Firm’s Former Chief May Be Suspect in Slaying

Investigators suspect that the deceased president of a Huntington Beach finance company under scrutiny for its alleged strong-arm methods may have orchestrated the murder of a Hollywood recording executive who was deep in debt to the company, a source close to the case said Thursday.

Investigators think it is unlikely that Coleman Allen, founding president of Premium Commercial Services Corp., fired the shots that killed Barry J. Skolnick, 30, in January, according to the source.

The source said detectives are looking at the alleged hit men in two Orange County shootings--including the slaying last year of a Fountain Valley flight attendant--as possible suspects in the death of Skolnick, general manager of Hollywood Recording Services.

Allen had taken control of the studio, which then took out a $2.5-million life insurance policy on Skolnick. Premium Commercial required a number of other borrowers to buy hefty insurance policies--for up to five times the amount owed--designating the finance company as sole beneficiary, according to investigators and court records.

An attorney for Premium Commercial denied Friday that any proceeds from Skolnick’s policy have been received by the finance company or the studio.

“These proceeds have been deposited in court pending the court’s determination as to the rightful owner,” said Beverly Hills attorney Lawrence H. Nagler.

At least seven law enforcement agencies are seeking information on Premium Commercial and the Orange County attacks and are examining potential links to unsolved violent crimes, according to another source.

Fountain Valley police investigators are now turning their efforts to prosecuting Leonard Owen Mundy, the Los Angeles electrician charged with shooting flight attendant Jane Carver as she returned from a jog last June. Detectives suspect that Carver was the victim of mistaken identity.

Mundy, 42, appeared briefly in a Westminster courthouse Friday, but his pretrial hearing was postponed until May 31. He was arrested at home last weekend after investigators turned up information on him during a visit to the offices of Premium Commercial.

Detectives were led to the factoring firm, which fronts spending cash to small businesses, while probing the April shooting of a San Clemente businessman who owed money to Premium Commercial. Like Carver, the man was shot in the face, but he survived.

The police investigation into Skolnick’s death is focusing on Allen, who died of heart disease last month. Allen’s firm faced allegations that it threatened delinquent borrowers and demanded that some buy life insurance policies naming Premium Commercial as sole beneficiary.

Skolnick signed over Hollywood Recording to Allen after racking up a $900,000 debt. The recording company took out a $2.5-million insurance policy on Skolnick, naming the Allen-owned studio as sole beneficiary. Skolnick was found fatally shot in a Sunset Boulevard parking garage Jan. 30, a few weeks after a separate creditor sued Allen’s company for money it said Skolnick owed.

James Wengert, the San Clemente businessman who survived being shot in the face April 10, also owed money to Premium Commercial and had taken out a life insurance policy. Margaret Wengert, his wife, had sued the firm, claiming hardball collection practices. Police have said she may have been the intended target of the gunman who killed Carver.

Both men arrested for the Orange County shootings owed money to Premium Commercial, state records show.

The Skolnick slaying renewed interest in a Las Vegas case in which the studio’s previous owner and his wife were wounded in 1991.

In February, Los Angeles investigators scooped up a pile of evidence from Las Vegas police in a hunt for possible connections between the Skolnick case and the unsolved shooting of Fred Jones, who had sold Skolnick the recording company. Jones and his wife, Laurel, were shot as they slept in their Las Vegas apartment.

Jones’ attorney, Ronald Gallant of Encino, said Los Angeles police told him they believed Skolnick was the intended target in the 1991 attack.

Times staff writers Michael Granberry, Dexter Filkins and Michael G. Wagner, correspondent Jeff Kass and researcher Sheila A. Kern contributed to this report.