Teen’s Story of a Killing Discounted by Friends : Crime: An Agoura Hills youth told companions he had killed his brother, but they thought it was just another of his poses imitating movie stars--until he was arrested.

An Agoura Hills teen-ager sought by sheriff’s deputies after the New Year’s Eve shooting death of his brother spent the last two weeks with actor friends in the San Fernando Valley who said he told them repeatedly that he had committed the crime.

Several of his friends this week said they disregarded Bradley Marc Minkoff’s story because he appeared to be mimicking his idol, brooding 1950s actor James Dean, and reciting melodramatic bits of movie dialogue.

“It got to be a running gag because we thought that he was just acting,” said Todd Antony Bello, 29, of West Hollywood, an actor and documentary filmmaker who socialized with Minkoff several times during the last two weeks.

Bello said Minkoff told him he had shot his brother because he was a drug dealer. “He said, ‘I was always the good one in the family,’ ” Bello recalled.

On Saturday, police converged on a North Hollywood apartment where Minkoff had been staying. The officers arrested Minkoff, 18, on a warrant charging him with the murder of his brother Michael, 20.

“All week he’s been telling me this, and now I find out it’s true,” Bello said. “I’m in shock.”

Bello and others connected with the Magnolia Playhouse in North Hollywood said they did not tie Minkoff to the recent killing because he called himself Johnny Boy, a nickname that came from the character played by Robert De Niro in the movie “Mean Streets.”

He told his friends his true name was Martin Fallon, whom the actors later learned was a character in the film “A Prayer for the Dying,” starring another of the teen-ager’s idols, Mickey Rourke.

Lisa Bergstrom, a Cal State Northridge student who is friendly with some of the actors, said she and her father finally realized that Johnny Boy was Minkoff after they saw his photograph in a newspaper article about the Agoura Hills slaying. She said her father told sheriff’s investigators where the youth was staying, leading to his arrest.

“He kept telling everybody he had killed his brother for two weeks, and nobody believed him,” said Bergstrom, a North Hollywood resident.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators said they do not believe the actors knew they were sheltering a fugitive. “He had been at that apartment and hanging out with those people since New Year’s Eve,” said Sheriff’s Investigator Bill Gaynor. “I don’t have any belief that these people harbored him. They didn’t know who he was. We were contacted once they put two and two together.”

The teen-ager told the actors he was having problems with his family and needed a place to stay temporarily.

Last week, Minkoff brought a nickel-plated revolver to a comedy play rehearsal at the Magnolia Playhouse in North Hollywood, the actors said. He loaned it to them for a skit involving an armed gangster.

Steve Oakley, artistic director at the playhouse, said he examined the weapon to make sure it was not loaded. Although it was used during one rehearsal, Oakley said, he asked the actors to resume using a prop revolver after that night.

“I saw a gun that I didn’t want to have around the theater,” Oakley said. “That was basically a Dirty Harry type of gun.”

On Tuesday, Minkoff’s attorney, Dennis E. Mulcahy, asked Malibu Municipal Judge Lawrence J. Mira to set bail at $100,000 to allow the teen-ager’s release to the custody of his parents, Barbara and David Minkoff, who were in the courtroom.

“As the court can see, Bradley has no prior offenses,” Mulcahy said. “There doesn’t appear to be a history of violence on Bradley’s part. They’d like to have their son home.

“I don’t think there’s anything to indicate anyone else would be in danger.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Loni Petersen challenged the bail motion, pointing out that Minkoff hid from authorities for two weeks after the shooting. She added, “The defendant has a preoccupation with death.”

Muir set bail at $1.5 million, describing it as “a reasonable bail under the circumstances.”

Mulcahy and Minkoff’s parents declined to comment on the case after the hearing.

Sheriff’s reports released Tuesday stated that deputies heard a gunshot and a crashing sound during a 911 call that originated from the Minkoffs’ Dargan Street home at 11:22 a.m. on Dec. 31. The deputies who responded found Michael Minkoff, a Moorpark College engineering student, face down on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood, with the telephone receiver near his left hand. He was pronounced dead at the scene, with gunshot wounds to the head and upper chest.

A neighbor told deputies she had seen Bradley Minkoff drive away from the home that morning in the family’s blue Volvo. A friend of the victim told deputies the brothers had quarreled the previous night.

Barbara and David Minkoff were vacationing in Cancun, Mexico, when the shooting occurred.

Times staff writer Michael Connelly contributed to this story.