Complaints Dogged Arrested Deputy

For sheriff’s deputy George Thomas Markel, arrested this week in the armed robbery of a prominent Miami attorney, it was not the first time he was portrayed as a man who frightened others while bending the rules for his own benefit.

Court records show that Markel, 38, has been a lightning rod for complaints almost from the time he joined the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in 1978 and that his superiors once fired him for using “fear and intimidation” to get a fellow deputy to help him claim unearned overtime.

The 1984 firing was later changed to a suspension, however, and Markel returned to patrol duties--and more complaints.

Last September, a Duarte man was awarded $150,000 in damages stemming from a federal court lawsuit alleging that Markel and another deputy used excessive force when they stormed his garage and shot him in response to reports of gunfire at the house. Two similar lawsuits are pending.

Then, earlier this year, Markel was transferred to desk duties at the sheriff’s academy in Whittier following undisclosed allegations of “departmental misconduct,” a sheriff’s spokesman said.

Markel was still assigned to that desk job when he was arrested Thursday morning at his home in Rowland Heights on the Florida warrant. It charged that, while off duty, he joined his cousin--suspected of being a hit man in the Cotton Club murder case--in a 1986 robbery at gunpoint of the Miami attorney.

Once again, a Sheriff’s Department statement used the word “intimidation” in describing the theft of a black 1983 Ferrari and Rolex watch from lawyer Frank Rubino.

Markel and his cousin, bodyguard William Molony Mentzer, allegedly victimized Rubino after a meeting the lawyer had with Karen DeLayne (Lanie) Greenberger--a reputed Miami drug trafficker who would later also be charged in the Cotton Club case.

In the meeting, Rubino told investigators, he was frightened by the two cousins into signing over half interest in a 43-foot sports fishing boat to Greenberger.

Markel, who faces a possible life prison sentence if convicted, is being held without bail in Los Angeles County Jail.

Won’t Waive Extradition

In a brief appearance Friday in Municipal Court in Los Angeles, the muscular, mustachioed deputy stood silently as his attorney indicated he “does not wish to waive extradition at this time.” Municipal Judge Elva R. Soper scheduled a hearing on the matter July 18.

Soon after the court appearance, the Sheriff’s Department announced that Markel had been suspended without pay.

Markel joined the department Jan. 6, 1978, and was assigned, like all new deputies, to jail duties.

A July 15, 1980, incident prompted inmate Clarence Ellis to file suit in Superior Court complaining that he was hospitalized after Markel and two other deputies assaulted him, “choking, hitting and kicking plaintiff and by striking him with flashlights.”

The case was dismissed in 1982, however, when both sides failed to show up for an arbitration conference. Ellis’ attorney, James G. Varga, said he did not recall why the suit was dropped but noted that abuse cases brought by jail inmates are very difficult to win, in part because the plaintiffs have “credibility problems.”

By 1983, Markel was a patrol officer working out of the Firestone substation when his conduct drew the wrath of superiors.

According to documents on file with the Civil Service Commission, he was one of four deputies suspected of participating in the filing of a false police report. The report claimed they found a stolen gun in the office of a Florence-area bar manager after seeing a gunman outside.

‘Concealed the Truth’

Based on statements by witnesses including a deputy trainee, who said they saw no gunman, internal affairs investigators concluded that the four deputies had “deliberately concealed the truth.” In November, 1984, the four men were fired.

The documents do not explain why all but Markel were dismissed on grounds of filing a false report. His formal discharge was based on a more mundane violation--overtime claims.

The notice of dismissal cited two occasions when Markel was subpoenaed to appear in court along with a “patrol trainee.” Markel allegedly instructed the trainee to stamp him “in and out of court” when he was not present, then filed for overtime.

The firing letter suggested that Markel had given his trainee little choice. “You caused a subordinate . . . to violate department policy through fear and intimidation,” it said.

But in June, 1985, the Civil Service Commission reinstated all four deputies, with Markel agreeing to a 30-day suspension as his punishment.

He subsequently was assigned to the sheriff’s Temple City substation, patrolling the San Gabriel Valley area.

In interviews, neighbors of Markel’s former home in Rialto described him as an imposing body builder with a bad temper who bragged about his exploits as a deputy. “He liked to run suspects down alleys,” recalled one.

Kicking, Beating Alleged

In one excessive force lawsuit pending in Pasadena Superior Court, a San Gabriel man alleges that in 1987 Markel and another deputy illegally searched and ransacked his home. In another, a Duarte man accuses Markel and two colleagues of kicking and beating him with batons after an early-morning traffic stop three years ago.

Until recently, authorities had no way of knowing of the Miami incident because Rubino did not report the July, 1986, theft of his watch and Ferrari. The attorney “was afraid,” said Deputy Sam Jones, a sheriff’s spokesman.

But officials had known that Markel was related to William Mentzer, one of the suspects in the fatal shooting of theatrical producer Roy Radin, who prosecutors say was ordered killed by Lanie Greenberger for cutting her out of a deal to finance the movie “Cotton Club.”

According to a police report filed in the ongoing preliminary hearing in the Cotton Club case, a key witness told investigators that “Mentzer had a cousin named Tom on the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and Tom would run license numbers.”

Sheriff’s investigators interviewed Markel in August, 1987, after learning that he had been “moonlighting” at the same private security firm--Mike Pascal Investigations in Studio City--that employed his cousin. Markel admitted working as a guard during his off-duty hours for $25 an hour, and had protected the Encino home of Lanie Greenberger.

The report says Markel passed a polygraph test administered by Sheriff’s Deputy Pat Galindo, who concluded that “he had never been involved in any criminal conduct that he knew of (while) . . . associated with William Mentzer.”

So far, Markel has refused to comment on the latest accusations.

“Right now, he’s just exercising his right to formal extradition proceedings,” Deputy Public Defender Armando Wood said Friday. “It’s all going to shake down in Florida.”