LOCAL : Producer’s Name Surfaces in Trial

The key witness in the “Cotton Club” murder case testified today that a defendant told him that movie producer Robert Evans and a reputed drug dealer paid to have theatrical producer Roy Radin killed.

William Rider, former security chief for Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, said defendant William Molony Mentzer talked about the murder of Radin when Mentzer was working for Rider as part of Flynt’s private militia.

Mentzer admitted he was involved in the killing, along with Alex Lamota Marti, Rider said at a preliminary hearing of murder charges against the two men and a third suspect, Karen DeLayne Greenberger.

Asked if Mentzer had indicated to him if anyone else was involved in the killing, Rider responded, “Mrs. Greenberger and Robert Evans” and then elaborated, “essentially that they paid for the contract.”

Radin, 33, was last seen entering Greenberger’s limousine in Hollywood in May, 1983. His bullet-riddled body was found the following month in a remote canyon in the Gorman area off Interstate 5.