Information May Have Prejudiced Jurors : Courts: Former LAPD officer seeks reversal of 1988 murder conviction. Two members of panel say they were exposed to news about case.

Two former jurors testified in Van Nuys Superior Court on Thursday that they were exposed to possibly prejudicial information during a trial five years ago that ended in the conviction of a Los Angeles police officer for a contract killing.

Jurors Kathryn Brown and Betty Cornick testified that during the 1988 trial, they saw an account in a newspaper or heard from another juror of a conviction or other criminal charges involving a co-defendant.

Robert Von Villas, 48, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing Thomas Weed, the owner of a small business who disappeared in February, 1983. His body has never been found.

Von Villas is seeking a reversal of the conviction. Last year the 2nd District Court of Appeals ordered Superior Court Judge Darlene E. Schempp to conduct a hearing to determine if a new trial should be held.

Von Villas, of Simi Valley, was convicted of the murder three weeks after his alleged crime partner, former officer Richard Ford, was convicted in a separate trial. Both men, who were officers assigned to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Devonshire Division, were sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole for the first-degree murder convictions.

Prosecutors said the two officers killed Weed in exchange for $20,000 from his ex-wife and buried the body in the desert. The ex-wife was allowed to plead guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for her testimony and a 15-year prison sentence.

Von Villas was transported from Folsom Prison to attend the hearing Thursday.

Schempp must determine if there was juror misconduct, whether intentional or not, and if so, whether it could have been prejudicial to Von Villas and changed the outcome of the verdict. If so, she can order a new trial.

Cornick testified Thursday that at one point during the Von Villas trial she picked up a morning paper, unfolded it and saw a front-page headline about Ford’s conviction in the other trial. She said she read no further.

Brown testified that during the trial another juror, Marge Kitchen, mentioned a jewelry-store robbery that Ford and Von Villas had allegedly been involved in. That crime was not presented as evidence in the murder case.

David Boykoff, a private investigator for Von Villas, also testified that following the verdict he interviewed Cornick and she also mentioned hearing about the Ford conviction from television and radio news reports. Boykoff said Cornick reported that other jurors knew of the other conviction as well.

Von Villas’s attorney, Jack Stone, said he will argue that the information the jury had was improper and tainted the verdict.

“The jury is not to have any evidence that does not come to them in court,” he said outside court.

“Just one juror having this knowledge, that is enough” for a new trial, added Russell Iungerich, an attorney who represented Von Villas on appeal.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Greg Denton said that he did not believe that there was convincing evidence of misconduct presented so far. He said the trials of the two former officers drew so much media attention that jurors would have to have been “hermits” not to hear or see some reports.

“I don’t think seeing a headline is misconduct,” he said. “At the time, there was no way to open a paper or turn on the TV or the radio without getting hit with something” about the case.

Regardless, he said, evidence presented during the trial overwhelmingly pointed to a guilty verdict and should preclude a retrial based on Von Villas’ argument.

If Schempp decides to order a new trial, Denton said he was not sure the prosecutor’s office will retry Von Villas, due to the difficulties of mounting a case so far in the past.