER (AP) - The Colorado Supreme Court has ruled a Denver man who is charged with killing his wife can use most of the proceeds of her life insurance policy to pay for his legal defense.

The Denver Post reports attorneys for the children argued the money should be preserved for them.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a probate judge overstepped his authority when he ordered the $550,000 retainer Robert Wayne Feldman paid his attorney to be held in trust until the criminal case was decided.

Colorado law forbids a person from profiting by killing another person.

However, an autopsy did not determine a cause of Stacy Feldman's death in 2015 and Robert Feldman received a nearly $752,000 life insurance payout. He was charged with first-degree murder in February 2018 after another autopsy determined she had been strangled.

(© Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) 

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