Brother to Stand Trial in Slaying on New Year’s Eve

An Agoura Hills teen-ager was ordered Thursday to stand trial on charges that he shot his older brother to death on New Year’s Eve.

Bradley Marc Minkoff, 18, was arrested two weeks after his older brother, Michael Minkoff, 20, an engineering student at Moorpark College, was found shot to death in the family home.

The killing occurred while their parents, Barbara and David Minkoff, were on vacation. The two brothers were seen together at the house earlier on the day of the shooting, but authorities later could not find Bradley Minkoff, fueling suspicions that he also had been a victim of foul play.

During the two weeks before his arrest, however, Minkoff stayed with actor friends in North Hollywood.

During a preliminary hearing at Malibu Municipal Court, those friends testified that Minkoff--whom they described as an obsessed fan of actors James Dean and Mickey Rourke--repeatedly told them that he had committed the crime, but they didn’t believe him, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Loni Peterson.

Damien Chapa testified that on the morning after the killing, Minkoff told him that he had shot his older brother to death, but then laughed and said he was only joking, Peterson said.

Over the next two weeks, Minkoff repeated the story, but his friends thought he was only mimicking a Dean movie role, Chapa testified.

Todd Antony Bello testified that once after Minkoff said he had shot his brother, Bello asked him why. Minkoff replied that Michael was a drug dealer, Bello testified.

Peterson, however, said there was no evidence that Michael, who graduated in 1987 from Indian Hills High School, a continuation high school in Calabasas, was selling narcotics.

After their son’s arrest, Barbara and David Minkoff told sheriff’s deputies that their sons had opposite personalities and that Michael, who was described as very social, was worried that his brother had become too much of a loner.

Minkoff is being held without bail at Los Angeles County Jail and is scheduled to be arraigned in Santa Monica Superior Court on April 9.