Defense Begins in Trial for Rizzitello

The defense began presenting its evidence at the Michael Anthony Rizzitello trial Wednesday by trying to show that Mustang Club financier William Carroll misled the jury about when he was shot in a Costa Mesa parking garage nearly three years ago.

But the key question for prosecutors is whether Rizzitello, who has not testified in his numerous other racketeer-related cases, will take the witness stand to deny that he shot Carroll three times, leaving him permanently blind.

Carroll, 57, has testified that Rizzitello and an accomplice, Joey Grosso, used a ruse to get him to take them to the empty parking garage, where Rizzitello then shot him. Carroll said Grosso, who has already been convicted in the shooting at a separate trial, held his leg so he could not get away.

Rizzitello attorney Anthony P. Brooklier has not disclosed his plans.

Brooklier has contended to jurors that Carroll was shot by a bouncer at the Mustang topless bar, Big George Yudzevich, who later was slain. Brooklier told jurors in his opening statement that Carroll only accused Rizzitello in order to get prosecutors to go easy on him in a bank fraud case. Prosecutors have called Brooklier’s accusation ludicrous.

But Brooklier is expected to put on the witness stand a dancer at the club, which has since closed because of two arson incidents, who claims that Yudzevich confessed to her that he was the shooter.

Grosso once told The Times that Yudzevich did the shooting. But he has since recanted, telling jurors at his own trial that it was Rizzitello who was sitting in the back seat when he heard gunshots and saw Carroll slump over.

Rizzitello, 62, allegedly has been an under boss in the Milano organized crime family in Los Angeles for more than a decade. Though he allegedly was one of five members of the Milano hierarchy convicted in a major racketeering case in Los Angeles 10 years ago, he has been acquitted at three trials since then. Two were for fraud schemes and one was on charges in New York that he helped plan the attempted murder of a government witness.

Prosecutors finished their case against Rizzitello with Gene Lesher, the former manager at the Mustang, who told jurors that Rizzitello used threats to extort money from the club after the Carroll shooting. Prosecutors theorize that Rizzitello shot Carroll because he believed that the financier would not agree to cut Rizzitello in on the club’s profits.

Wednesday, two employees in the parking garage area testified that the shooting occurred just after midnight. Carroll’s testimony had been that the shooting could not have occurred later than shortly after 11 p.m.

But at Grosso’s trial last November, jurors said they believed that Carroll was being truthful about who shot him, even though he may have lied about some of his business activities.