Finding Suspects’ Ex-Boss Called Key to Probe Into Radin Slaying

The breakthrough in the investigation of the 5-year-old murder of theatrical producer Roy A. Radin came when sheriff’s investigators located a former supervisor of four men who are charged with the crime, investigators’ records show.

The supervisor told authorities that at least two of the men, who had worked under him as security guards for sex magazine publisher Larry Flynt, had admitted their involvement in Radin’s 1983 murder. And it was the content of secretly taped conversations that the supervisor subsequently held with the suspects that apparently led prosecutors to file charges Monday against the four men and a woman.

Investigators said they believe that Radin’s murder was a contract killing that resulted from a business dispute over a proposed financing of the 1984 movie “Cotton Club,” which was produced by Robert Evans.

One basis for that conclusion is a conversation between the supervisor, William Rider, and Robert U. Lowe, one of the suspects, that was taped May 11 in Frederick, Md.

Parts of that conversation, as well as information from others questioned in the case, appear in a voluminous sheriff’s investigators’ report. Lowe is quoted in it as saying that Radin’s “contract hit” was paid for by Karen DeLayne (Lanie) Jacobs Greenberger, the fifth suspect charged in Radin’s murder, and by Evans, a one-time executive at Paramount Pictures and the maker of the movies “Marathon Man” and “Chinatown.”

In the taped conversation with Rider, Lowe said he received $17,000 in cash and a Cadillac Seville for his part in the murder plot.

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s spokesman, Deputy Richard Dinsmore, reiterated on Tuesday that Evans is not a suspect in Radin’s murder “at this time.” On Monday, Deputy Dist. Atty. David P. Conn, who is prosecuting the case, had said Evans is “one of the people who we have not eliminated as a suspect.” Conn declined Tuesday to comment further on the matter.

Evans could not be reached for comment, but his attorney, Robert L. Shapiro, who was present during Evans’ Jan. 29 interview with sheriff’s investigators, called Lowe’s assertion “an outrageous, absolute lie on every level.”

Shapiro added: “Mr. Evans has never met, spoken to, or heard of Robert Lowe. And we have always been informed by the Sheriff’s Department that Mr. Evans was only a witness on facts unrelated to the homicide.”

Basis of Charges

According to the prosecution, Greenberger hired the four men to murder Radin. She has been described by authorities here and in Miami as a “major West Coast cocaine dealer.” Greenberger’s attorney, Ed Shohat of Miami, said “Our position is that Lanie is innocent and can’t imagine how she’s even been accused.”

Radin’s decomposed body was found in June, 1983, in a stream in rural northern Los Angeles County. The one-time New York show business promoter, who had made his first million by age 20, had been shot 13 times.

In addition to Lowe, 42, and Greenberger, 35, those charged with the Radin slaying are William M. Mentzer, 39, of Canoga Park; Alex L. Marti, 27, of Sherman Oaks, and Robert L. Deremer, 37, of Cumberland, Md.

Mentzer was Greenberger’s boyfriend at one time, according to Perry Wander, who is Marti’s defense lawyer.

Mentzer, Marti, Lowe and Deremer once worked as security guards for Flynt’s Beverly Hills-based company, LFP Inc. Rider, who has now been relocated by the district attorney, was their supervisor in 1982.

Mentzer and Marti were arrested in Los Angeles. Greenberger was arrested in Florida, Deremer in Indiana and Lowe in Maryland.

Greenberger also is under investigation in Florida in the Sept. 13, shooting death of her husband, Larry Greenberger. She told police there that her husband of four years had committed suicide. He was described as a major West Coast distributor for Colombia’s cocaine cartel in testimony at a federal trial in Florida.

Lowe, Deremer and Mentzer also were charged Monday in the unrelated 1984 shooting death of a reputed prostitute, June Mencher, outside her Van Nuys apartment.

Greenberger’s alleged involvement with drugs--as well as Radin’s reputation as a drug user--had initially led investigators to suspect that Radin’s murder may have been drug related.

The drug theory began evaporating after two Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators, William Stoner and Carlos Avila, found Rider.

According to numerous witnesses interviewed by the investigators and cited in their report, the troubled financing of “Cotton Club” had much to do with Radin’s murder.

Evans told authorities that he met Greenberger through a limousine chauffeur whom Evans had employed in his Ascot Limousine Service. The report said the driver, Gary Keys, had told Evans that Greenberger, for whom he had been driving, was looking to invest up to $5 million in movies.

Money to Invest

At a subsequent meeting at Evans’ home, the investigators’ report said, Greenberger confirmed that she had $5 million to invest, adding that she had friends who had up to $50 million to invest.

According to the report, it was Greenberger who introduced Radin to Evans. The two men began discussing forming a company to produce movies. Later, Greenberger and Radin had a bitter falling out, with her demanding 50% of his expected profits as a “finder’s fee.” Informants told investigators that Radin was only willing to give her 5%.

On May 13, 1983, Radin told friends that he was going with Greenberger to have dinner at the La Scala restaurant in Beverly Hills. He disappeared thereafter.

Eventually, two Las Vegas casino owners, Edward and Fred Doumani, invested $1.6 million in “Cotton Club.”

In a statement to investigators Stoner and Avila, Edward Doumani said that in a May 30, 1983, meeting with Evans in Las Vegas, after Radin’s disappearance, Evans said Greenberger may have had Radin murdered, possibly because of a drug dispute. According to Doumani, Evans then expressed a fear for his own life.

When Doumani suggested that Radin was only missing--and might not be dead--Evans replied, “Believe me, he’s dead. The bitch had him killed and I’m next,” according to the investigative report that quoted Doumani.

Evans later denied to investigators that he had made those statements.