Warrant Charges Deputy, ‘Cotton Club’ Defendant

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy was arrested Thursday for allegedly joining his cousin, an accused hit man in the “Cotton Club” murder case, in the 1986 armed robbery of a prominent Miami attorney.

The two men allegedly stole a Ferrari and a Rolex watch from attorney Frank Rubino after intimidating him into signing over half-interest in a sportfishing boat business to another defendant in the murder case, authorities said.

Deputy George Thomas Markel, 38, was arrested at 7:30 a.m. at his home in Rowland Heights on a Miami felony warrant charging him with false imprisonment, armed robbery and burglary, a sheriff’s spokesman said.

Also named in the warrant is Markel’s cousin, William Molony Mentzer, 39, a former bodyguard for Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt. Mentzer is one of three defendants in an ongoing preliminary hearing in Los Angeles Municipal Court stemming from the 1983 murder of theatrical producer Roy Radin.

Sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Sam Jones said that Markel, an 11-year veteran of the department, “is not a suspect” in the shooting death of Radin, who had been involved in an ill-fated attempt to finance the film “Cotton Club.”

Florida authorities allege that Markel helped his cousin strong-arm Rubino in July, 1986, at the behest of Karen DeLayne (Lanie) Greenberger, 42, another defendant in the “Cotton Club” case. She is a reputed cocaine trafficker who once retained Rubino.

According to a sheriff’s statement, Rubino told investigators that Greenberger and her late husband brought Mentzer and Markel to a business meeting “to intimidate him into signing over half of a partnership” in the sportfishing boat business. Immediately afterward, the two men took Rubino’s watch and sports car, the statement said.

Afraid to Report It

Rubino did not report the robbery to police at the time because “he was afraid,” Jones said.

Rubino is a well-known criminal defense attorney in Miami and represented Gen. Manuel A. Noriega when drug charges were filed against the Panamanian ruler in the United States.

The attorney’s Rolex was recovered last October during Mentzer’s arrest in the Radin murder case. He and two other Flynt bodyguards were charged with killing the producer on Greenberger’s orders, then dumping his body in a remote canyon near Gorman.

According to the statement, sheriff’s detectives were later tipped that Mentzer had sold Rubino’s Ferrari in Los Angeles in January, 1987.

The detectives then teamed up with Miami police and met Feb. 22 with “a frightened Rubino,” who “advised them of the circumstances surrounding the incident,” Jones said. Rubino identified a photo of Markel as one of the gunmen and travel records verified that the deputy had been in Miami at the time of the robbery.

Markel, who worked as a sheriff’s patrol officer in Temple City, was reassigned earlier this year to a desk job at the sheriff’s academy in Whittier pending an investigation of “allegations of other departmental misconduct,” Jones said. He would not disclose the departmental charges, but said they are not related to the Miami incident.

Markel was being held without bail Thursday in county jail, pending an expected extradition hearing in Municipal Court today. Mentzer has been in county jail without bail since his arrest.