VALLEY ROUNDUP : Studio City : Police Make Arrest in Man’s Stabbing Death

LAPD homicide detectives on Friday made an arrest in connection with the stabbing death of a man whose body was found in his apartment by his maid.

Marcus Sartin, 33, of Los Angeles, was arrested at 2 a.m. Friday and taken to Van Nuys Jail, where he was being held without bail, said Officer Robert Eisenhart, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman.

Acting on a tip, North Hollywood and Rampart division detectives went to the area of North Westmoreland Avenue and Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, where they found a 1999 silver Porsche Boxster belonging to slaying victim Mitchell Stanman, 41. Stanman was found tied up and stabbed to death just before noon on Thursday in his ransacked apartment in the 4200 block of Arch Drive in Studio City.

Sartin was taken into custody a short time later, said Eisenhart, who, citing the ongoing investigation, declined to release additional details.

Stanman’s relatives described him as a person without direction who had been in and out of jail because of a chronic drug problem. They said he was able to pay for the expensive sports car and other luxury items with inheritance money he received following his parents’ deaths last year.

Court records indicate Stanman’s involvement in several crimes, including a March 1998 incident in which he reportedly attacked a clerk at a liquor store. He pleaded guilty to a commercial burglary charge and was sentenced to 16 months in prison and three years’ probation.