A former Los Angeles policeman and 10 other people have been indicted on federal racketeering charges in connection with a sophisticated murder-for-hire syndicate, the FBI announced Friday.
The 11-count indictment returned Thursday charged the 11 with violations of federal racketeering statutes, interstate transportation of stolen property, conspiracy, aiding and abetting, wire fraud and distribution of narcotics.Authorities said former Los Angeles police officer Steven Homick controlled a criminal enterprise that committed contract murders, arson, fraud and narcotics violations between June 1984 and March 1986. The syndicate allegedly killed four Southern Nevadans and two Southern Californians for profit.
The indictment said Homick was the leader of the ring along with his brothers, Robert and William, and a fourth man, Michael Dominguez. Dominguez was not named in the indictment.
The 11 were charged with conspiring to commit the June 1985 murder of Raymond Godfrey of Las Vegas, the Sept. 25, 1985, murders of Vera and Gerald Woodman in Bel Air, Calif., and the Dec. 11, 1985, murders in Las Vegas of socialite Bobbie Jean Tipton, her maid and a deliveryman.
Besides the six homicides, the indictment also charged ring members with an April 1985 arson in Maui, Hawaii, various narcotics violations in 1984 and 1985 and wire fraud in which attempts were allegedly made to steal evidence from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
FBI spokesman Tom Nicodemus called it a major racketeering case that involved more than three years of investigation by four law enforcement agencies.
Homick, 48, was currently in custody in the Clark County Detention Center awaiting trial next month for the murders of Tipton; her maid, Marie Bullock,and deliveryman James Myers.
His brother, William Homick, 44, is sought by police. Robert Homick, 38, was in custody in Los Angeles awaiting trial in the Woodman killings.
Also indicted were Steven Homick's, wife, Dolores, 49; his sister, Nadine, 39; Anthony Joseph Majoy, 59; Laurence Ettinger, 64; Charles George Dietz, 55; Louis Anthony Cordileone, 51; Stewart Stephen Woodman and Neil Woodman.
Tipton, her maid and the deliverymen were killed by intruders who broke into Tipton's home in an exclusive Paradise Valley neighborhood and stole more than $1 million in jewelry. If convicted of the murders, Steven Homick faced a possible death penalty.
The Woodmans were murdered in a contract killing police said was planned by their two sons to collect $500,000 in life insurance.
Godfrey, an elderly neighbor of Bobbie Jean Tipton, was killed and his house ransacked. Before the return of this indictment, the Godfrey killing had been on the police books as an unsolved murder.