‘Cotton Club’ Trial Opens With Tales of Greed, Drugs, Murder : Court: A reputed cocaine dealer is accused of hiring three men to kill a producer after a movie deal went sour. Her lawyer says she was framed.

Seven years after the bullet-riddled body of theatrical impresario Roy Radin was found in a remote canyon, a reputed cocaine dealer and three former bodyguards of Hustler publisher Larry Flynt went on trial Wednesday in a case that will explore the underside of Hollywood.

In opening the so-called “Cotton Club” trial, Deputy Dist. Atty. David Conn told Los Angeles Superior Court jurors that Radin was killed by the former bodyguards on orders from co-defendant Karen DeLayne (Lanie) Greenberger, who was angry after being denied a share of profits from a movie deal she helped organize between Radin and producer Robert Evans.

Greenberger also suspected Radin of helping one of her former associates steal $200,000 in cash and 10 kilograms of cocaine from her home, the prosecutor alleged.

“Each of the defendants were involved in a conspiracy to kidnap and kill Roy Radin,” Conn said. “And each defendant did it for one purpose only: for financial gain and for their own personal greed.”

Conn called the former bodyguards “hired guns.”

“She is the only person in this courtroom who had a personal problem with Mr. Radin,” he said, referring to Greenberger.

But Greenberger’s attorney, Edward Shohat, countered that his client had been framed. He suggested reputed Miami drug runner Milan Bellechesses, the father of Greenberger’s child, was actually behind the crime and should be on trial.

Bellechesses has not been charged in the case.

“Lanie Greenberger was set up, used, literally and figuratively, to take the rap for the murder of Roy Radin,” Shohat said.

Greenberger, 43, was ordered in July, 1989, to stand trial for the killing of Radin, described in court as a man of excesses, an obese, cocaine-sniffing impresario from New York’s Long Island who sought to expand his show business connections to Hollywood.

Also on trial are William Mentzer, 40, Robert Ulmer Lowe, 43 and Alex Marti, 29.

All four defendants are being held without bail and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Wearing a long skirt with a sweater draped around her shoulders, Greenberger appeared relaxed Wednesday as she sat directly in front of jurors. She smiled occasionally as she chatted with her attorneys and gazed about the courtroom. The other defendants sat behind her, flanked by their lawyers.

During the trial, which is expected to last six to eight months, Greenberger will testify on her own behalf. Evans, who was linked to the killing by a prosecution witness but never charged, may also be called to testify, Conn said.

In 1983, Radin met Greenberger, who arranged to have him meet Evans, prosecutors allege. However, Greenberger and Radin’s friendship soured after the cocaine and cash was stolen from Greenberger’s home and when Radin later refused to cut her in on any profits from a production company deal he and Evans were negotiating. The deal would have included “The Cotton Club,” the film about the famed, Prohibition-era Harlem jazz club.

“She wanted a share and that threw a wrench into the whole works,” Conn said.

The prosecutor said Radin was last seen alive on May 13, 1983, when he got into a limousine with Greenberger to go to dinner in Beverly Hills. Conn said that at some point, Lowe, who was driving, pulled the vehicle over and Greenberger got out.

Mentzer and Marti then got in and Radin, 33, was driven to a canyon near Gorman, where Marti emptied his revolver into the back of Radin’s head, Conn said.

Mentzer fired one shot, “the coup de grace ,” and pulled out a 3- to 4-inch stick of dynamite, put it in Radin’s mouth, lit it and “blew up the face,” he said.

A beekeeper discovered Radin’s body on June 10.

Shohat conceded that Greenberger was a drug dealer at the time of Radin’s killing, but insisted that no evidence exists to tie her to the crime. He described his client as a woman caught in a “tightening vise” because the stolen cocaine and money did not belong to her and she was desperate to find a way to pay back the loss.

“Roy Radin offered her a way to pay the debt,” Shohat said. “And that way was the ‘Cotton Club’ deal.”

Lawyers for both Marti and Lowe attacked the credibility of the district attorney’s witnesses, saying many have been granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying against their clients.

Lowe’s attorney, Mark Kaiserman, told jurors the only people that would place Lowe at the scene of the crime were “people bought and paid for by the prosecution.”