It sounds like a fairy tale, an impossible coincidence, pure luck: Juan Catalan was arrested for allegedly shooting dead 16-year-old Martha Puebla in Los Angeles in 2003. Police suspect Catalan of acting at the behest of his brother and Martha’s ex-boyfriend. He was arrested, held in custody for six months and found guilty. He was threatened with the death penalty.
Catalan himself has repeatedly maintained that he is innocent and that he was at the stadium with his daughter to watch a baseball game at the time of the crime. A watertight alibi, but his lawyers simply couldn’t find any evidence of Catalan’s presence at the stadium.
The tide turned when they learned that an episode for Leave It Larry was being filmed at the stadium that day. The lawyers were able to look at all the footage that was filmed and they did find images of Catalan and his daughter.
The full story is in the Netflix documentary “long shot” to see. Larry David initially wanted nothing to do with this project, like director LaMendola told in an interview with Indiewire. But in typical David fashion, he said yes: “Wait, you just want to interview me? Okay, I’m in.” The charges against Catalan were dropped and Catalan was awarded $320,000 in damages.
