New Plea Denied; Billionaire Club Figure Sentenced
Calling the request an instance of “buyer’s remorse,” a judge on Tuesday refused to allow alleged Billionaire Boys Club triggerman Jim Pittman to withdraw his guilty plea.
Santa Monica Superior Court Judge James A. Albracht sentenced Pittman to concurrent sentences of three years and six months for having been an accessory to murder after the fact and possession of a concealed weapon, a pen gun. “You have (already) served all the time,” Albracht told the 34-year-old defendant, who has been in custody since his arrest in the fall of 1984.
Pittman will now be transferred to San Mateo County Jail, where he still faces kidnaping and murder charges in the death of a club member’s father. In a brief post-sentencing interview, he said he has “friends” who have agreed to post whatever bail is set for him in that case.
Pittman was originally charged with the robbery and murder of Beverly Hills con man Ron Levin, who disappeared in June, 1984, but whose body has never been found. After two juries were unable to agree on a verdict, Pittman last month reluctantly agreed to plead guilty to reduced charges to avoid a third trial. The Nov. 10 plea came after at least four conversations with his lawyers, Jeff Brodey and Barry Greenhalgh, who termed the plea bargain offer “really too good to turn down.”
Feared ‘Big Mistake’
But that same day, Pittman telephoned Brodey to say he feared that he had made “a big mistake.” Consequently, the defense team asked Albracht to set aside the plea, which would have cleared the way for a third trial.
They argued that Pittman had felt pressured by his attorneys and overwhelmed by events, and had “involuntarily” agreed to follow their advice and to plead guilty to being an accessory.
However, Deputy Dist. Atty. Fred Wapner pointed out that “involuntary” in a legal sense means done without choice, and is not the same as “unwilling” or “reluctant.”
“What we have here is a case of buyer’s remorse on Mr. Pittman’s part,” said prosecutor Wapner, and Albracht agreed.
Many defendants have second thoughts after entering into a plea bargain agreement, but requests to set aside such pleas are seldom granted.
In the interview in the lockup behind the courtroom after Tuesday’s hearing, the stocky Pittman said he had had second thoughts “because I pled guilty to something I didn’t really do.” He admitted having posed as Levin in New York and having used his credit cards but said his guilty plea had been “misinterpreted” to mean that he had helped in the murder or dumping of the body.
He said he wanted to go to trial a third time, because “I’d like to prove to people that I am innocent.”
Asked where Levin’s body is and where he got the victim’s credit cards, he replied, “No comment.” He also refused to comment on whether his second thoughts were prompted by fear that a guilty plea could adversely affect him in the Northern California case.
Urged to Change Plea
He admitted having been urged to withdraw his plea by supporters of Billionaire Boys Club leader Joe Hunt, who was sentenced to life without possibility of parole last summer. Hunt is now in the California State Prison at Folsom and also faces trial for the murder of Hedayat Eslaminia.
“I talked several times with Mr. Roberts,” Pittman said, referring to producer Bobby Roberts, the father of Hunt’s girlfriend, who opened his home to Hunt and bankrolled part of his defense. “He said it (Pittman’s plea) would hurt their case.” But Pittman said no one had threatened him.
Two other members of the so-called Billionaire Boys Club, a nickname for BBC Consolidated, a social and investment group composed of young men from prestigious Southern California families, are on trial in Redwood City in the Eslaminia case, and a fifth member who admitted helping to plan the first murder and participating in the second was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony.
