‘Black Widow’ Margaret Rudin sues over wrongful Las Vegas murder conviction
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Margaret Rudin, dubbed “The Black Widow,” whose murder conviction and life sentence a judge overturned, filed a lawsuit Thursday against the state for the more than 8,000 days she sat in prison.
In 2001, a Las Vegas jury found Rudin, now 80, guilty of the death of her husband, Ron Rudin, a real estate investor. Ron Rudin’s charred body was found near Lake Mohave in 1995. In January 2020, a parole board granted Rudin’s release. Then finally in 2022, a federal judge vacated her conviction, citing other potential suspects.
“Margaret Rudin, in fact, did not murder Ron Rudin, did not participate in or plan his murder, and does not know who killed Ron Rudin,” the lawsuit filed in Clark County District Court said. “She is innocent of the crime and has professed her innocence to the crime and involvement in his death for thirty years.”
In 2022, Rudin spoke exclusively with the 8 News Now Investigators one day after the Nevada Attorney General’s Office ran out of time to appeal the federal judge’s decision.
“What do you think of that moniker?” Charns asked Rudin about the “Black Widow” name.
“I don’t think anybody would dare call me that to my face,” she said.
The Rudins married in 1987 after meeting in church. It was the fifth marriage for both. Ron Rudin was worth an estimated $8-$11 million. Several people, including Margaret, were listed as beneficiaries of his trust. Ron Rudin disappeared in December 1994 as Margaret was preparing to open an antique store in a strip mall her husband owned steps from their home near Charleston and Decatur boulevards.
“He had always cheated, and every time he would say, ‘I’m not going to do it again, I’m not going to do it again,’” Rudin said in 2022. Rudin described her husband as a paranoid man who had cameras at their now-demolished home. He owned hundreds of guns, she said.
On Dec. 22, 1994, police found Ron’s car covered with a layer of dust parked at the Crazy Horse Too, a gentlemen’s club off the Las Vegas Strip.
In January 1995, Ron Rudin’s burnt remains were discovered near Nelson’s Landing about 50 miles south of Las Vegas. Investigators determined Ron Rudin had been shot in the head several times. No one witnessed the murder.
Prosecutors theorized Margaret Rudin shot her husband while he was asleep in bed. Police found human blood in the room, but an expert testified the amount was “less than a drop of blood from an eye dropper.” An expert for the defense also testified that “there was no evidence of a cleanup” and there would be much more evidence had Ron Rudin been killed in the bedroom.
In a 10-week trial, Rudin earned the “Black Widow” name as prosecutors painted her as a wife out to get her husband’s money.
The judge who overturned her conviction wrote there was no evidence linking Rudin to the murder weapon, Ron Rudin’s abandoned car, or the suspected crime scene. He also said Rudin’s defense attorney, Michael Amador, who has since died, did not do enough to defend her.
“A federal court has already found that Margaret Rudin was wrongfully convicted,” Rudin’s attorney, Adam Breeden, said in a statement Thursday. “Today in her early 80s, Margaret Rudin intends to prove, under a Nevada statute amended in 2019 to address the rights of persons wrongfully convicted, that she was not involved either directly or indirectly in her husband’s death and did not commit the crime.”
The lawsuit asks for compensation for the wrongful incarceration, assistance for housing and insurance and attorney’s fees.
A court date was not scheduled as of Thursday.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS.
