Man Gets 16 Months for Ordering Murder

A 59-year-old Canoga Park man who told an undercover deputy sheriff wired with a tape recorder that he wanted a business competitor killed was sentenced Tuesday to 16 months in state prison.

At a meeting in the parking lot of a Reseda rock music club three years ago, John J. Mancini told the undercover officer that he wanted the owner of a rival parking-lot sweeping firm “blown away.” He also asked the officer to maim the competitor and to cripple another business rival.

During the conversation, Mancini told the officer to “break their legs so they won’t walk again,” as well as to “split their heads open,” according to taped transcripts.

When deputy sheriff David Ane asked Mancini if he wanted both competitors killed, Mancini, according to a transcript, said, “I got to see them both wind up in the . . . hospital with broken legs.” He then purportedly said about one of his rivals, “I don’t care if you blow Bruce away.”

Payment for Gun

Mancini asked Ane to procure a .357 Magnum revolver, for which the undercover officer was paid $100, according to court records. The next day, Mancini promised to give Ane a $1,000 down payment for the job. At that point, Mancini was arrested.

He was convicted in July by a Van Nuys jury of soliciting to commit murder, soliciting to commit assault and attempted receipt of stolen property. But, at his sentencing Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Mancini, who owned the Mancini Sweeper Co. in Canoga Park, was portrayed by family members, friends and business associates as a hot-tempered but harmless man.

“He’s just a little man with a big mouth,” said Mancini’s wife, Helen, 58. “He doesn’t mean anything when he spouts off.” Mancini and his wife have been married 40 years and are the parents of five children.

Threats Discounted

One of the men Mancini paid Ane to cripple, David Covany, said that Mancini’s threats were not to be taken seriously and that they are common to the outdoor sweeping business.

“I’ve heard lots of people in the business make those kinds of statements,” said Covany, 26, the former owner of Granada Hills-based Day and Night Sweeping. “Mancini shot his mouth off. That’s just the way he talks.”

Angelo Conticchio, 59, another business associate, told the court that “back in New York on the street where I come from, everyone wants to kill someone. If anyone came up to me with a tape recorder, and with the way I talk, I’d be killing a lot of people.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Norman Montrose said a murder plot developed after months of fighting among Mancini and his two chief competitors, Covany and Bruce Sage. The three operators allegedly sabotaged each other’s equipment and bickered over contracts for sweeping routes, the prosecutor said.

Revenge Motive

Out of revenge in early 1982, Mancini asked a former employee, Michael Branning, to introduce him to a “hit man,” according to court records. Branning then sold that information to Sage for $200. Branning subsequently went to sheriff’s deputies and told them about the scheme.

Cooperating with law enforcement officers, Branning introduced Mancini to undercover agent Ane, who taped the incriminating conversations on May 16, 18 and 19, 1982, at the Country Club, a Reseda rock music club.

Mancini’s attorney, Art Dodrill, maintained Tuesday that the officers misinterpreted his client’s threats. “That’s they way he talks,” he said. “He scares people with his speech, but he doesn’t mean anything by it.”

In a psychiatric report released Tuesday, however, Mancini was called “hostile, belligerent and paranoid.” The report recommended that Mancini be committed to prison because “he appears much too volatile to trust in the community.”

Mancini could have received a maximum term of seven years in state prison, Montrose said. In sentencing him to 16 months, Superior Court Judge David A. Horowitz cited the defendant’s age and the fact that he has no previous criminal record.

Because of time already spent in custody, Mancini will be eligible for parole after five months, Montrose said.