Mora Called Scapegoat in Sarno Murder

The defense attorney for murder suspect Ralph Mora asked a Los Angeles Superior Court jury Thursday to acquit his client, saying that Mora has been made a scapegoat by prosecutors who lack sufficient evidence to charge the actual killer of Los Feliz restaurateur Alberto Sarno.

Attorney Richard A. Leonard, in a closing statement to the jury Thursday, also said that Mora, a convicted robber, would not have bungled what prosecutors said was a robbery attempt gone awry.

The case is expected to go to the jury on Monday. Mora is charged with attempted robbery and first-degree murder with intent to kill. That latter “special circumstance” could put him on Death Row.

Mora took the witness stand during his trial and denied any role in Sarno’s murder. He said he was with a friend in El Sereno on the night of Oct. 19 and in the early hours of Oct. 20.

Sarno, owner of the Caffee Dell’Opera in Los Feliz, was murdered sometime after midnight on Oct. 20.

His body, with a bullet wound in the chest, was found slumped against a door at his Los Feliz home about 2:30 a.m. by his wife, Silvana. She became concerned when he did not return home at his usual time after closing the restaurant on Vermont Avenue.

Mora was arrested and charged about a week later after one of Sarno’s waitresses, Krysteen Ann Ackerman, told police that Mora had previously discussed with her plans to rob Sarno.

Ackerman later became the key prosecution witness in Mora’s trial.

Deputy Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Sterling E. Norris concedes that Mora did not actually pull the trigger and that, rather, a Mora accomplice had done the shooting.

But Norris contended that Mora was the mastermind, telling the jury in his closing statement on Wednesday that Sarno, 59, would be alive but for Mora. While another person may have pulled the trigger, Norris said, “Mora was the moving force.” It was Mora who told the triggerman, “Shoot him. Kill him. Shut him up.”

No murder weapon has been found. Norris believes the triggerman was Robert Lopez, who has not been charged in the case.

According to court testimony, Lopez had been paroled from Chino State Prison shortly before Sarno’s murder. After the shooting, Lopez disappeared. He was arrested a short time later in Tucson, Ariz., and is now back at Chino for parole violation. Lopez has refused to talk to police about the Sarno case.

At the time of Sarno’s death, Mora, 34, had been on parole about four months, having served seven years at Chino for three armed robberies.

Although there was $224 in Sarno’s pocket, Norris contended that robbery was the motive that led to the restaurateur’s murder.

According to Ackerman’s testimony, Mora told her that he and Lopez each thought the other person had taken money from Sarno after the shooting. Only later did they discover this omission, she said.

Ackerman has been furnished police protection by the D.A.’s office after she reported getting telephone threats from Mora, who was in jail. Many subsequent calls from Mora to Ackerman were taped and those expletive-filled conversations played an important part in the prosecution’s case against Mora.