Former Southern California attorney sentenced for murder of Palm Springs art dealer

A former Southern California attorney was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 2008 financially motivated murder of a Palm Springs art dealer.

David Replogle, 76, was sentenced on July 18 for the murder of Clifford Lambert, an elderly art dealer and socialite, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office announced.

Replogle, who was 59 years old during the crime, was part of a six-person team that targeted Lambert, who was 74, for financial gain.

Lambert was stabbed to death in his Palm Springs home on Dec. 5, 2008. His body was buried off a mountainside in Los Angeles, where a jawbone and later a skull were discovered and positively identified as those of Lambert, prosecutors said.

Replogle, who was a licensed attorney, used his credentials to forge power of attorney documents, which allowed his accomplices to transfer more than $185,000 from Lambert’s accounts after the murder.

Replogle also attempted to liquidate the victim’s assets, including his home and art collection.

In 2010, he was convicted of murder, but the ruling was overturned due to judicial misconduct. Following a retrial, in August 2022, a jury convicted Replogle of eight felonies including first-degree murder, criminal conspiracy, burglary, grand theft, identity theft and forgery. The jurors also found true a special circumstance allegation of murder for financial gain.

“After the retrial, Replogle filed multiple motions for a new trial and requested numerous continuances of his sentencing date over objections by the District Attorney’s Office,” court documents said. “All of those motions were denied.”

On July 18, 2025, a Riverside County Superior Court Judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

His accomplices — Kaushal Niroula, Daniel Garcia, Miguel Bustamante, Craig McCarthy, and Russell Manning — were also convicted for their roles in the scheme.

In September 2022, Niroula, 41, died in an apparent homicide while he was being held in a Riverside jail before his resentencing.