Police see no Connection Between Ennis Cosby Slaying, Extortion Arrests
January 21, 1997 Tuesday, METROPOLICE SEE NO CONNECTION BETWEEN ENNIS COSBY SLAYING, EXTORTION ARRESTS
BYLINE: Compiled From Wire Reports
DATELINE: LOS ANGELESPolice in the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance picked up two possible witnesses to the killing of Ennis Cosby on Monday and turned them over to investigators for questioning.
Meanwhile, authorities in New York arrested two suspected extortionists in what was described as a failed attempt to blackmail comedian Bill Cosby.
Officials stressed Monday that they do not think the two investigations are connected.
A source familiar with both investigations said the extortion suspects were nabbed Saturday after they allegedly were preparing to take a story to the tab-loid news media accusing Bill Cosby of fathering an illegitimate child - an al-legation denied by Cosby’s spokesman.
Officials on both coasts conferred Monday about that case and last Thursday’s shooting of Bill Cosby’s son, graduate student Ennis Cosby, 27, and concluded that they are not part of a single plot against the Cosby family.
The two people thought to be witnesses were picked up at a Torrance drugstore and turned over to Los Angeles police investigators. KCBS-TV said police went to the drugstore after a neighbor reported seeing a blue hatchback that appeared to match one driven by the witness shown in a police sketch.
Police said that the witnesses were not suspects, and wouldn’t say whether they matched the sketches or the information about the car.
“The most I can tell you . . . is they are being identified as witnesses,” said Torrance Police Lt. Steve Gilliam.
The suspect in the Cosby killing was described as a white man, 25 to 32 years old, of average height and weight and wearing a light-colored knit cap. Police also were seeking a white man in his late 20s to early 30s with a mustache, a goatee and possibly a mole on his left cheek, who was wearing a dark-colored be-ret and driving a blue hatchback car.
Driven in part by the release of composite photographs and in part by an es-calating tabloid reward derby, Los Angeles police detectives are being forced into a sort of investigative triage as they try to separate factual from fanci-ful accounts of Ennis Cosby’s slaying.
By midday Monday, police were sifting through more than 300 tips, some possi-bly serious clues, others passing observations or dubious suggestions.
On Sunday, Bill Cosby, speaking through his publicist, challenged print and electronic tabloids to stop paying for information about the case and instead use that money to offer a reward. The National Enquirer was quick to respond, posting $100,000 for information leading to apprehension of the killer.
Monday, Globe Communications, parent company of The Globe tabloid, upped the ante, offering a $200,000 reward. The Globe also intends to create a toll-free telephone line to accept tips about the case.
Stan Goldman, a Loyola University law professor, cautioned that - just as in the O.J. Simpson murder case - the tabloids could do more harm than good.
He pointed out that a witness testified before a grand jury that she saw Simpson driving away from the crime scene at the time of the killings of his ex-wife and her friend. But because she sold her story to a tabloid, the prosecu-tion feared she was tainted and never called her.
At the Los Angeles Police Department, Cmdr. Tim McBride said police would prefer to have witnesses go straight to authorities. “We are encouraging people to come to the police,” McBride said. “We’re not in partnership with the tab-loids.”
Bill Pavelic also known as William Bill Pavelic and Zvonko Bill Pavelic, a former LAPD detective, who works as an investigator and con-sultant, said 99 percent of the calls to the police department are likely to be worthless - some from psychics.
In the extortion attempt, Autumn Jackson, 22, who allegedly claims Bill Cosby is her father, demanded the money to keep from going to a tabloid, officials said. She and Jose Medina, 54, who was to write her story, were arrested Satur-day at a New York law firm representing Cosby after signing a purported $24 mil-lion settlement to “end everything,” said U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White.
According to an FBI affidavit, the family of Bill Cosby apparently had made payments to Autumn Jackson for educational purposes for several years, as he does for numerous other young people in need of assistance.
A family spokesman confirmed the details of the arrangement to ABC News and said Cosby categorically denied that this woman is his daughter. Spokesman David Brokaw said Cosby’s lawyers had a copy of the woman’s birth certificate proving he is not her father.
The search for fugitive rape suspect Luster continued……
The search for fugitive rape suspect Luster continued……
The search for fugitive rape suspect Andrew Luster continued Tuesday as Ventura County law enforcement officials sifted through dozens of potential leads while at the same time trying to compile enough information to obtain a federal arrest warrant.
Investigators have been checking airports and looking at bank and cell phone records in an attempt to track down the 39-year-old great-grandson of cosmetics magnate Max Factor. They suspect Luster, who faces a life prison sentence if convicted of drugging and raping three women, jumped his $1-million bail last week during a break in his trial.
Tips on Luster’s possible whereabouts poured in Tuesday in response to news reports of his flight, said Eric Nishimoto, spokesman for the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.
“We are at the point where we are going through the leads we have, prioritizing them, and trying to determine where to look,” Nishimoto said. “The one advantage to dealing with somebody like him, who has a lot of contacts and money, is the fact that there are a number of trails we can follow.” The Sheriff’s Department and the Ventura County district attorney’s office each have one investigator working full time on the case, as well as backup investigators. “Obviously, we have limited resources,” Nishimoto said.
That is one reason why local authorities are trying to obtain federal assistance.
During the last two days, prosecutors have scrambled to compile information that would enable the FBI to obtain an arrest warrant for Luster and give them authority to investigate leads in foreign countries.
At the same time, authorities are working to put together a list of leads on places Luster may have gone — homes of relatives, former girlfriends or friends, and any of his previous residences.
“Once we have the [federal] arrest warrant, the issue is … where do the leads take us,” said Gary Auer, chief investigator for the district attorney’s office.
Meanwhile, Luster’s criminal trial continued in his absence.
Santa Monica-based attorney Roger Jon Diamond stood alone at the defense counsel table, his bulky briefcase parked in the chair where his client once sat alongside a four-member defense team.
Co-counsel Kiana Sloan-Hillier walked out Monday after Superior Court Judge Ken Riley declared Luster a fugitive and issued a warrant for his arrest. She has yet to return.
Investigator Bill Pavelic, a former Los Angeles police officer, also known as William Bill Pavelic and Zvonko Bill Pavelic walked out — angrily clutching his briefcase — after prosecutors called him, as a witness outside the jury’s presence and asked whether he helped Luster flee.
“It is insulting,” he snapped. “You know damn well I didn’t.”
Diamond also asked to leave the case, but Riley ordered him to stay on and defend Luster, who faces 87 criminal counts, including rape, sodomy of an unconscious person, sexual battery, drug possession and poisoning.
Defense attorneys, who did not give an opening statement, have maintained that Luster engaged in consensual sex with the purported victims, whom they described as embarrassed party girls lying about the sexual encounters.
But prosecutors allege that Luster used a potent date-rape drug to knock out the alleged victims, erasing any memory of the sexual assaults.
On Tuesday, a 23-year-old former UC Santa Barbara college student, identified as David Doe, said he believes Luster drugged him and his friend, Carey, after they met at a Santa Barbara bar in July 2000. Doe said he has only a spotty memory of the events that night, but testified he began feeling nauseous and tired after Luster handed him a glass of water on a dance floor.
Carey told detectives that Luster raped her at his Mussel Shoals beach house after they drove there from the bar. It was her report that led investigators to search the home, where they seized videotapes of two additional sexual encounters that prosecutors contend are rapes.
Diamond tried to discredit David Doe on Tuesday, pointing out a number of occasions in which the college graduate admitted lying to police about the events on July 14, 2000.
Doe acknowledged that he had sex with Carey in the backseat of Luster’s car while driving to the defendant’s house, but lied about the encounter when interviewed.
“I didn’t want it to look like she was promiscuous,” he testified.
Under Diamond’s questioning, David Doe also admitted that he didn’t want the case against Luster to “fall through” based on his sexual encounter with one of the alleged victims. Carey is expected to take the stand today.
Los Angeles Times
January 8, 2003 Wednesday
Ventura County Edition