Charges Hinge on Dubious Testimony, Defense Lawyer Says

Prosecutors are so determined to convict Justin Merriman of murdering a Santa Monica City College student that they have built their case around a liar who could be the real killer, Merriman’s attorney told jurors Friday.

Willard Wiksell said in opening arguments in Merriman’s trial that there is no physical evidence--no body, no weapon--to prove his client slit the throat of 20-year-old Katrina Montgomery in 1992.

Instead, he said, prosecutors are relying on the testimony of a young skinhead gang member, Larry Nicassio, who says he saw Merriman do it.

Wiksell said Nicassio may have wielded the knife himself. And, the attorney said, Nicassio’s testimony should be disregarded because it was obtained through plea agreements.

“This is a case based solely on bought-and-paid-for testimony,” Wiksell told the jury. “The word was out, ladies and gentlemen, that if you dropped Justin Merriman’s name, you got a deal.”

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Merriman, 28, an alleged white supremacist who was indicted two years ago on charges of raping and murdering Montgomery at his mother’s Ventura condo.

Merriman also is accused of raping two other women, in 1994 and 1995, and assaulting police officers during a SWAT team standoff in 1998. He further faces conspiracy charges for allegedly asking fellow white-power gang members to kill witnesses in his murder case.

His trial began this week in Ventura County Superior Court. In contrast to Deputy Dist. Atty. Ron Bamieh’s daylong opening remarks Thursday, Wiksell offered a 10-minute opening statement Friday.

He told jurors that many of the facts in the case will not be disputed by the defense, starting with Montgomery’s disappearance.

Prosecutors believe Montgomery dropped by a friend’s party in Oxnard on Nov. 27, 1992, and was killed early the next morning. Her blood-stained truck was found abandoned near Little Tujunga Road in the Angeles National Forest. Her body has never been found.

For five years, the investigation into Montgomery’s disappearance stalled because witnesses, namely skinhead gang members, refused to cooperate with police.

In late 1997, prosecutors convened an investigative grand jury. They suspected Merriman, Nicassio and Ryan Bush of Castaic were involved because they were all at the party.

Merriman was a member of a Ventura skinhead gang. Nicassio and Bush, who are cousins, were members of a group of San Fernando Valley skinheads.

Bamieh told jurors that investigators decided to lean on Nicassio first. They charged him with murder, and he agreed to tell prosecutors what happened if they would reduce the charge.

Nicassio told them he and Bush spent the night at Merriman’s condominium after the party. They were in the defendant’s bedroom when Montgomery came over a short while later to spend the night.

While he and Bush pretended to be asleep on the floor, Nicassio said, Merriman raped Montgomery. When she got up, Merriman stabbed her in the neck with a knife, beat her over the head with a wrench and slit her throat, Nicassio said, to prevent her from reporting the rape.

He told authorities that Merriman then forced the cousins to get rid of the body and murder weapons. Nicassio said they buried Montgomery in a rural area near Sylmar and threw the knife and wrench in a trash bin.

Wiksell told the jury there is more to the story, however.

He said the evidence will show Nicassio assaulted Montgomery at the party, holding her up to a wall and choking her, because he was upset that she was not attracted to him.

“In the end, you must decide this case, and it is not a piece of cake,” Wiksell said. “It is a difficult case, and it is a sad case. The question remains, is Mr. Merriman a fall guy for this, or is he responsible?”

The trial is scheduled to resume Monday.