Local News in Brief : Ex-LAPD Detective Gets Life in Slaying

Despite an impassioned plea in which he steadfastly proclaimed his innocence, former Los Angeles Police Detective Richard Herman Ford was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the contract killing of a Northridge businessman.

Ford, who did not testify during the nine-month trial, made a half-hour speech attempting to invalidate several pieces of evidence that led to his October conviction for the 1983 murder of Thomas Weed, 52. “I have not been a greedy individual, some kind of maniac running the streets. It’s not true,” he said.

But Judge Darlene Schempp told him: “You took the life of another in such a meaningless and cheap way. You have brought disgrace to the Los Angeles Police Department.”

Ford, 48, and his former police partner, Richard Von Villas, 44, were convicted by separate Van Nuys Superior Court juries of killing Weed in exchange for $20,000 from Weed’s ex-wife. Von Villas was sentenced in January to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Weed, a debt collector and small business owner, disappeared from his Northridge apartment in February, 1983, and his body has never been found.