Defendant Bragged of ’89 Slaying, Jurors Told : Crime: Ronald Boscaino and brother Vincent face the death penalty if convicted of killing a North Hills man.

VAN NUYS —  Ronald Boscaino bragged to friends about abducting, robbing and killing a North Hills man, saying the crime “doesn’t matter because I’m going to hell anyway,” prosecutors told jurors Wednesday.

Boscaino and his brother, Vincent, face the death penalty if convicted of the 1989 slaying of Sheldon Oppenheim in his apartment.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan D. Chasworth accused the brothers of committing “a senseless, rather cold-blooded, execution-style murder” when they tried to strangle Oppenheim, then beat him, and finally pumped one round from a stolen handgun into the back of his head.

In contrast, the Boscainos’ lawyers said the entire case is based solely on the statements of Troy Simons, an accomplice who admitted his role in Oppenheim’s killing but who was allowed to plead guilty to a simple robbery charge and will be released from custody once he testifies.

Suspected of being the man who actually shot Oppenheim, Ronald Boscaino, 32, faces 13 charges, including the kidnaping of two other people during a two-week crime spree in the fall of 1989. His brother Vincent, 27, faces nine felony counts.

Chasworth said the brothers drove from Tennessee to California with two friends at the end of August, 1989, renting a room in a Studio City motel. Oppenheim was abducted during the early morning hours of Sept. 24, 1989, as he left a bar next door, the prosecutor said.

The four forced Oppenheim to withdraw $300 from an automated teller machine, she said, and drove the victim to his residence, where “they tied him up with duct tape and laid him face down on the floor of his living room.”

After ransacking the apartment and loading the loot into Oppenheim’s own car, the Boscainos, Simons and another man known only as “Kevin” then decided they had to kill the only witness to the crime, according to Chasworth.

After trying to strangle Oppenheim, they beat him on the head with his own tennis rackets, she said. An autopsy, according to Chasworth, revealed these blows “would likely have caused his death.”

But to make sure he was dead, Ronald Boscaino placed a .25-caliber handgun to the back of Oppenheim’s head and fired one bullet while “holding a pillow over the gun in order to muffle it,” the prosecutor said.

In addition to Oppenheim’s slaying, the Boscainos are charged with burglarizing a Sherman Oaks home and stealing a gun that was used in Oppenheim’s killing the next day. Both men are also charged with abducting Kenneth Fromberg in Woodland Hills on Oct. 8 and forcing him to drive them to Las Vegas, where they pushed him out of his car along Interstate 15.

Ronald Boscaino is also charged with the Oct. 4 kidnaping of Tory Christopher, who was abducted in the parking lot of the same bar where Oppenheim was kidnaped. Chasworth said Boscaino later put a handgun into Christopher’s mouth and pulled the trigger, but he could not figure out how to release the safety catch on the gun. Christopher was able to escape.

The Boscainos and Simons were arrested about six months after the slaying. Authorities were led to the brothers after “they actually laughed and bragged about what they did,” and two men reported the statements to police, Chasworth said.

“Troy Simons lied to avoid the gas chamber,” said Robert Fefferman, the attorney representing Ronald Boscaino. “That’s why Ronald Boscaino had the finger pointed at him.”

Chasworth called Simons a criminal and a murderer, but she said his statements are corroborated by physical evidence.