Producer Need Not Testify, Judge Says

Film producer Robert Evans won a reprieve as a witness Monday in a preliminary hearing in the “Cotton Club” murder case, but may be called to testify later.

Los Angeles Municipal Judge Patti Jo McKay threatened to jail Evans for contempt on Friday for improperly invoking his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. But she reversed her position Monday after Evans’ attorney, Robert Shapiro, cited a Saturday article in The Times that noted that Evans had been linked in police reports on file with the court to the 1983 murder of Broadway producer Roy Radin.

The hearing enters its third day today with reputed Miami cocaine dealer Karen Delayne “Lanie” Greenberger and security guards Alex Lamota Marti and William Molony Mentzer charged in the killing. A fourth defendant, former security guard Robert Lowe, is fighting extradition from Maryland.

According to the police report, Lowe said during a secretly recorded phone conversation that the “hit” against Radin was paid for by Greenberger and Evans. Evans had contracted with Radin to raise money, allegedly to help finance his film about the Cotton Club, a 1930s Harlem nightclub.