6 Arraigned in Mistake Slayings of 2

In a highly raucous court hearing Thursday, six gang members pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the mistaken identity drive-by killings of a young woman and a girl in South Los Angeles earlier in the week.

“That’s too much drama, man, too much drama,” sneered defendant Deautri Cosslolo Denard, 25, as Deputy Dist. Atty. Joseph Markus read the 15-count criminal complaint--including charges that Denard and co-defendants Dayon Dorren Lively, 20; John Jay Porter, 23, and Vincent Burks, 23, killed Latonjyia (Nicki) Stover, 18, and Jamee Finney, 13.

Lively repeatedly rolled his head, made faces and uttered sounds of disgust during the 45-minute arraignment. Ten armed bailiffs were in the courtroom to maintain order.

Suspects Shackled

Several times, Los Angeles Municipal Judge David S. Milton threatened to remove the shackled suspects--all identified by police as members of the Eight-Trey Gangster Crips--unless they lowered their voices.

The four are charged with shooting the two victims Monday as they sat in a car at a street corner in South Los Angeles. The victims’ car, authorities say, was mistaken by the suspects for the vehicle of the sister of a drug dealer who had cheated them out of $14,000 in cocaine.

Special circumstances allegations, which could lead to the death penalty, were filed against the men.

The four defendants, along with Lyndell Tyrone Jackson, 27, and Meredith Yolanda Carter, 19, were also charged with a murder conspiracy count. Carter, who had been free on bail since her arrest Tuesday, was rearrested in court Thursday after prosecutors decided to file the charge.

All six, along with Carol Ann Jamienson, 28, who remains at large, are also accused in the kidnaping of a 19-year-old woman friend of the drug dealer.

Denard, Jackson, Lively and Burks are charged with five counts of sexually assaulting the woman while she was being held in a fortified “rock house” on Vernon Avenue.

Boy Slain

Markus said Carter and Jackson--who served two years in state prison for manslaughter after the 1981 slaying of an innocent 8-year-old boy during a gang shooting--were not charged with murder because they were allegedly guarding the kidnaped woman while the killing occured.

However, all six suspects in court conspired to commit murder, authorities charged, by discussing a plan to kill the drug dealer and his sister and by purchasing weapons, as well as ski masks, gloves and sunglasses to conceal their identities during the planned murder.

During the hearing Thursday, the suspects shouted angry words at three defense lawyers temporarily assigned to represent them.

The lawyers, Joseph Ingber, Stanley Berg and Deputy Public Defender Paul Nichols, all asked Milton to postpone the arraignment until long-term, county-paid defense attorneys could be hired.

‘Railroad Us’

The six defendants, however, vociferously demanded that they be arraigned immediately.

“Hey, I pleaded guilty, I mean pleaded innocent right now,” shouted Denard at one point.

Denard, known as Crazy D, also accused the defense attorneys of attempting to “railroad us.”

Milton ruled that the six had the right to enter pleas, even against the attorneys’ advice.

The judge set a May 25 preliminary hearing date and ordered the suspects held without bail.

The district attorney’s office also filed charges Thursday in two other gang shootings.

Mario Alvarez, 21, was charged with murder in the shooting death last week of Awni Said Rayyis, 59, a Bureau of Sanitation waste inspector killed during an alleged robbery attempt after he dropped off waste water samples at a city laboratory. A May 25 preliminary hearing date was set for Alvarez, who pleaded not guilty.

Meanwhile, a 17-year-old gang member was charged with attempted murder in the shooting of 11-year-old Donald Ritchie, critically wounded Sunday as he watched TV in his Crenshaw-area home. The suspect, who authorities will seek to try as an adult, had quarreled with Ritchie’s mother after being ordered out of the house.