Judge Says Fugitive’s Lawyer Must Testify

While Jesse James Hollywood and his friends were allegedly holding a 15-year-old boy hostage for payment of what police contend was a drug debt, he called his lawyer to ask for advice.

But when Simi Valley attorney Stephen Hogg picked up the phone, prosecutors allege, the conversation that followed set the stage for murder. Hollywood decided to kill the boy--abducted from near his West Hills home last summer--after Hogg advised him that the penalty for kidnapping is life in prison, prosecutors contend.

Now, in another wrinkle in a case defined by odd twists stretching from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, a judge ruled last week that Hogg can be compelled to testify in future criminal proceedings against his onetime client, a 21-year-old fugitive wanted by the FBI on kidnapping and murder charges.

In making his ruling, Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge William L. Gordon opened the door for prosecutors to seek Hogg’s testimony about Hollywood in the trials of four other defendants charged with kidnapping and murdering Nicholas Markowitz in August.

The case has stirred interest in legal circles because it deals with forcing lawyers to testify against clients, and because it dramatically highlights the professional dilemmas lawyers can face simply by answering the phone.

“It’s an attorney’s worst nightmare,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School. “It’s a situation where the ethical rules of lawyers butt up against what a lot of people think our moral duties should be. If [Hogg] ran to the police, he could have been subject to discipline by the State Bar. The professional rules say, ‘Don’t reveal it,’ but your own heart may say, ‘I have to.’ ”

In this case, Santa Barbara County Deputy Dist. Atty. Ron Zonen told the judge, Hollywood sought legal advice midway through a crime, in the midst of the kidnapping. Zonen successfully argued that the attorney-client privilege does not apply because Hollywood waived it by later telling a friend about the conversation he’d had with Hogg.

In the court hearing last week, Hogg strenuously opposed the prosecutor’s efforts, and he could still appeal.

“It’s a very uncomfortable position for me,” said Hogg, a veteran defense attorney. “The attorney-client privilege is very important. You can’t imagine the number of times people come to me and tell me their secrets.”

Police alleged that Markowitz was killed during a botched attempt to collect a drug debt that the boy’s older half brother owed Hollywood. The victim was taken to Santa Barbara on Aug. 6, where he was allegedly held before being taken to a remote mountain campsite and shot nine times, probably in the early morning of Aug. 9.

Hollywood, who investigators say was not present, was charged under a California law that allows any participant in a kidnapping that ends in homicide to be charged with murder. The four other defendants are Ryan Hoyt, Jesse Rugge and William Skidmore, 21-year-olds who grew up with Hollywood in the west San Fernando Valley, and Graham Pressley, 18, a friend of Rugge’s from Santa Barbara. All have pleaded not guilty and remain in custody.

California has one of the country’s strictest rules on attorney confidentiality, requiring attorneys “to maintain inviolate the confidence, and at every peril to himself or herself to preserve the secrets,” of clients.

In the rare instance when a lawyer hears about a potentially violent crime as it unfolds, professional obligations may clash with concern for the victim’s safety.

“We’re human beings,” said Diane Karpman, an ethics attorney who defends lawyers before the State Bar Court. “You’re torn between being a human being with morality in the universe, and your ethical obligations [as an attorney]. It’s very hard.”

The outlines of the Hogg-Hollywood conversation are contained in transcripts of grand jury testimony of people who talked to Hogg. Investigators say the discussion between Hogg and Hollywood took place several hours before Nicholas was shot.

Should Hogg have gone to the police? Zonen said that’s what he would have done.

“I would like to believe, if faced with that situation, I would say [to Hollywood], ‘You’re not going to hang up the phone until I’m assured this kid is being released,’ ” Zonen said. “And if I’m not absolutely convinced, my next call is to 911.”

Charles Sevilla, a San Diego criminal defense attorney, said such a situation “puts the attorney in the middle of a hotbox of decisions where there is no bright line path.”

“It sounds like the attorney did the right thing by trying to get [Nicholas] out of peril,” Sevilla said.

Unlike the debate over what Hogg should have done when Hollywood called, legal experts said that once the case was brought before a grand jury, Hogg did the right thing by refusing to testify and asserting attorney-client privilege.

Nine months after the killing, the hunt for Hollywood grinds on.

FBI agent Bob Mack said, “We are aggressively looking for him, and we are confident sooner or later, hopefully sooner, we will catch Mr. Hollywood.”

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Times staff writer Michael Krikorian contributed to this story.