Doctor to Stand Trial in 3-Way Murder Plot
A Glendale physician was ordered Thursday to stand trial on charges that he and two Ohio businessmen murdered a man to enable one of the businessmen to fake his own death as part of a $1-million insurance fraud.
Dr. Richard P. Boggs, 55, was ordered to stand trial on one count each of murder, conspiracy and assault with a stun gun, two counts of grand theft and four counts of insurance fraud.
Municipal Judge Patti Jo McKay also upheld a special circumstance allegation of murder for financial gain, which means Boggs could get the death sentence if convicted.
McKay’s decision came at the conclusion of a one-month preliminary hearing. She dismissed one insurance fraud count because prosecutors did not present any evidence to support the charge.
The judge ordered Boggs to remain in custody without bail and to return to Superior Court for arraignment Wednesday.
One of the Ohio businessmen, Melvin Hanson, 47, is in custody in Columbus, Ohio, fighting extradition to Los Angeles. The other man, John Hawkins, is a fugitive.
The three are accused in the death of Ellis H. Greene, 32, a North Hollywood man originally from Columbus whose body was found in Boggs’s office April 16, 1988.
Boggs allegedly misidentified the dead man as Hanson so that Hanson could fake his own death as part of an elaborate scheme to defraud his life insurance company.
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