Valencia Man Convicted in Slayings of Witnesses

A Valencia man was convicted Tuesday of the murders of two witnesses, but he was spared a possible death penalty when prosecutors withdrew their bid for capital punishment just before the verdict was announced.

The dramatic conclusion to the trial of Kenneth Leighton, who now faces life in prison without parole, was the second strange twist in the case.

Earlier, there were revelations that a prosecutor had concealed evidence from defense attorneys.

The decision against seeking the death penalty was made Tuesday by Assistant Dist. Atty. Peter Bozanich, chairman of the office’s death penalty committee, “after the defense attorney asked them to reconsider,” said Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the office.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Terry A. Green revealed the prosecutors’ about-face to a packed courtroom after the reading of the verdict.

A jury of four women and eight men convicted Leighton, 37, in the 1998 West Hills killings of Jamie Navaroli and April Mahoney, with the special circumstances of multiple murders, lying in wait and the killing of a witness--each of which would have qualified the defendant for the death penalty.

The jury would have heard the penalty phase of the trial if the prosecution had not dropped its capital punishment request.

Prosecutors, including Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, declined to explain the sudden reversal on the death penalty.

The office is withholding comment until after a separate jury, still deliberating the fate of co-defendant Randall Williams, has returned a verdict, Gibbons said. Asked if they will continue to pursue the death penalty against Williams, prosecutors had no comment.

Relatives of the victims said they were relieved by the verdict and not bothered by the prosecutors’ decision on the penalty.

“I’m not a believer in the death penalty anyway,” said Navaroli’s mother, Maryann, of Canoga Park. She learned of the decision in open court, she said.

In a trial that lasted nearly four months, Deputy Dist. Attys. Jessica Dabney and Michael Duarte successfully argued that Leighton wanted Navaroli and Mahoney dead because the couple was about to testify against him in a burglary case, a conviction in which he mistakenly believed would have been his “third strike.”

To avoid 25 years to life in prison, he enlisted a friend, Williams, to carry out the killings, prosecutors alleged.

Tuesday wasn’t the first time the trial took an unusual twist. Earlier, a law clerk for the prosecution told a supervisor that Duarte had concealed evidence from the defense.

Green instructed jurors that Duarte’s actions were “without lawful justification and in violation of a specific court order that required [prosecutors] to turn over all witness statements.”

He also told jurors they could consider Duarte’s conduct during their deliberations of the defendants’ guilt.

On Tuesday, jurors for Leighton said Duarte’s conduct didn’t matter in their deliberations.

Jurors didn’t think the concealed statements were significant, said the jury’s foreman, a 33-year-old engineer from Venice who declined to give his name. “The statements were not any different than what was already testified to.”

Ballistics evidence showed that the bullets used in the slayings came from “the same batch” of ammunition found in Leighton’s possession, the foreman added. Mahoney also made a dying declaration that someone named “Randy” had shot her.

Letters and phone calls between Leighton and Williams connected the two to the crime, the foreman said.

Duarte’s conduct “didn’t have any effect on me,” said another juror, a 43-year-old custodial supervisor from West Los Angeles.

“This case wasn’t about Mr. Duarte,” said Carrie Haskell, Jamie Navaroli’s ex-wife. “It was about the father of my children getting killed.”

Deputy Alternate Public Defender Henry Hall said, “There was always a question” over the propriety of seeking the death penalty in the case, in part because Leighton has “next to no [criminal] record. Leighton has a marijuana conviction from 20 years ago,” Hall said.

Leighton will be sentenced July 13.

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