2 Guilty in Laguna Hills Businessman’s Murder : Courts: Stepson and accomplice killed for insurance benefits and business, jury finds.

A jury Monday found a Laguna Niguel man and his accomplice guilty of murdering his stepfather to take over a multimillion-dollar business and to fulfill the wishes of his mother, who later committed suicide with her lover.

The stepson, Greg Nottage, 26, and Ramon Padilla, 27, of Santa Ana each were found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for shooting to death 37-year-old Dirk St. Claire Houston in the office of his insurance brokerage on Dec. 21, 1991.

As the jury left the courtroom, the father of the slain man jumped up from his seat and met jurors at the door, tearfully hugging and shaking hands with each of them.

“I am grateful to them,” said Roger Houston of La Crescenta. “They took a chunk out of their lives to do something for my dead son. He couldn’t do anything for himself, so they did something for him. They stood in for him.”

Several jurors burst into tears as Houston thanked them.

During the six-week trial in Orange County Superior Court, the prosecution accused the two men of plotting to kill Houston to collect nearly $1 million in insurance and to take over the business he had built from scratch.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Carolyn Kirkwood said the plot also involved Houston’s 44-year-old wife, Lynn, of Laguna Niguel, 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 death. The suicides, involving alcohol and drugs, came the night before Montes was scheduled for a second interrogation and a polygraph test by sheriff’s detectives.

Although Kirkwood said investigators never recorded any conversations nor found any letters in which Nottage was promised a share of Houston’s insurance money or company, she insisted there was an implied agreement between Nottage and his mother that he would benefit.

She said Montes met separately with Nottage and Padilla to discuss the killing several times before the night Nottage and Padilla went to Houston’s Laguna Hills office and shot him.

“Greed and sex were the main motivations--the oldest motivations there are,” she said outside the courtroom Monday. “I feel sorry for the victims. Anyone who had anything to say about Dirk Houston only spoke highly of him. He was a very decent human being.”

Kirkwood said the killing at 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.

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. Both items had been reported stolen in the murder.

Defense attorneys said Nottage and Padilla not only were innocent but had never met before they were arrested.

Nottage’s defense attorney, Joseph Heneghan, told jurors that Nottage loved his stepfather and looked up to him.

Jeffrey Lund, deputy public defender for Padilla, admitted that Montes had asked Padilla to get him a gun, but contended it was for Montes’ own protection. He said Padilla never got him the gun and refused when Montes later asked him for help in killing Houston. He said he believes Montes, at the urging of Lynn Houston, was the real killer.

But Kirkwood painted a different picture. She said Padilla got involved in the killing because of his friendship with Montes. She said he accepted $500 from Montes and went to Houston’s office the night of the murder.

She said relations between Nottage and his stepfather were tense because Houston planned to fire him for sleeping on the job and because Houston suspected Nottage of embezzlement. Nottage was a marketing liaison for the firm.

Nottage “wanted that business,” Kirkwood told jurors. “He yearned for success, but he didn’t want to work for it.”

Heneghan told Judge Anthony Rackauckas that he was disappointed with the verdict and left the courtroom without further comment.

Lund said he plans to appeal.

“I don’t think he was there on the night of the murder,” Lund said. “And I don’t think he intended to involve himself in murder or conspiracy to murder.”

The two men face 26 years to life in prison when they return to court for sentencing Sept. 15.