Jury Finds Biker Guilty in 1980 Triple Murder : Courts: Daniel Duffy is convicted in shooting deaths in Westminster home. It marks the halfway point in one of the county’s longest and most complex criminal cases.

A Superior Court jury on Friday convicted a 47-year-old man of three counts of first-degree murder for his role in a 1980 Memorial Day triple-slaying in Westminster.

The jury found Daniel Duffy guilty of murder in the shooting deaths of Richard Rizzone, 36, Rena Miley, 19, and Thomas Monahan, 28. All three were gunned down in Rizzone’s tract home.

The jury will return to Superior Court Judge Kathleen E. O’Leary’s courtroom July 27 to begin the penalty phase to decide whether Duffy should be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.

Duffy’s attorneys were clearly surprised by the guilty verdict, as it was returned after only three days of deliberations. Duffy merely smiled stiffly, patting his lawyers on the back and telling them, “It’s OK.”

Deputy Public Defender Michael P. Giannini said afterward that he was taken aback by the verdict, given the “complexity” of the case.

“Now, we have to go to the same jury and make them realize that Mr. Duffy should live,” he said solemnly.

The prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard M. King, declined to comment, saying he will reserve statements for after the penalty verdict.

The conviction marks the halfway point in one of the county’s longest and most complex murder cases.

It wasn’t until 1984 that authorities had enough evidence to arrest Duffy and his co-defendant, Thomas Maniscalco, founder of the Hessian motorcycle gang, in connection with the murders. Both have been held in Orange County Jail since and are the county’s longest-incarcerated inmates.

Prosecutors alleged that Duffy was the “squad leader” on the evening that Rizzone, Miley and Monahan were killed.

King told jurors that Maniscalco, along with Duffy and a third man, Phil Warren, were masterminds of a plan to kill Rizzone--once Maniscalco’s best friend--because he was suspected of skimming money from their drug and counterfeiting business.

That night, Duffy and Warren went to Rizzone’s house to kill Rizzone, King alleged. Miley, who was raped and shot to death in her bed, and Monahan were murdered because they were witnesses, the prosecutor said.

When Maniscalco and another biker, Robert Robbins, showed up later, King said, the killings had already been accomplished.

Warren, the alleged gunman, was later killed in an unrelated police shooting in Oklahoma in 1982.

Duffy’s attorneys maintained the defendant’s innocence, arguing that he was never present at the crime scene. He’s being prosecuted, they said, merely because of his close ties with Maniscalco.

Furthermore, the defense alleged that the prosecution’s witnesses--themselves former Hessian members--lied on the witness stand because they made deals with prosecutors and were granted immunity. Specifically, Duffy’s attorneys claimed that Robbins, who testified against Duffy in exchange for immunity, actually helped orchestrate the killing.

“They were out to save their own skin and obviously the jury bought into” their testimony, Deputy Public Defender Tim B. Severin said.

The case, full of twists and turns, produced the longest criminal trial in Orange County history in 1990, when Maniscalco was tried on first-degree murder charges for the same slayings. The 17-month trial, which cost the county millions of dollars, ended in a mistrial when jurors deadlocked 10 to 2 in favor of a conviction after 22 days of deliberation. Those jurors said they questioned the veracity of the prosecution’s witnesses.

Maniscalco will be retried, prosecutors said, once Duffy’s trial concludes.

On Friday, Maniscalco’s attorney, Curt Livesay, appeared in court to hear the verdict. He said he was surprised with the guilty verdict and how quickly jurors returned it.

“We’ve been preparing for (Maniscalco’s) case, and this just indicates to me that we’ll have to prepare for a very long trial,” Livesay said. “This guilty verdict makes our trial much more difficult. We have a lot of work cut out ahead of us.”