Ex-Hughes Aide Jailed as Murder Trial Is Delayed
Former Howard Hughes aide John Herbert Meier was jailed Monday as the start of his trial in a 1974 slaying was postponed for at least a week because no courtroom was available in which it could be heard.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Douglas McKee ordered Meier to Los Angeles County Jail when an Orange insurance agent who had posted property as part the security for Meier’s $200,000 bail asked to be relieved of the responsibility.
Meier, who came from Canada for the scheduled start of the trial for the murder of a business associate, protested the jailing.
“I’m appalled being here on a trumped-up charge of murder,” he told McKee. “There is no way I can defend myself properly from a jail cell.”
Meier is charged with arranging the 1974 murder of Alfred Wayne Netter at the Beverly Hilton. Netter, of Vancouver, was stabbed to death.
Netter was an officer of a struggling company trying to market the then-new technology of videotapes by selling franchises for small videotape theaters in Canada and the United States.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
