Death Penalty Sought in 1989 Kidnap, Murder : Courts: Jury weighs life in prison or execution for Tennessee man convicted last month of slaying in North Hills.

Citing the convicted killer’s lengthy and violent criminal history, a prosecutor asked a jury Tuesday to sentence a Tennessee man to death for the execution-style slaying of a man who was abducted as he left a Studio City bar.

“Ronald Boscaino has not been deterred by society’s intervention and attempted rehabilitation,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan D. Chasworth, reciting a list of his crimes.

After convicting Boscaino, 32, of murder last month, a Van Nuys Superior Court jury is now trying to determine whether he should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison.

To sway the panel toward the death penalty, the prosecutor promised that the jury would hear details of Boscaino’s 20-year string of crimes, beginning when, at the age of 12, he forced an 8-year-old boy to perform oral sex on him at gunpoint. The victim in that 1974 incident in Tennessee was the first witness Tuesday.

Testimony also came from a 32-year-old woman who said she was with Boscaino and several other teen-agers in 1978 when an elderly man was brutally beaten in Tennessee. Margaret McIntoch testified that Boscaino used a boat paddle to hit 78-year-old Virgil McGill in the back of the head, striking McGill so hard that the paddle broke.

Chasworth also said Boscaino committed a 1985 robbery and assault in Georgia, then fled to New York state, where he and his brother brutalized two men in a hotel room. The prosecutor said one victim was forced to perform oral sex and the second was sodomized during an incident that lasted at least six hours.

Boscaino was convicted of first-degree murder last month in the death of Sheldon Oppenheim, who was gunned down in his North Hills residence Sept. 24, 1989, after he was kidnaped from a parking lot, taken to his apartment and robbed.

The slaying occurred during a two-week crime spree by Boscaino and his 27-year-old brother, Vincent, who was also convicted of Oppenheim’s murder and is scheduled to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole July 7.

During the brother’s trial, two witnesses testified that Ronald Boscaino bragged about the killing to two friends in Tennessee, then threatened to kill anyone who went to authorities, saying “I’m going to hell anyhow,” according to Chasworth.

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Chasworth said her office decided to seek the death penalty only in Ronald Boscaino’s case because he was the one who actually shot Oppenheim and because he had tried to kill another kidnap victim shortly afterward.

Boscaino abducted Tory Christopher on Oct. 4, 1989, from the same Studio City parking lot where Oppenheim was kidnaped. Christopher testified that he was forced into his car, where Boscaino found Christopher’s gun under the seat. Boscaino shoved the barrel into Christopher’s mouth and pulled the trigger, Christopher testified.

The gun did not fire, apparently because Boscaino could not figure out how to disengage the safety, and Christopher escaped. Boscaino was convicted of attempted murder in that incident.

Defense attorney Robert Fefferman did not make an opening statement Tuesday. He declined to comment on the case outside court.