Triggerman Gets Life in ‘Cotton Club’ Murder
One of two convicted triggermen in the “Cotton Club” slaying of New York impresario Roy Radin in May, 1983, was sentenced Wednesday in Los Angeles to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Superior Court Judge Curtis Rappe rejected Alex Marti’s request for a new trial, which the defendant based on what he claimed were more than four dozen errors committed during the proceeding. “So I guess probation’s out of the question, huh?” the 30-year-old Sherman Oaks man said with a chuckle moments before the judge meted out the mandatory life term.
Prosecutors initially had sought the death penalty for the Argentine native, citing the “viciousness” of the Friday the 13th killing. But jurors rejected that argument and recommended the life term. Marti was one of four people convicted in July of participating in the murder of Radin, a portly, cocaine-sniffing vaudeville promoter who had been in the midst of negotiating a three-picture deal with ex-Paramount chief Robert Evans.
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