Who will prosecute Paul Flores? SLO deputy DA has taken on big cases before
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San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow is turning to one of his top deputies to lead the prosecution of Paul Flores, who’s accused of murdering former Cal Poly student Kristin Smart.
Over more than 15 years as a prosecutor, Christopher Peuvrelle, who’s been with the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office since 2017, has won convictions in several high-profile cases involving serious and complex crimes.
He’s also leading the prosecution in two other ongoing murder cases involving men alleged to have killed local women.
One of those men is accused of killing a Paso Robles hair stylist during a sexual assault in her own bedroom.
Peuvrelle now takes over the prosecution team seeking to convict Paul Flores, 44, of San Pedro, for the alleged murder of Smart, who was last seen on May 25, 1996, being walked to her dorm room by Flores two days before her roommate reported her missing to police.
Dow said Wednesday for the first time that officials believe Flores murdered Smart during the commission of a sexual assault.
The agency has also charged Ruben Flores, Paul’s father, with felony accessory, alleging he helped his son cover up the killing afterwards.
Both men remained in San Luis Obispo County Jail on Thursday — Paul Flores is being held without bail — after a scheduled arraignment before Superior Court Judge Craig van Rooyen. No pleas were entered, and the hearing has been continued to Monday, when Peuvrelle is expected to argue for an increase in Ruben Flores’ bail.
At the Wednesday news conference, Dow said he was confident in his office’s case against the father and son defendants with Peuvrelle leading what could be a lengthy prosecution.
“Chris is a very experienced prosecutor handling many difficult cases, including multiple murder cases,” Dow said. “He is our lead prosecutor leading an exceptional team as we go throughout the court process.”
A high-profile murder case in Riverside County
While local prosecutors may not be household names, Peuvrelle has in his handful of years in San Luis Obispo County been a primary player in several notable criminal cases involving murder, arson, and a highly publicized threat to organizers of a local vigil.
A Bay Area native, Peuvrelle completed his undergraduate degree at UC San Diego and earned his law degree from the Santa Clara School of Law.
He started his work as a prosecutor with the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office beginning in 2006.
While at that agency, in 2012, Peuvrelle represented the state in the murder trial of 29-year-old Roberto Gallardo Aguilar, who the prosecution argued killed Aguilar’s wife because she wanted to divorce him. Aguilar had a history of domestic violence against 22-year-old Sharon Elizabeth Contreras, according to reporting on the case.
Aguilar was accused of killing Contreras and told witnesses he “would rather see Sharon dead than with someone else,” according to media reports at the time.
Aguilar allegedly took Contreras’ body to a deserted area and set it on fire. Passing motorists reported a small brush fire, leading to the discovery of Contreras’ partially burned remains.
Following a jury trial, a judge sentenced Aguilar to 61 years to life in prison, according to local news reports.
Prosecutor moves to SLO County in 2017
In April 2017, Peuvrelle moved to the Central Coast, taking a deputy position at the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office.
Since then, local courthouse sources have described him to The Tribune as a fair and highly competent lawyer, aggressive when appropriate and well-organized.
Early in his local tenure, Peuvrelle was assigned to the felony criminal case against San Luis Obispo resident Daniel Phares, who was accused of making death threats on the Facebook page of an August 2017 vigil at Mission Plaza to honor people affected by the violent protests the year prior in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Phares, whose Facebook page showed a years-long history of racist posts, wrote “I will kill every one of you and make you like it” to organizers of the event, which included now-Morro Bay Councilwoman Dawn Addis and several Women’s March SLO leaders.
Peuvrelle granted Phares a plea agreement, allowing him to plead no contest in 2018 to a misdemeanor count of making criminal threats, but there was a catch — Phares had to give up possession of his three registered firearms, including an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, for 10 years. He took the deal.
At a sentencing hearing, Addis and other named victims told the judge they were “extremely relieved” Phares won’t have access to guns for a decade.
But Peuvrelle warned Phares — who was defiant at his sentencing and heckled the court in several bizarre outbursts — that he would be closely monitored for compliance.
Not three months after his sentencing in the threats case, Phares was arrested after being caught with ammunition, which he was not allowed to possess due to his plea deal. Peuvrelle charged Phares this time with felony possession of ammunition, and Phares pleaded no contest in April 2019.
With that felony conviction, Phares is now no longer permitted to possess guns or ammunition in the State of California.
Arson in Arroyo Grande and a roommate murder in SLO
While handling a caseload that included lower- and mid-level crimes, Peuvrelle at the time also oversaw a series of very serious local prosecutions.
In November 2017, after a lengthy local criminal history, 35-year-old Jesse Hubble of Arroyo Grande intentionally started a series of fires, including one in the bed of a pickup truck in the driveway of a home in the 400 block of Pecan Street. The fire spread and resulted in a more than a half-million dollars in damage.
It also seriously injured a family cat.
Hubble, who had prior prison terms for residential burglary and identity theft, was also suspected in other area fires believed to be arson-related.
Peuvrelle, who was assigned to arson cases at the time, pursued a conviction through jury trial and Hubble was found guilty of two felony charges of arson of an inhabited structure and arson of personal property.
Hubble was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
In June 2018, Peuvrelle prosecuted the case against 42-year-old Charles Giese, who bludgeoned his roommate to death with a decorative rock and a baseball bat following months of tension between the housemates who were both heavily abusing alcohol at the time, according to testimony.
Geise beat 54-year-old Walter Vallivero to death in November 2015, following an argument over Giese’s pending eviction from the manufactured home the two shared on Rancho Oaks Drive, a community of about a dozen homes on the outskirts of San Luis Obispo.
A medical examiner called by Peuvrelle as a witness compared the devastation to Vallivero’s body to injuries of people who jump from the Golden Gate Bridge and land on the rocks below.
After a little more than a day of deliberations, jurors rejected Giese’s assertion he was acting in self-defense and found him guilty of first-degree, premeditated murder, as well as two criminal sentencing enhancements for his use of a deadly weapon.
“I cannot thank the DA’s Office enough for the work they have put in to get this result,” Vallivero’s sister, Monica Boyd, told The Tribune following the verdict.
Geise was sentenced to 26 years to life in prison.
Asked about Peuvrelle, Ilan Funke-Bilu, who represented Giese at trial, told The Tribune that he “is one of the most adept prosecutors I’ve ever had the pleasure of working against.”
Funke-Bilu described Peuvrelle as highly professional and fair.
“He’s clearly one of the stars of that office,” he said.
Men accused of murdering two SLO County women
Peuvrelle is currently leading the prosecution in two ongoing murder cases: of a house painter who allegedly raped and killed a Paso Robles hair stylist, and of a Fresno man who allegedly killed an elderly Arroyo Grande woman with a belt.
Paso Robles resident Nancy Woodrum went missing in May 2018, and sheriff’s detectives eventually identified Carlo Fuentes Flores as a suspect after learning the Paso Robles man had painted Woodrum’s rural home shortly before her disappearance.
Fuentes Flores allegedly confessed to the killing seven months later and led authorities to her remains in a grassy field about 100 yards away from Highway 58.
At a preliminary hearing in September, a Sheriff’s Office detective testified that after hours of interrogation, Fuentes Flores ultimately admitted to arriving at Woodrum’s home intoxicated and forcibly raping her, hitting her in the face, and suffocating her with his hand during the encounter.
A judge ordered Fuentes Flores to stand trial following the hearing and he’s scheduled to stand trial May 18, according to court records.
He faces life in prison if convicted.
Peuvrelle is also leading the case against Kayonie Mendibles, who is accused of murdering 77-year-old Jeanine Vore of Arroyo Grande in November.
Very few details have been publicly released about the case, but the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release that deputies discovered Vore’s body during a welfare check after receiving reports of a possible trespassing incident on Chamisal Lane in rural Arroyo Grande.
Mendibles was taken into custody shortly thereafter when deputies saw his vehicle traveling through Arroyo Grande and conducted a traffic stop on Highway 101 near Pismo Beach, the agency said.
Mendibles has pleaded not guilty to Vore’s alleged murder, which the District Attorney’s Office says was committed with a belt.
If convicted of first-degree murder, Mendibles, 18, faces 25 years to life in state prison. He’s scheduled for a preliminary hearing May 6.
This story was originally published April 16, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
