‘No Doubt’ on Suspect, Victim of Shooting Says

In what marked their first face-to-face meeting in open court, a San Clemente businessman pointed Friday to the man accused of shooting him in a contract hit gone wrong and expressed “no doubt” he was the one.

Despite attempts by the lawyer for Paul Gordon Alleyne, 32, to suggest that James Wengert, 48, was guilty of a case of mistaken identity, Wengert stared at Alleyne repeatedly during Friday’s preliminary hearing and told the court he was sure.

Asked if his assailant was in the courtroom, an emotional Wengert pointed to Alleyne and said, “He’s the defendant--sitting at that table.”

“It’s hard to dispute an eyeball witness,” Wengert said later, “and my eyeballs were there.”

The shooting occurred in a San Clemente parking garage on April 10 and left Wengert with a facial scar several inches long as well as a broken jaw and five shattered teeth.

Investigators say the shooting was ordered by the late Coleman Allen, owner of Premium Commercial Services Corp., a Huntington Beach finance firm linked to homicides in Hollywood and Fountain Valley. Alleyne was hired to carry it out, police say, because he owed money to Allen.

Federico Sayre, Alleyne’s attorney, tried in vain during cross-examination Friday to suggest that Wengert had identified the wrong man in a photo lineup. At the time of the shooting, Wengert described his assailant as 5-feet-9 and 170 pounds; Alleyne is 6 feet, 155 pounds.

But at the end of the one-day hearing, Municipal Judge Arthur G. Koelle bound Alleyne over for trial. He is scheduled to be arraigned July 2 in Orange County Superior Court.

He remains held without bail at Orange County Jail.

Orange County sheriff’s deputies say Alleyne was hired to kill Wengert for his $500,000 life insurance policy, which listed Allen’s company as sole beneficiary.

Wengert admitted Friday having owed money to Allen but said the amount was always in question, Allen believing the debt as high as $438,000, and Wengert contending he owed no more than $71,000.

In June of last year, Wengert’s wife, Margaret “Peggy” Wengert, 62, filed a lawsuit against Premium Commercial. Three days later, flight attendant Jane Carver, 46, was shot to death, in what police believe was a case of mistaken identity, with the killer’s true target being Wengert’s wife.

The Wengerts once owned a house not far from Carver’s near the Fountain Valley park where Carver was shot once in the face, in a manner similar to the Wengert shooting. Allen had seized the house, which was in Peggy Wengert’s name, as a means of repaying Wengert’s debt.

Wengert said he first became leery of Allen in March of last year. He was asked to carry out some business for Allen as a means of dispatching his debt. He never fully explained what the business was.

But he testified about being sent to a shadowy warehouse in Inglewood, where a man confronted him, pulled out a gun and told him he had been ordered to kill him.

“I don’t want to kill anybody today, so get the [expletive] out of here,” Wengert quoted the man as saying.

Wengert said the man took his wallet and sent him away, firing a round in the air as if to pretend he had carried out the hit. Wengert said he told authorities about the incident and confronted Allen about it, drawing only a dumbfounded denial in return.

He insisted, however, that Alleyne was not the triggerman in that incident.

On the morning of April 10, Wengert was confronted in a basement parking garage in San Clemente by a gun-wielding man whom he insisted repeatedly Friday was Alleyne. The man took his wallet, Wengert said, looking inside to see if Wengert’s name matched the picture on his driver’s license but expressing no interest in a gold ring or gold watch.

“I’ll tell you, it’s been a roller coaster and mostly downhill,” Wengert said later in describing his ordeal. “You try to get work done, and it’s very difficult to concentrate. You constantly have to look over your shoulder. By nature, I’m not a paranoid person, but lately, yes, I’ve become more paranoid.”