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Authors: Don Lasseter

Date With the Devil (30 page)

BOOK: Date With the Devil
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Bobby Grace decided to have another try at pinning down this amazingly slippery witness. He asked, “Mr. King, so did you witness some sort of dispute between defendant Mahler and a prostitute who had come to his hotel room at the LAX Marriott?”
“Yes.”
“Were they having a dispute over money that the prostitute felt she was owed by the defendant, David Mahler?”
“Yes.”
“Did he specifically get mad at the prostitute regarding her asking for the money?”
“I think it was more the way she asked.”
“Mr. King, whose idea was it to order room service?”
“I don't know. It could have been—it could have been mine, because I think I switched ... I changed the subject. I said, ‘Man, let's get some booze,' you know, whatever, you know. ‘Let's get this party started,' and that's when we ordered up some booze.”
“Did you order it, or did Mr. Mahler order it?”
“Dave did it.”
At this point, it appeared that Bobby Grace had decided just to have some fun with King.
“Whose idea was it to offer the big tip?”
“His. He tip everybody.”
“And who ordered the prostitute?”
“He did.”
“And you observed him doing all this on the phone?”
“He was on the phone.”
Grace's brief flirtation with fun turned to making a point. “And he was functioning well enough to use a phone?”
“Yeah.”
“And as far as you know, he had driven himself to the LAX Marriott in the blue Jag?”
“Yes.”
Bobby Grace shook his head again, and said, “Thank you. Your Honor, I don't have any further questions for this witness.”
Larry Young turned down the opportunity for more cross-examination.
 
 
Most observers in the gallery were disappointed to see this man leave. Atticus King had been the most interesting and entertaining witness many of them had ever seen.
Judge Wesley called for a fifteen-minute break. In the hallway outside the entrance to his courtroom, a strange encounter took place.
C
HAPTER
34
M
ISDIRECTED
P
ROPOSITION
Insiders had been waiting eagerly to see the next witness, Michael Conoscenti. But before allowing him to be called in, Judge Wesley addressed a separate issue. David Mahler had requested the judge's intervention in a problem. Mahler wanted to be relocated to a different cell in the county jail because he had been receiving death threats from another inmate. Wesley issued a court order to have him moved to a safer location within the jail.
 
 
 
After that bit of business was settled, Bobby Grace called Michael Conoscenti to the stand. Not quite six feet tall, his short goatee helped mask a weather-beaten face, which was once handsome but now featuring deep-set eyes, slightly sunken cheeks, and the display of a missing tooth when he opened his mouth. The dyed hair looked too black for his age, fifty-six. A single, small gold loop decorated his left earlobe. Conoscenti wore baggy dark slacks and a loose-fitting, long-sleeved green shirt that revealed an indecipherable tattoo on the left side of his chest.
At Grace's request, the witness pointed out David Mahler and stated they had been acquaintances for “roughly about a few years.”
“Would that be more than two years?”
“Yeah.”
One of the prosecutor's assistants, Armine Safarian, entered the courtroom at that moment, bringing some documents for Grace. Even if her high heels clicking on the hard floor hadn't caught the attention of most men in the gallery, her exceptional beauty and figure would have. Nearly every day of the trial, she had been running errands for Grace. His assistant had recently graduated from law school and worked for the DA's office in preparation for a bright future. Among the men who stared at her was the witness Michael Conoscenti.
It would later be revealed that during the preceding break, Conoscenti had cornered Safarian in the hallway. Knowing that he would be the next witness, she maintained a courteous demeanor. He seemed somewhat flirtatious, and then he got to the point. “How would you like to be in a movie? I could arrange it.”
Of course, Safarian knew exactly who this guy was, and what type of movie he meant. Her duties in helping the prosecution included advance work with witnesses. She had spoken to Conoscenti several times by phone, and had arranged his transportation to and from the court.
Safarian smiled, maneuvered her way around him, and said she would not be interested.
 
 
Directing attention to the screen on which a picture of Kristin Baldwin's smiling face appeared, Bobby Grace asked if Michael Conoscenti had known her. “Yes,” he said. “It's Kristi.” He acknowledged meeting her sometime in 2006 and guessed they had been friends for about a year.
“At some point in time, did you introduce Kristi to the defendant, David Mahler?”
“Yes.”
“During that time frame, were you renting and using a property as a film place in Los Angeles?”
“Yes, it was in the San Fernando Valley.”
“Did you see the defendant during the last week of May 2007?”
“I did, at my house in the valley.”
“Did Mr. Mahler say anything to you about requesting your help, or if you knew anyone who could help him with a service?”
“He asked me if I knew anybody that will do a disposal job.”
“Was that on a day that you were filming?”
“Actually an evening. He came a little bit after the filming was over, and everybody was running back and forth. I didn't understand what he was talking about at first, and he wasn't being very clear about it. Every time I asked him, he just ... he seemed like he was in a daze, you know. I never had seen him in that state. I was already upset with him because of something he did.”
The gate-crashing incident to which Michael Conoscenti referred had no relevance in the trial, so Bobby Grace didn't give the witness an opportunity to explain what he was upset about. Instead, he asked, “Are you sure those were the words he used?”
“Yes, I am.”
“After that date, did you become aware that he had been detained on these proceedings?”
“Yes.”
Grace turned Conoscenti over to the defense.
In movie terms, Larry Young cut to the chase. “Did you sometimes use drugs with David Mahler?”
A shadow crossed the witness's face. He hesitated a moment and then said, “I've watched him use drugs.”
“I don't mean to embarrass you,” Young said apologetically.
“No, that's quite all right,” replied Michael Conoscenti.
“What kind of drugs did you see him do?”
“Cocaine, but mainly he consumed a lot of alcohol.”
Once again steering arrow-straight toward the destination of showing his client's possible incapacity to behave normally due to narcotics and booze, Young asked, “Have you seen him act in an unusual manner at all?”
“Yes, I've seen him irate lots of times, just out of control, completely out of control.”
This answer seemed tailor-made to observers. Some guessed that Larry Young had probably interviewed Conoscenti earlier, and knew exactly what he was likely to say. He asked, “Did he sometimes fly off the handle with no apparent reason?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he exhibit mood swings?”
“Yeah, I'd say that would be a close enough description.”
“Did his actions seem to be of an extreme nature?”
“Uh-huh.”
Usually, when witnesses use this colloquial affirmative expression, attorneys ask if they specifically mean “yes,” but Young seemed happy to accept it. He moved on. “Now, you were doing some filming at one of your residences?”
“Yes.”
“Was that when you were in the porno business?”
Michael seemed to stiffen briefly. “Uh, yes. I'm in the adult-film industry.”
Larry Young had meant no disrespect. “Well, I meant the adult—”
The witness relaxed and said, “I'm actually in the entertainment business, which covers adult and—”
Interrupting, Young inquired, “Are you an actor in the adult business, or are you a producer or director?”
With a slight smirk, Michael replied, “All of the above.”
The answer seemed to surprise Young. “Oh, you are an actor too?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What's your stage name?”
“It's Damien Michaels.”
Young's cheeks appeared to be slightly more crimson. He commented, “Maybe the young people in my office have seen you.”
Conoscenti frowned. “I'm sorry?”
Leaping from the tangential digression, Young asked, “When Mr. Mahler flew off in an unusual manner, did he direct it at any person, or was it just in general?”
“Well, it's a pretty broad question. But it was just ... depending on the situation, he directed his anger at certain people, including myself.”
“Have you seen that happen more than once?”
“Yes, many times.”
“Was it in connection with the drugs he was doing, or was it without drugs, if you know?”
“Actually, I don't think ... I mean, I'm sure drugs had something to do with it, but think it was ... I've seen him act like that with drugs or without drugs.”
Grateful for the witness's help in tilting the scales toward his theory, Young said he had no further questions.
Bobby Grace wanted to rebalance the tilt. “Mr. Conoscenti, the times that you saw Mr. Mahler mad, was he mad because of a specific reason?”
“I mean, you know, he was always like that with mood swings. It would be a specific reason or a reason he thought was important enough for him to get upset about. A lot of times, it wasn't.”
“So, would he get mad in a business context?”
“Yeah.”
“In those two years you knew him, did you see him use drugs during that entire period?”
“Yes.” The answer might have been interpreted by jurors as confirmation of consistent erratic behavior for a long period of time. But Grace pulled an ace from his sleeve.
“And was he still conducting business, whatever business he was involved in, during that entire time?”
“Yes. Well, he said he did, but yes.”
The implication was clear to spectators. If David Mahler had been using drugs for two years, and still carried out successful and profitable business transactions, his behavior could not have been as destructive as the defense wanted to portray.
Larry Young leaped up to repair the damage. “Did you ever see him associate with a girl named Cheryl?” The witness said he had. “Were you aware that at some point, they broke up their association?”
Michael said, “You know, she tried to do that quite often.”
“Did you notice whether or not he used more drugs after that relationship ended?”
“I couldn't say for sure, you know. I know he was just using drugs on a constant basis. I don't know if it was a little more or a little less. I wasn't constantly with him. I'm sorry.”
Perhaps disappointed, Young could only ask what kinds of drugs he had observed Mahler using. The witness repeated that he had seen cocaine, but mostly alcohol and “some kind of pills.”
“Do you know whether or not he was doing methamphetamine also?”
“I mean, I've seen him doing it. I don't know if it was his main drug. Like I said, the cocaine was constant, and the alcohol was constant.”
“Thank you,” said Larry Young, with possibly feigned enthusiasm. Good lawyers know never to let the jury see them disappointed.
Neither attorney had any more questions for the witness. Judge Wesley excused him.
 
 
When Michael Conoscenti walked out of the courthouse on that warm afternoon of September 1, with smoke still soiling the sky from rampaging fires in hills, he had no idea that he would be dead within two months. On Tuesday, October 27, 2009, someone stabbed him to death in a motel on Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills. Investigators speculated that it had resulted from a drug deal gone bad. No one had been arrested for the murder as of August 2011.
 
 
The trial resumed on the following day, Wednesday, September 2, but not until one forty-five in the afternoon. Other matters had occupied the judge and lawyers all morning.
The first order of business involved a discussion between Judge David Wesley, Bobby Grace, and Larry Young, with the jury in their conference room. Wesley asked Grace if he still planned to pursue a verdict of first- or second-degree murder. The prosecutor affirmed those goals. Young stated that the evidence would certainly support nothing more than manslaughter, probably involuntary.
BOOK: Date With the Devil
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