Different Gang Member Threatened Montgomery, Jurors Told

A young skinhead gang member shoved Katrina Montgomery against a wall and put a steak knife to her throat just hours before she disappeared from a violent Oxnard party in November 1992, a witness testified Wednesday.

Gang leader Scott Porcho told jurors that he saw Larry Nicassio--a former murder suspect who cut a deal with prosecutors--assault Montgomery with a knife during the party.

The testimony appeared to stun Deputy Dist. Atty. Ron Bamieh, who is prosecuting Porcho’s friend and fellow white supremacist, Justin Merriman, for murder in Montgomery’s slaying.

Although Porcho testified twice before a grand jury and spoke several times with investigators about what happened to Montgomery on the night of Nov. 28, 1992, his statement about Nicassio wielding a knife was new.

When Bamieh questioned the timing of Porcho’s sudden allegation, the gang member calmly replied that he has searched his memory since landing in jail this month on a drunk-driving charge.

“I’ve had 10 days to sit in a solitary cell and think about it,” Porcho said.

Porcho’s testimony supports claims by Merriman’s defense team that Nicassio, not Merriman, may be the one who killed the 20-year-old college student.

Merriman, who is facing murder, rape and other charges, is accused of slitting Montgomery’s throat to prevent her from reporting an alleged sexual assault at his home after the party ended.

Nicassio has told prosecutors that he was sleeping on the floor of Merriman’s bedroom and saw the killing. Because he was 16 at the time, and a junior gang member, Nicassio told prosecutors he was too scared to intervene.

Prosecutors say Nicassio and his cousin, Ryan Bush, were forced by Merriman to get rid of Montgomery’s body.

Before signing a plea agreement with the district attorney’s office, Nicassio told authorities they buried Montgomery in a rural area near Sylmar and pushed her blue Toyota pickup truck off a winding mountain road in the Angeles Crest National Forest. Her remains have never been found.

Porcho, who has three felony convictions for assault with a deadly weapon and is in jail on a parole hold, was called by the prosecution to establish the history of the Ventura skinhead gang. Its members had thwarted an investigation into the slaying for years.

The gang began in the late 1980s as “just a bunch of friends” who hung out and partied, Porcho said. The white supremacist ideology came later as membership grew.

“Not everyone involved was like that,” he said.

As with other gangs, he said, the skinhead group followed a hierarchy and firm set of rules: Women were not allowed. Brothers always backed up brothers. And they never--not ever--spoke to law enforcement.

“That was a big no-no,” Porcho testified, telling jurors that gang members who broke the last rule risked severe beatings or other acts of retaliation.

Porcho told the jury he was friends with Merriman and Montgomery, a former Ventura resident and Santa Monica City College student who was also a friend of his wife, Apryl.

On the night of the party at the Porchos’ Oxnard house, Montgomery became extremely drunk and got into two altercations with gang members, Porcho said.

At one point, he heard a scream coming from his bedroom and found Montgomery on the bed holding her stomach as if she had been punched, he said. Merriman and several other gang members were standing around the bed, saying nothing.

“I was pretty sure she had been struck,” he said.

Porcho said he later saw Nicassio, Merriman and Bush standing around Montgomery in a hallway.

“I saw Trina up against a wall in the hallway and Larry was choking her,” he said. It was during this incident, he said, that Nicassio put a knife to her throat.

At the end of the night, Montgomery got into a fight with him and his wife and left, Porcho said. He told jurors he believe she went to the Ventura condominium where Merriman lived with his mother.