Caught in Culver City : Missing Murder-Plot Figure Arrested

A 38-year-old man, wanted by federal authorities for failing to appear for sentencing after his conviction in a 1985 murder-for-hire case in San Diego, was arrested in Culver City Thursday during a routine traffic stop.

Patrick Thomas Innie of Bedford, N.H., was arrested about 10 a.m. Thursday while trying to start a car when a Culver City police officer who stopped to help became suspicious and ran an identification check, Culver City Police Lt. Wally DuVal said.

Caught in Computer Check

A computer check showed Innie to be on the U. S. marshals’ 15 Most Wanted list for failing to appear at his sentencing in connection with the 1985 attempted murder of Robert L. Barr III, an Oklahoma City attorney who was defending a victimized creditor in a fraudulent oil investment scheme, Deputy U. S. Marshal Patrick Hattaway said.

San Diego resident Brian Boeckman and his father, Robert Boeckman of Oklahoma City, ran the oil investment scheme, according to Robert Lloyd, a U. S. marshal case agent. When some unhappy investors sued the Boeckmans, the Boeckmans hired two men to kill Barr, the investors’ attorney, Lloyd said.

Lloyd said the two hit men were Charles Worack and Vernon James, and that they went to Oklahoma City looking for Barr, unsuccessfully. When the Boeckmans ordered them to try again, Worack backed out and James brought in Innie on the plot, Lloyd said.

James and Innie returned to Oklahoma City, where James shot Barr through his bedroom window and left him for dead, Lloyd said. Barr suffered multiple wounds in the face, chest and legs, but survived. James was sentenced last February to 15 years in federal prison for his part in the conspiracy.

Innie was among several people indicted in San Diego federal court on charges that included conspiracy to commit murder for hire, Lloyd said. Innie pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of one count of interstate transportation of a firearm by a convicted felon but failed to show up for his sentencing on March 7, 1988.

Lloyd said Innie was convicted in 1972 for a probation violation in New Hampshire and had other convictions dating to 1968 for burglary, larceny and possession of drugs.

After he was arrested Thursday, Innie consented to a search of the Culver City motel room where he was living, police said. They found two handguns, equipment to manufacture methamphetamine and pipe bombs, and about six quarts of liquid methamphetamine, DuVal said.

Innie was brought to the Metropolitan Correction Center in San Diego from Los Angeles Thursday night. He is expected to be sentenced on the original conviction and to face an additional charge of failure to appear for sentencing.