Suspect Arrested in Fatal Stabbing of Studio City Man

Acting on a tip, police arrested a Los Angeles man Friday in connection with the stabbing death of a man whose body was found by his maid in his Studio City apartment.

At 2 a.m., North Hollywood and Rampart division detectives went to the area of North Westmoreland Avenue and Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, where they found the 1999 silver Porsche Boxster belonging to the victim, Mitchell Stanman, 41. Stanman was found tied and stabbed to death just before noon Thursday in his ransacked apartment in the 4200 block of Arch Drive.

Marcus Sartin, 33, was arrested a short time later and taken to the Van Nuys jail, where he was being held without bail, said Officer Robert Eisenhart, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman.

The victim’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 luxuries with an inheritance he received after his parents’ deaths last year.

Stanman was sentenced to 16 months in prison and three years probation after pleading guilty to a March 1998 commercial burglary.