Blame your lawyer, but don't blame me, the judge hearing Margaret Rudin's bid for a new trial said Wednesday.

Judge Joseph Bonaventure, who also presided over the Las Vegas' socialite's murder conviction, told Rudin's lawyers that they can argue at a hearing Friday that she deserves a new trial because of her former attorney's incompetence, but they cannot point the finger at the bench.

"It's off the table," said the judge's law clerk, Al Lasso, of Rudin's claim that Bonaventure violated ethics rules by meeting privately with her during the trial. "The judge found no merit to these arguments."

The clerk noted, however, that Bonaventure was interested in seeing evidence at the Friday hearing of possible misconduct by Rudin's much criticized trial attorney, Michael Amador.

"He wants to hear more," Lasso said.

Rudin was found guilty in May of shooting her millionaire fifth husband after a long, messy trial that even the prosecution called a "black eye" for the city's legal system. At her August 31 sentencing, she faces life in prison.

Amador, who took the sensational case pro bono, stumbled throughout the trial from a rambling opening that had little to do with the facts of the case to a closing so bizarre the judge labeled him a man with "no honor." In between, Amador performed ungainly and ineffective cross-examinations and occasionally overslept for court.

After Rudin was found guilty, she accused Amador of bungling her case and fired him. His own paralegal, private investigators and co-counsel soon joined in, saying he was totally unprepared for the complicated case and was more occupied with dating strippers and working out lucrative book and movie deals than devising trial strategy.

The public defenders who took over Rudin's case initially focused on Amador's poor performance in asking for a new trial. They submitted an affidavit to the judge in which Amador's paralegal says he lied during the trial when the judge asked him pointblank if he had sold the rights to Rudin's story. The paralegal, Annie Jackson, wrote in the affidavit that she had seen Amador hide several contracts in a safe after the judge questioned him. In a closed-door meeting in which Jackson repeated these claims to Bonaventure, prosecutors disclosed that a grand jury has been convened to weigh charges against Amador.

As the new trial hearing drew near, Rudin's lawyers began shifting more of the blame to Bonaventure. In a motion filed Tuesday, public defender Craig Creel said it was the judge's duty to step in and stop the "sorry saga" on the second day of trial when Rudin began voicing concerns about Amador's preparation. Instead, Creel wrote, Bonaventure met with Rudin in his office without her lawyers.

"[A] trial judge ushering a neophyte criminal defendant into his chambers, without her attorneys. He places her in this unprotected position, and then promotes discussion of the defendant's attorney, his preparedness, his integrity, his health 'problems,' and how she will have to return to the 'public defender's office' if a mistrial were considered," Creel wrote.

Such meetings "are forbidden in every American court," he added. He also cited the judge's private telephone conversation with defense lawyer Tom Pitaro and a meeting in his chambers with a juror who had been accused of misconduct by other jurors.

Because of these "repeated ethical intrusions," Creel wrote, "This Court must immediately disqualify itself."

It was these arguments that Bonaventure rejected Wednesday when he declined to recuse himself and denied the portion of Rudin's motion dealing with his behavior.

The charred remains of Rudin's real estate broker husband, Ron, were found in a remote desert location in 1995. Police suspected Margaret Rudin, who stood to gain from his $11 million fortune, shot him as he slept in their bedroom and then engaged an accomplice to dump and burn his body. Before they could arrest her, she fled. She was finally captured in 1999 in Massachusetts where she was living under an assumed name.