L.A. Officer Accused of Arranging 2 Murders

A veteran Los Angeles police officer, implicated last year in a multimillion-dollar yacht theft fraud ring, has been charged with helping to arrange and carry out two contract killings, it was announced Friday.

The prosecution’s key witness against Officer William E. Leasure, 40, is the self-admitted triggerman Leasure allegedly hired to commit the two murders.

Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner and Deputy Police Chief Barry M. Wade said at a press conference that Leasure, who has been held in protective custody for a year, was charged Wednesday with two counts each of murder and conspiracy and was identified as a suspect in a third killing.

The charges were not disclosed until Friday morning so that investigators could attempt to arrest two people who allegedly employed Leasure to orchestrate the slayings of their former spouses.

Suspect at Large

Arthur Gayle Smith, 55, of Alhambra, was arrested Thursday and held without bail at Los Angeles police headquarters on suspicion of murder. The other suspect, Paulette D. Reyes, 44, who authorities said resides in the Pasadena area, remained at large Friday afternoon.

According to authorities, the balding, bespectacled Leasure, a 17-year veteran of the police force, drove triggerman Dennis France, 42, to two of the murder scenes, but helped arrange all three killings. In the two cases where he allegedly drove the getaway car, Leasure conspired to make it appear as if the slayings occurred during the course of robberies when, in fact, the crimes were “premeditated executions,” Reiner and Wade said.

They also revealed that a man had been falsely arrested and served three years in prison for one of the killings. Reiner called it a case of mistaken identity and said he expected the county to be sued.

France, the admitted triggerman, has been granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony against Leasure and the others, Wade said.

“We’re not happy with that situation, but we had a series of . . . contract murders where we had no information whatsoever,” Wade said. “Without (France’s) cooperation, we would still have three unsolved homicides.”

The first slaying--the one in which Leasure is a suspect but has not been charged for lack of evidence--occurred on March 20, 1977, when Gilberto Cervantes, 76, was gunned down in the driveway of his San Gabriel home.

Authorities’ Account

This is Wade’s and other authorities’ account of the alleged crimes, based in large measure on France’s statements:

Leasure paid $1,000 to an Oklahoma man, Dennis Dean Winebaugh, 47, to kill Cervantes. France drove Winebaugh to and from the scene. (Winebaugh was arrested in Oklahoma in November and has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges in the Cervantes slaying).

Cervantes’ stepson, musician Antonio Reyes, and Reyes’ wife, Paulette, hired Leasure to kill Cervantes for an undisclosed sum of money so that the couple could collect on a sizable inheritance that included a tortilla factory.

Four years later, after Antonio and Paulette Reyes were divorced, Paulette Reyes hired Leasure again, this time to kill her ex-husband. On Sept. 10, 1981, Leasure drove France to a Sherman Oaks lounge where Antonio Reyes, 63, had been performing. As Reyes walked from the bar into the parking lot, France demanded money and then fired a shotgun blast that struck the musician in the head, killing him.

On May 29, 1980, Leasure drove France to a beauty salon in Highland Park, where France demanded money from its proprietor, Ann Smith. Leasure had provided France a photograph to help him identify Smith. When the 41-year-old woman turned to remove money from the shop’s cash register, France fired one shot into her back with a .45-caliber pistol, killing her.

Nearly a year later, police arrested a suspect in the case, Charles F. Persico, and charged him with Smith’s murder. Facing the possibility of a life sentence, Persico pleaded guilty to a lesser offense of manslaughter for which he served three years in prison. He was paroled in 1984.

Reiner explained that two witnesses had identified Persico to police as Ann Smith’s assailant, but on Friday the district attorney described the witnesses’ observations as “a case of mistaken identity.”

“I would not be the least bit surprised if (Persico) didn’t file a lawsuit” against the county, Reiner said.

Persico, 42, could not be reached Friday for comment.

Authorities now believe that Ann Smith’s ex-husband, Arthur Gayle Smith, a self-employed insurance adjuster, hired Leasure to arrange her death and may have conspired with Leasure in an alleged statewide yacht theft and insurance ring.

Facing Theft Charges

Leasure is facing charges in Contra Costa County that he and a convicted bank robber, Robert D. Kuns, stole 11 pleasure boats worth $1.5 million, refitted them and then sold them to unsuspecting buyers in Northern California while collecting on insurance policies taken out on the vessels, which were usually moored in Southland harbors.

Leasure has also been charged in Los Angeles with receiving stolen property in connection with three cars allegedly found last year at his Northridge home.

Officer Ralph M. Gerard, Leasure’s former partner in the LAPD’s Central Traffic Division, has been charged with receiving stolen property in connection with the case, while Leasure’s wife, Assistant City Atty. Betsy Mogul, has been charged with perjury. She has been on paid sick leave since February.

Leasure has remained in protective custody since May, 1986, on $500,000 bail at the Los Angeles County Central Jail. His salary as a senior police traffic investigator was discontinued at the time. He has technically remained on the force pending internal disciplinary action.

He has pleaded innocent to the various theft and fraud charges facing him.