Officer Turned Hit Man Was Molested as Child, Sister Testifies

The sister of a former Los Angeles police officer convicted in the contract murder of a Northridge businessman tearfully testified Monday that her brother was sexually molested as a child by their alcoholic mother.

Donna Sue Whiteman, 50, whose brother Richard Herman Ford is on trial in the 1983 murder of Thomas Weed, told a Van Nuys Superior Court jury that their mother committed oral copulation on Ford when he was 8 years old.

Testifying as a defense witness during the penalty phase of Ford’s trial, Whiteman told the jury that their mother, who is deceased, forced her into prostitution at the age of 15. Their mother also later molested her own grandson, Whiteman said.

Whiteman testified in an effort to gain sympathy for her brother. The jury can sentence Ford to death or life in prison without possibility of parole.

Ford, 48, of Northridge and a fellow police officer, Robert Von Villas, 44, of Simi Valley have been convicted by separate juries of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in Weed’s death. Prosecutors say the former officers killed Weed, whose body has never been found, in exchange for $20,000 from his former wife.

During questioning by defense attorney Richard P. Lasting, Whiteman recalled Ford as a forlorn little boy who spent most of his childhood living at boarding houses after being rejected by his mother and stepmother.

Whiteman said her parents divorced when Ford was 2. Later, their mother remarried and took Whiteman to raise, leaving Ford with his father, who also remarried. Whiteman said Ford’s stepmother “didn’t want him” so the boy was sent to live in a boarding home for several years.

Whiteman said the alleged sexual molestation occurred when Ford came to live briefly with his mother and stepfather near Bakersfield.

Whiteman added that their mother forced her to become a prostitute when she was 15 and her stepfather was temporarily out of work. Later, she said, their mother told Whiteman she had been molesting Whiteman’s 13-year-old son for several years.