Man Accused of Arranging the Slaying of Estranged Wife

Melvin Green, a North Hollywood tax consultant, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of arranging the killing of his estranged wife, Jewish community leader Anita Green, Los Angeles police reported.

Police said Green was responsible for the slaying, although he was in his office Oct. 25 when his wife was gunned down by another man in the parking lot behind the building.

Detectives refused to provide details.

Witnesses said Anita Green was shot by a motorcyclist who followed her car on Oxnard Boulevard to the parking lot at Oxnard Boulevard and Wilkinson Avenue.

Before she could get out out of the car, witnesses said, the motorcyclist parked at the curb, approached the auto with a pistol, shot her once in the upper torso and sped away.

Melvin Green, 54, who was arrested in his office Wednesday afternoon, is scheduled to be arraigned on a murder charge in San Fernando Municipal Court this morning.

At the time of the killing, Anita and Melvin Green were in the midst of a contentious divorce after nine years of marriage, and Anita Green’s divorce lawyer said the woman feared her husband.

Before their July separation, Anita Green had worked as an accountant for her husband’s tax consulting firm.

When the marriage broke up, the separation agreement called for her to work from an apartment she had rented, going to the office only to pick up or deliver documents.

Anita Green had made an arrangement to stop at her husband’s office the morning she was killed.

Anita Green was one of the founders of Temple Shir Chadash--The New Reform Congregation--and was also active in the human rights movement in Central America and in the movement for reform in Israel.

Her death shocked and upset members of the synagogue.

Melvin Green was named by police as a suspect shortly after the killing, but denied any responsibility.

He said he would gladly have traded places with his wife if he could have saved her life.