D.A. Tells Jurors Murder Plot Was Fueled by Sex, Greed : Courts: Two are accused of killing insurer. Two others not charged committed suicide.

Two men accused of killing a Laguna Hills businessman known as the “King of Insurance” played roles in an “age-old story of sex, greed and violence,” a prosecutor told jurors Thursday.

More than three years after Dirk St. Claire Houston was shot to death in the office of his insurance brokerage business, an Orange County Superior Court jury heard opening statements in the case against the victim’s stepson, Greg Nottage, and another man, Ramon Padilla.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Carolyn Kirkwood said the two men, charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy, were part of a plot in late 1991 to kill Houston, largely to collect nearly $1 million in insurance and to take over the multimillion-dollar business the 37-year-old businessman built from scratch.

Kirkwood said the plot also involved Houston’s 44-year-old wife, Lynn--the beneficiary of his life insurance policy--and her 22-year-old lover, Arturo Montes, the family’s gardener. Both committed suicide in a Banning motel room, about three months after Houston’s killing. The suicides, involving alcohol and drugs, came about the time Montes was scheduled for a second interrogation with sheriff’s detectives, Kirkwood told the jurors.

But defense attorneys said Nottage, who goes by the name of Greg Houston, and Padilla are innocent of any involvement, and had never met until they were arrested in September.

“The death of Dirk Houston in 1991 was in fact a result of his wife’s love affair with” Montes, said Jeffrey Lund, who is representing Padilla.

Defense attorney Joseph Heneghan, who is representing Nottage, said his client could not have possibly been involved in the killing, mainly because of his love for his stepfather.

“Greg looked up to Dirk,” Heneghan said. “Dirk was on a pedestal.”

Kirkwood portrayed a vastly different picture in her opening statements, saying that the evidence will show various motives brought together the most “unlikely people” and “resulted in the tragic death of a totally innocent, good human being by the name of Dirk Houston.”

Kirkwood said that relations between Nottage and his stepfather were tense, and that Houston planned to fire the 26-year-old man.

In the weeks before the Dec. 21, 1991, homicide, Kirkwood said, Nottage called a friend in Massachusetts and asked him for a “throwaway” gun, something the friend declined to do.

During interviews with police, Nottage said his mother had asked him to destroy Houston’s pocket computer and a serial number on his $20,000 Rolex watch, Kirkwood said. Both items had been reported stolen in the murder.

The prosecutor said the slaying at Houston’s business, St. Claire and Associates, had been made to look like a robbery, but police quickly suspected otherwise because, among other things, there was no sign of forced entry.

Meanwhile, Padilla became embroiled in the plot when Montes--a childhood friend from Santa Ana--asked him to get a gun, Kirkwood alleged. The prosecutor said Padilla never got a gun, but accepted $500 from Montes and went to Houston’s office the night of the murder.

The murder weapon was never recovered, and authorities have not said who pulled the trigger.

Kirkwood said that Padilla, who has told police that he ran away before the killing, made many contradictory statements to investigators.

Padilla’s attorney, however, said his client is a “simple man” who was subjected to hours of intensive grilling by investigators. The attorney told jurors that Padilla admits Montes asked him to help in the plot, but that the defendant refused and had no reason to believe his friend would do anything violent.

Padilla “over and over and over again told him, ‘I don’t want anything to do with it. It’s dumb and stupid,’ ” the attorney said.

Heneghan, in his opening statement to jurors, said the prosecution had “distorted reality” and that Nottage would be taking the stand to tell his side of the story because “he’s got nothing to be afraid of.”