Susan Cummings arrives at Fauquier County Court. (AP)

By Anne Gearan
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, May 6, 1998; 10:51 a.m. EDT

WARRENTON, Va. — Susan Cummings, heiress to an international arms trader’s fortune, pleaded innocent today at the start of her murder trial in the death of her lover, a flamboyant Argentine-born polo player.

Ms. Cummings fatally shot Roberto Villegas last Sept. 7 in the kitchen of a $2.3 million mansion in Virginia’s horse country. Her lawyers will argue she lived in fear of the man she hired to pamper her string of expensive polo ponies and shot him with a 9 mm handgun after he lunged at her with a knife.

Jury selection began immediately after her plea with defense attorney Blair Howard focusing his questions on potential jurors’ opinions of guns and self-defense.

"It has been a self-defense case from the start and that hasn’t changed," Howard said Monday.

Both sides in the case want the jury to visit the crime scene. Circuit Judge Carleton Penn agreed today, saying the visit will take place after both sides have presented their cases.

As part of standard questioning, the judge asked Ms. Cummings if she understood the charges against her. After a slight hestitation, Ms. Cummings said in a French accent, "No, I don’t." Howard whispered to her and then she blurted, "Yes, I understand."

Prosecutors claim the shooting was calculated and hope to convict her of first-degree murder. She could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.

Ms. Cummings, 35, and her twin sister, Diana, grew up in Switzerland and Monaco, and moved to the United States about 15 years ago. Both women live at Ashland Farm, a 350-acre estate in Fauquier County.

Their father, Samuel Cummings, was a former CIA employee who became one of the world’s biggest small arms dealers, selling weapons to dictators, despots and revolutionaries all over the globe. He supplied weapons to right-wing Cuban leader Fulgencio Battista, and then to the Communist dictator who overthrew him, Fidel Castro.

Susan Cummings’ trial begins one week after her billionaire father died in Monaco after a long illness.

Her attorneys will note that Ms. Cummings told Fauquier County authorities before the shooting that Villegas, 38, had threatened to "put a bullet in your head and hang you upside down to let the blood pour on your bed."

Defense witnesses are scheduled to testify that Villegas was abusive during their two-year relationship, and Ms. Cummings’ lawyers will also raise a 1987 domestic battery charge against Villegas. The former girlfriend who made that allegation later dropped the charge.

Prosecutors will try to show Ms. Cummings was jealous and went to authorities before the shooting to set up her defense strategy. "I think the early involvement with the police was laying the groundwork" for the killing, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Kevin Casey said.

Casey contends autopsy reports indicate Villegas was shot as he sat at the kitchen table.

Ms. Cummings, a soft-spoken woman with a strong French accent, began dating the handsome Villegas after she joined a local polo club where he was a regular. Villegas had traveled the U.S. polo circuit for several years, playing for various wealthy team owners and sometimes earning off-season money as a farm hand.

Not long after they met, Villegas moved in at Ms. Cummings’ estate.

In the statement Ms. Cummings filed with Fauquier deputies two weeks before the shooting she described Villegas as "overpowering, short-fused and the crazy type."

She wrote that she tried to end their relationship but he "refuses to let go."

Under Virginia law, the defense needs to prove that Ms. Cummings had a "reasonable apprehension of serious bodily harm." The defense does not need to prove that Villegas was about to kill her.

Howard said he will decide as the trial progresses whether to put his client on the stand.