VAN NUYS : Ex-LAPD Officer Loses Bid for New Murder Trial

Finding that jurors had not been unfairly prejudiced against a former Los Angeles police officer when they convicted him of murder five years ago, a Van Nuys Superior Court judge Thursday denied the former officer’s bid for a new trial.

After four days of hearings in which three of the jurors who convicted Robert Von Villas were questioned, Judge Darlene E. Schempp concluded that although one of the juror’s recollections of details of the case cannot be believed, there was no misconduct that should warrant a new trial.

Von Villas and his crime partner, Richard Ford, a former police detective who served with him at the LAPD Devonshire Division, were convicted in separate trials in 1988 of the first-degree murder of Thomas Weed.

Prosecutors said the two officers were hired by the victim’s ex-wife in 1983 to commit the killing for $20,000. They were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.