2 Convicted on Lesser Counts in Elaborate Murder Plot : Courts: Complex plan involved obtaining a body to claim life insurance. Judge orders deliberations to continue on murder charges after juror impasse.

Two Ohio businessmen charged in a complex plot to murder a North Hollywood man and use his body to collect $1.5 million in insurance money were convicted Tuesday of fraud, grand theft and conspiracy to commit murder.

But Los Angeles Superior Court jurors could not agree on murder charges against John Barrett Hawkins, 32, and Melvin Hanson, 53, so a judge ordered deliberations to continue.

Prosecutors say the plot dates back to 1987, when Hawkins and Hanson were partners in a sportswear company in Columbus, Ohio, known as “Just Sweats.” Although business was good, Hanson wanted out, defense attorneys say.

Defense attorney Henry Hall says Hanson decided to stage his death and split the money with Hawkins to keep the business afloat. To accomplish this, a corpse was needed.

“The plan was only to secure a cadaver from a hospital or morgue,” defense attorney Whiteside Green said. “It’s distasteful. It’s clearly unlawful. But it is not a murder case.”

Hall says the two businessmen approached Dr. Richard Boggs, a Harvard-educated neurosurgeon in Glendale, offering him $25,000 in advance, with another $25,000 when he delivered a body. Prosecutors say Boggs fulfilled the contract by committing murder.

On April 16, 1988, Boggs dialed 911 to say that Hanson, a patient, had died in his office. Hanson’s credit cards and birth certificate were found on the body. Hawkins flew in, and after an autopsy indicated the victim had died of natural causes, he had the corpse cremated. Hawkins then filed the insurance claim.

However, five months later, fingerprints confirmed that the body had actually been that of Ellis Greene, 37, a North Hollywood bookkeeper who had been reported missing by his aunt. Friends said Greene had last been seen on April 15, 1988, drinking at several bars.

Police reopened the case, and a forensic pathologist concluded after studying lab samples from Greene that the victim actually had been suffocated.

Boggs was arrested, convicted of murder in 1990 and sentenced to life in prison, but Hawkins and Hanson disappeared before police could catch up with them.

The trail led to Florida, Canada, Mexico and Europe. It included appeals for help on television’s “America’s Most Wanted” show and “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

As it turned out, Hanson had fled to Miami, where he became a fixture in the local gay community, using the pseudonym of Wolfgang Eugene von Snowden and disguising his appearance with hair transplants and plastic surgery. Police eventually arrested him at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport as he got off a flight from Acapulco.

Hawkins traveled under aliases in Canada, the West Indies and Europe, having sexual affairs with several men and women along the way. The trail heated up when a woman in Spain saw the Winfrey show and was enraged to learn that Hawkins was bisexual.

The woman told a television station, which notified police, and Hawkins was arrested as he stepped off a catamaran onto the Mediterranean island of Sardinia.

Jurors will resume deliberations on the murder counts today.

Times staff writer Eric Malnic contributed to this story.