New Tactic Stuns Trial: Hunt Will Not Testify

In a surprise move that caused a packed courtroom to gasp, the defense in the murder trial of Billionaire Boys Club leader Joe Hunt abruptly rested Monday after calling only four witnesses.

The 27-year-old Hunt, who had insisted since the trial began Feb. 2 that he would testify in his own defense, said his attorney, Arthur Barens, had decided not to put him on the stand.

Hunt is charged with killing Beverly Hills businessman Ron Levin, 42, who disappeared June 6, 1984, but whose body has not been found. Also charged is Hunt associate Jim Pittman, 33, whose first trial ended in a hung jury. He will be retried later.

In his opening statement, Barens had promised the jury that Hunt would answer all their questions in the coming weeks and that he would explain the meaning of a seven-page list found in the alleged victim’s home. Prosecutors contend that the list, which was in Hunt’s handwriting and bore his fingerprints, was a blueprint for murder that Hunt accidentally left behind.

“Hunt is brilliant, a genius. And he must testify,” Barens told The Times last fall.

Wrestled With Decision

Attorneys for both sides declined to comment about Monday’s abrupt change in strategy because of a gag order imposed by Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Laurence Rittenband.

Saying that he had hardly slept since Friday while wrestling with the decision of whether to put Hunt on the stand, Barens would point only to his opening statement, which concluded with the words, “Not proven, not guilty.”

Associate defense counsel Richard Chier said there was no need for Hunt to testify, because “there’s no case.”

The defense chose, instead, to rely on the strength of testimony by Hunt’s former girlfriend and her mother, who both said he was home getting ready for bed at about the time he and Pittman are accused of shooting Levin. The lawyers also are relying on testimony by an Arizona couple who reported seeing a man resembling Levin late last year.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Fred Wapner, saying he was “caught short” by the unexpected decision not to have Hunt testify, said he would call rebuttal witnesses today. Closing arguments are expected next week.

In presenting the prosecution’s case, Wapner first focused on Levin’s interrupted life pattern and then turned the jury’s attention to the wealthy young men drawn to Hunt’s business and social group, known as the Billionaire Boys Club.

Several former BBC members, including Hunt’s former best friend, testified that the defendant had bragged of committing “the perfect crime” in killing Levin--allegedly to get even with him for having tricked him in an elaborate commodities trading hoax and to get money to save the BBC’s crumbling business ventures.

If convicted, Hunt could receive the death penalty. But his attorneys say they are confident that any conviction would be overturned on appeal, because of what they view as improper rulings by Rittenband throughout the two-month trial.

Hunt and three other BBC members are also charged in the death of Hedayat Eslaminia, a former high-ranking Iranian official, in Northern California a few weeks after Levin disappeared. They await trial.