Whether Man Is King’s Son Is Irrelevant, Judge Says : Murder Defendant May Get Transfer Anyhow

A judge agreed Friday to try to move an Encino man accused of killing his actress mother from his cell in the Hall of Justice to County Jail for his medical well-being, but rejected as irrelevant assertions that he might be the son of King Hussein of Jordan.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Darlene Schempp ruled that the defense lawyer for Timothy Scott Roman, 25, cannot tell a jury his theory that Roman may be the king’s illegitimate son born of a relationship the monarch had with Roman’s mother in the early 1960s.

“I don’t see the relevance in it,” Schempp said.

Roman’s lawyer, Chester Leo Smith, raised the issue this week in a motion to have Roman moved from the Hall of Justice to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Van Nuys Jail. Smith said in the motion that Roman’s mother, known professionally as Susan Cabot, received monthly payments that appear to be child support from the king. He said the issue “will have to come out at trial.”

Feared Arab Prisoners

Smith had theorized that if Roman is the son of Hussein, he would be half-Jewish, half-Arab and thus could be in danger from religious Arab prisoners.

But on Friday, Smith backed off that assertion.

“I won’t go into that anymore at this time because I don’t know if that would develop or not,” Smith told Schempp.

Instead, he argued that the county’s procedures for daily transportation of Hall of Justice prisoners to Van Nuys could aggravate a hormonal imbalance that afflicts Roman, possibly interrupting the trial. Smith suggested isolation in County Jail. Although both the Hall of Justice and County Jail are downtown, Smith said, prisoners in County Jail are returned from trial to their cells earlier and get more sleep.

Schempp agreed to order Roman moved if it does not present special problems for the Sheriff’s Department.

Roman’s medical condition, a form of dwarfism, was another issue before Schempp on Friday. The judge granted a prosecution motion forcing Smith to show the relevance of various parts of Roman’s medical history before a jury would be allowed to hear it in the guilt phase of the upcoming trial.

Roman has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to first-degree murder in the Dec. 10, 1986, bludgeoning death of his mother in the Encino home they shared.

The insanity defense means that if a jury finds Roman guilty of killing his mother, a second phase of the trial would be held to determine if he was sane and legally responsible at the time of the slaying. Schempp scheduled jury selection to begin Tuesday. The entire trial is expected to last close to three months.

Smith is arguing that Roman was not legally responsible because of the effects of an experimental drug he had taken to treat his dwarfism.

The medical evidence likely would be admissible in a sanity phase if Roman is found to be the killer. Outside the courtroom, Smith would not comment on whether the ruling dealt a blow to his case.

“It hurts him,” said the prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Bradford E. Stone.

In asking for the ruling, Stone told the judge that Roman’s boyish appearance combined with a litany of his extensive medical problems with dwarfism could imply that “the jury should feel sorry for him.”

Susan Cabot, 59, gained modest fame for her roles in several “B” movies in the 1950s.