2 Ex-Officers Convicted of Robbery, Plot to Kill Dancer

Two former Los Angeles police officers were convicted Thursday of attempting to murder an exotic dancer to collect a $100,000 life insurance policy and of robbing a Northridge jewelry store.

Former Devonshire Division officers Richard Herman Ford, 46, and Robert Anthony Von Villas, 42, face a minimum of 25 years in prison, according to the prosecutor in the case, Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert O’Neill. A sentencing date will be set later this month.

Ford and Von Villas, pale from spending more than four years in jail awaiting trial, were expressionless as the jury verdicts were read to a crowded courtroom in the downtown Criminal Courts Building.

The two men will stand trial again later this year on charges that they murdered a Northridge businessman in 1983. They could receive the death penalty if convicted in that case.

Tried on 14 Counts

Ford and Von Villas were tried on 14 counts of attempted murder, robbery, false imprisonment, assault with a firearm, attempted administration of a stupefying drug and conspiracy to commit murder and robbery.

Ford was found guilty on all counts. Von Villas was acquitted on one count of attempting to drug an exotic dancer whom the two plotted to murder for her insurance money.

Jurors in the nine-month trial met privately with the prosecutor and defense attorneys after they were dismissed by Superior Court Judge Alexander Williams III, but they declined to discuss the verdict with reporters.

“I think it’s a fantastic verdict,” said prosecutor O’Neill. “It was based on the overwhelming evidence of their guilt.”

During his closing arguments, O’Neill portrayed the two former officers as greedy murderers who dishonored the LAPD’s motto of “To Protect and to Serve,” deciding instead “to rob and to kill.”

Ford’s attorney, Richard P. Lasting, said his client was “devastated” by the verdict. Lasting commended the jury for its conscientiousness, but said, “They looked for the truth. They tried real hard to find it, but they didn’t.”

Jewelry Store Heist

The charges grew out of the November, 1982, armed robbery of more than $140,000 worth of diamonds and rings from Schaffer & Sons jewelry store in Northridge and an unrelated plot to torture and murder dancer Joan Loguercio. Von Villas had befriended Loguercio and had purchased a $100,000 insurance policy on the Granada Hills woman’s life, ostensibly to cover a loan he was making to her so she could buy half-interest in a house owned by her former husband.

Ford, of Northridge, and Von Villas, of Simi Valley, were arrested July 7, 1983, and have spent the past 4 1/2 years in County Jail. Ford was a burglary detective and a 16-year veteran of the LAPD. Von Villas spent 13 years with the department, mostly in the juvenile division. Both men resigned the day after their arrests.

According to taped conversations between Ford and a police informant, the two ex-officers plotted Loguercio’s death so that Von Villas could collect the $100,000 insurance.

Police arrested Ford and Von Villas before the woman was harmed. Loguercio died in March, 1986, of cancer.

The most lurid evidence introduced during the trial were tape recordings of conversations between Ford and informant Bruce Adams the night that Ford and Von Villas were arrested.

The obscenity-laden discussions were taped as Ford and Adams drove for hours in a van, discussing in detail how the woman would be lured into the van, drugged, tortured, raped and murdered.

The idea, according to Ford, was to draw suspicion away from Von Villas by making it appear Loguercio was attacked by a “sex fiend.” For carrying out the murder, Ford and Adams were to be paid a total of $25,000 from the insurance policy.

When the van reached the North Hollywood sex shop where the dancer worked, informant Adams got out and officers moved in. Ford can be heard on the tape saying to himself, “That’s the end of that caper.”

The prolonged delay in bringing Ford and Von Villas to trial on the attempted murder and robbery charges occurred because the original judge in the case was disqualified by the prosecutor after the judge had spent months reading transcripts and legal documents. Williams, who took over the case, then had to retrace the work done by the first judge.

Then the original prosecutor himself stepped aside, precipitating the appointment of another deputy district attorney and triggering yet another delay.

Ford and Von Villas still face trial in the murder of Thomas Weed, 52-year-old owner of a Northridge allergy laboratory, who disappeared Feb. 23, 1983. Officers believe he was murdered and buried in the desert.

Weed’s former wife, Janie E. Ogilvie of Canoga Park, said she paid Von Villas $20,000 to have Weed killed. Ogilvie has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and conspiracy charges.