Killer’s Impending Parole Scuttled by Extortion Plot

Former Chatsworth pornographer Jack Ginsburgs, convicted of killing a Burbank private detective 10 years ago, had his scheduled 1990 parole date canceled Tuesday for extorting $1,000 from a fellow inmate’s mother.

The state Board of Prison Terms ruled that evidence showed Ginsburgs, 47, received the money from the mother of fellow murderer Gordon Barkley after telling another Barkley relative that “he is in deep trouble with us up here” at the California Men’s Colony, where both men are serving terms.

Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Al Botello told the parole board that, while Ginsburgs’ original term may have represented sufficient punishment for his initial crime, the March 19 extortion effort “showed he is still totally unsuitable to be released.”

Ginsburgs’ lawyer, Daniel Helbert of San Luis Obispo, unsuccessfully argued that by 1990 Ginsburgs would have been punished enough.

Neither Ginsburgs nor the Barkleys testified at the six-hour hearing. A certified letter in which Barkley’s mother sent Ginsburgs the $1,000 was introduced into the record, Botello said.

Ginsburgs, former operator of a San Fernando Valley pornography business, was convicted of first-degree murder in the July, 1976, killing of private investigator Robert Duke Hall, a former friend and business associate of Ginsburgs.

Gene LeBell, a martial arts expert and the son of former Olympic Auditorium boxing promoter Aileen Eaton, was acquitted of a murder charge but convicted as an accessory for driving Ginsburgs to and from the murder scene. LeBell’s conviction was later overturned by the state Court of Appeals.