Justices Throw Out Charges in ‘Ninja’ Slayings

A state Court of Appeal on Tuesday dismissed murder charges against Neil and Stewart Woodman and three accomplices for the 1985 ninja slaying of the brothers’ parents in the underground garage of their Brentwood condominium.

Writing for the 2-1 majority, 2nd District Court of Appeal Justice Leon Thompson said Los Angeles Municipal Judge Sandy R. Kriegler had wrongly denied the defendants’ constitutional rights to counsel, to due process of law and to cross-examine witnesses against them.

The higher court said Kriegler erred by meeting privately in his chambers with prosecutors and a key witness, convicted felon Stewart Siegel, and deciding that Siegel’s background as an informant for the FBI and the New Jersey Gaming Commission should be kept from defense lawyers.

Siegel acknowledged during the 1986 preliminary hearing that he hoped his testimony that defendant Steven Homick told him he was going to commit a murder for the Woodman brothers would bring him a lighter sentence in a separate grand theft case. But he denied ever having been a paid government informant, which defense attorneys later claimed amounted to perjury.

“Gross error was committed by the magistrate here when he made the critical decision to rely on steps taken at the in camera hearing to protect the witness Siegel without informing the (defendants) and their counsel,” Thompson wrote in the 47-page opinion.

“Such error set the stage for the deprivation of (defendants’) right of counsel as well as their rights of due process and cross-examination. In addition, it permitted the knowing use of false, or at least, misleading testimony by Siegel at the preliminary hearing. . . .”

Justice Earl Johnson, in a two-page “reluctant” concurring opinion, and Thompson clearly pointed out that prosecutors can refile the case “charging the same offenses against the same defendants and thus commence the prosecution anew.”

Charged with the Woodman brothers and Homick are Homick’s brother, Robert, and Anthony Majoy. They have all pleaded not guilty and have remained in jail since their arrest. A sixth defendant, Michael Lee Dominguez, pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and agreed to testify for the prosecution.

Johnson stated that he had no doubt that the preliminary hearing judge had committed reversible error requiring dismissal of the charges. He said his concurrence was “reluctant” only because of his “strong personal preference the prosecution of this heinous crime go forward without the temporary interruption our judgment will require.”

Justice Mildred L. Lillie, the third member of the appellate panel, wrote a strongly worded 21-page dissent, stating that Kriegler had acted properly and had not deprived the defendants of any rights.

Prosecutors claim that Neil Woodman, 44, and Stewart Woodman, 38, hired the Homicks to murder their parents, Gerald and Vera Woodman, so that they could collect a $500,000 insurance policy to save their failing plastics business.

At least one gunman wore the martial arts garb used by Japanese warriors, causing the fatal shootings to be known as the “ ninja murders.”