Ex-Hughes Associate Freed in a Plea Bargain Over 1974 Killing

A one-time Howard Hughes associate indicted on a charge of murder in the 1974 stabbing death of a Canadian businessman was freed Tuesday after pleading no contest to a reduced charge of being an accessory.

In the plea-bargain pact, prosecutors agreed to drop the murder charge against John Herbert Meier, 51, in exchange for his agreeing to the lesser charge of harboring a suspect in the 12-year-old Beverly Hills slaying.

After sentencing Meier to two years in state prison, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William R. Pounders quickly freed him, noting that he has already served two years in custody here. Pounders said he will recommend that Meier, a “scientific adviser” to the Hughes organization in the late 1960s, be placed on parole in his home country of Canada.

“I have to be realistic as to what we can prove,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Brenner said after the brief court session. “There was a passage of a long period of time in the case. . . . It has not helped our case. There are witnesses that are now unavailable to us.”

Two other men indicted on murder charges along with Meier have not been prosecuted. Prosecutors would not specify which suspect that they believe Meier harbored.

Meier’s attorney, Albert De Blanc Jr., maintains that his client played no part in the fatal stabbing of Alfred Wayne Netter in a room at the Beverly Hilton, but he called the negotiated settlement a “bird in the hand.”

“I would love to try the case,” De Blanc said. “I believe we could win. But I’m not going to risk a person’s life against the odds.”

1981 Indictment

Accused in a 1981 Los Angeles County Grand Jury indictment of having arranged Netter’s murder to collect on an insurance policy, Meier fought extradition from Canada for more than two years.

Prosecutors contended that Netter was the manager of a struggling videotape company when he met Meier in early 1974. Meier, they said, offered to help out by arranging a loan for Netter and subsequently had him killed to collect on a $400,000 insurance policy taken out as a condition of the loan.

On Tuesday, Brenner said he still believes “Mr. Meier either alone or with others . . . caused the murder of Netter. But in a general intellectual sense, the plea bargain reflects what we can prove today. Meier had knowledge of the murder . . . and has kept his knowledge secret.”

Brenner had charged in earlier proceedings that the beneficiary of the insurance policy and the man who took it out at Meier’s request was Canadian attorney Gordon Hazelwood. Hazelwood was also indicted in the murder, but Canadian authorities refused to extradite him, claiming there was insufficient evidence.

Third Man Never Found

The third man indicted, William Raymond McCrory, was never found. Brenner claimed that it was McCrory who actually entered Netter’s hotel room and stabbed him 15 times.

It took more than six years to build the complicated case and produce an indictment against the three because of a myriad of false leads, Brenner said. Meier was ultimately implicated in the murder by one of his former associates.

The informant, British writer Robert Robertson, met Meier in early 1974 while he was considering doing a book on billionaire Hughes. Robertson claimed that Meier subsequently threatened that if the book was unfavorable, Meier would have McCrory harm him.