Slain Man Snubbed U.S. Protection, Pal Says

George Peter Yudzevich, who was killed in an execution-style slaying over the weekend, had dropped out of a federal witness-protection program he had entered a year ago while he was testifying against New York mobsters, a former co-defendant said Monday.

“When you testify in court against known killers, it’s crazy, mind-boggling that he didn’t stay in that protection program,” said Joe Grosso, 44, in a telephone interview from Las Vegas. Grosso described himself as a 20-year friend of the dead man.

Grosso, Yudzevich and Gregory Moeller, 38, were arrested by Newport Beach police in 1986. Police alleged that the trio had bilked Orange County investors of about $350,000 in a scam that was to have involved laundering mob money through casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

Grosso said Yudzevich--who at 6 feet, 7 inches tall and 360 pounds was known as “Big George”--had testified last year at the New York trials of Joseph Armone and Joseph Gallo, reputed to be kingpins of the Gambino crime family. The pair received lengthy federal prison sentences last month on loan sharking and federal racketeering charges.

“I don’t know that they hit (Yudzevich), but when something major like that happens . . . well, I don’t know nothing about no murder,” Grosso said Monday.

Sources familiar with Yudzevich’s role in the racketeering trial said Monday that Yudzevich had been a paid federal informant since 1980, and at times was a federally protected witness. But they said it was not clear whether Yudzevich actually had been taken into the federal witness-protection program and provided with a new identity and a place to live. Federal officials could not be reached Monday to confirm those accounts.

Yudzevich’s blood-spattered body was found early Saturday in the parking lot of an Irvine business complex. Irvine police said he had been shot at least three times in the head.

Police said the 46-year-old Yudzevich apparently was shot inside a late-model, black Lincoln, then his body was dumped onto the asphalt nearby, police said. The car, which was left in the parking lot, has been impounded by police.

Grosso said Yudzevich called him last August from Texas, where the government had secreted him under the witness-protection program. He said Yudzevich complained that he wasn’t being paid enough money. He also did not want to return to Orange County with federal marshals to face the Newport Beach charges because he thought the officers’ presence would hurt his case, Grosso said.

Testimony concluded last week in a preliminary hearing in Harbor Municipal Court on the investment-scam charges against Yudzevich, Grosso and Moeller. A judge’s ruling is pending on whether there is sufficient evidence to try the two survivors in Superior Court.

Last fall, Yudzevich dropped out of the protection program and returned to Orange County, where he worked as a bouncer at the Mustang, a topless bar in Santa Ana, Grosso said.

Alan May, an attorney for Robert G. (Fat Bobby) Paduano, an alleged underworld figure from Newport Beach facing extortion, assault and robbery charges in Orange County, also said that Yudzevich had been a federally protected witness and a business partner in the Mustang.

Yudzevich testified last fall before the Orange County Grand Jury, which was investigating Paduano. The grand jury subsequently returned a 73-count indictment against the 45-year-old Paduano, accusing him of using extortion, robbery, burglary and assault to shake down suspected drug dealers and force them into buying cocaine from his own criminal enterprise.

In January, 1987, Jimmy Lee Casino, operator of the Mustang and a self-professed mobster, was shot three times in the head, killing him at his Buena Park home. Police found Casino’s girlfriend tied up, and jewelry, furs and two cars missing. The case remains unsolved, Buena Park Police Officer Rich McMillen said.

May said his client met Yudzevich through Paduano’s son, Rocky Paduano, whose mortgage firm had done business with the murdered man.

May said Paduano had once asked Yudzevich to sell a piece of jewelry for him, a gold chain with a religious medallion. When Yudzevich was unable to sell it, Paduano sent one of his workers, Rodney Leoto, to get it back from Yudzevich.

Later, Yudzevich asked Paduano if he could loan the services of Leoto or Leoto’s friends--brothers Rodney and Matthew Tia--to help him in his collection work.

Paduano had used Leoto for collection work himself, May said.

“There was no rough stuff, but Leoto is a pretty big fellow,” May said. “When he shows up at your door to remind you that you owe a debt, you are inclined to want to pay it.”

May said that Yudzevich was collecting debts for Las Vegas casinos in California, whose statutes do not honor gambling debts.

“It is safe to say that the people Yudzevich was working (for) would be considered by law enforcement officials as organized crime figures,” May said.

According to May, all this information was given to Paduano by Yudzevich himself. May said he believes Yudzevich dropped out of the federal witness-protection program to take the Las Vegas collection job.

Paduano, who is in custody on $500,000 bail, was surprised to hear about Yudzevich’s murder, his attorney said. May joked that “this is one thing they can’t pin on my client--too many other people apparently wanted him dead.”

While Yudzevich’s grand jury testimony against Paduano is considered minor, it nevertheless was an important link between Paduano, Leoto and the Tia brothers.

May said the grand jury transcript shows that prosecutors wanted grand jurors to hear the story about the exchange of jewelry between Paduano and Yudzevich to show a connection between Paduano and the three.

The Tia brothers, who are in state prison on robbery convictions, already have testified that Paduano was behind the robberies they committed. Leoto testified against Paduano Monday, telling the court that Paduano was behind a trip by Leoto and Johnny Mattua, who was named in the grand jury indictment as a co-conspirator of Paduano’s, to Palm Springs to rough up someone who owed Paduano money.

Grosso said Monday that he last spoke to Yudzevich at their preliminary hearing a week ago. He was “frightened” that Yudzevich had dropped out of the witness-protection program because of the threat of a mob hit man retaliating.

“I would never walk into court with him,” Grosso said. “Nobody wanted to be around him. He was supposed to go back to New York after the preliminary hearing, but he hung around for God knows what reasons.”