Inmate Accused of Engineering Killing in Plot to Gain Release

An Israeli national was charged with murder Friday in an April killing in Topanga Canyon that investigators said he arranged to help negotiate his way out of the Riverside County Jail.

Michael Birman, 31, is suspected of hatching a plot to have his stepson and two friends abduct and kill a man at random so that Birman could offer information about the crime in exchange for lenient treatment, Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela A. Ferrero said.

The victim, authorities said, was Catarino Reyes, 43, a Highland Park baker. After Reyes left work in Hollywood the night of April 18, he accepted a ride or was abducted by Birman’s accomplices, who drove him to a remote part of Topanga Canyon and shot him once in the back of the neck, Ferrero said.

Birman was charged Friday with murder, robbery and kidnaping.

His alleged accomplices, Robert Meyers, 31; Andrew Fox, 25; and the stepson, Lawrence Hawkins, 31, all of Riverside, are awaiting trial on the same charges. They have pleaded innocent, and their preliminary hearing is scheduled to resume Sept. 4.

At their hearing Aug. 7, Birman’s wife, Charis, 53, testified that Hawkins and Birman called her the night of the killing. She said Hawkins gave her the number of a pay telephone that she relayed to Birman.

Investigators believe that Birman called Hawkins at that number to learn details of Reyes’ killing, Ferrero said.

Charis Birman, testifying under a grant of immunity, also said that, on the next day, Hawkins, Meyers and Fox arrived at her home outside Sacramento and left a gun outside her garage, Ferrero said.

The gun was recovered, and tests showed it was the weapon used to kill Reyes.

‘Body Wasn’t Cold’

Five hours after the killing, Birman called the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Malibu substation from the jail in Riverside, Ferrero said, and told deputies the number of shots fired, the caliber of the weapon and the victim’s identity, right down to an incorrect address that still was in Reyes’ wallet.

Moreover, she said, “The body was not yet cold when he called.”

Birman’s display of knowledge of the crime so soon after it had occurred in another county made detectives suspect that he was involved, investigators said.

Charges against Birman include “special circumstances” that would allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty if he is convicted.

Birman may have lured his three accomplices into committing the crime with promises of drugs and profits from drug sales, Ferrero said.

Earlier this month, Birman pleaded guilty to charges of cocaine possession for sale stemming from an April, 1986, arrest in Palm Desert, Riverside County Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul E. Zellerbach said. He was sentenced to two years in prison in that case.

Riverside County authorities have said that Birman might have been involved in a shooting two days before the Reyes killing. There were similarities to the Reyes killing, officials said.

In the earlier case, a 29-year-old transient was picked up hitchhiking on Interstate 10 southeast of Indio and survived being shot once in the back of the head, Riverside County Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard A. Erwood said.

Statements by Birman’s stepson led police to arrest a Riverside man who pleaded guilty Friday to attempted murder in the shooting. Although Erwood said charges against anyone else in the case are unlikely, police said Birman is considered a suspect.

Birman, who is considered an escape risk, was moved under heavy guard Friday from the California Institute for Men in Chino to the Los Angeles County Jail, where he was held without bail, Ferrero said.

Birman escaped as he was awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in January, 1985, to two residential robberies in the San Fernando Valley, authorities said.

The federal Immigration and Naturalization Service was trying to deport Birman at the time and was holding him at a private contractor’s detention facility in Inglewood, Zellerbach said. Birman apparently bribed a guard to bring him a handgun, which he used to take another guard hostage during his escape, Zellerbach said. Immigration officials could not be reached for comment.

Birman is expected to appear next week in Van Nuys Superior Court for sentencing in the Valley robberies, Deputy Dist. Atty. Larry Diamond said.

Birman, when he agreed to plead guilty to the robbery charges in 1985, “was talking about furnishing information to law enforcement,” Diamond said. “Apparently the information turned out to be bogus.”