A video refresher on Joe’s case and an update on his health and how you can help.
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Help bring more attention to Joe’s case for compassionate release. Hunt’s petition points to health issues, numerous trial irregularities, and new youth offender laws.
“So, how did y’all go from this, talking about this as a clemency case, to saying he was an ‘innocent man’ in your petition?”
January 23, 2024 By Joe Hunt
The Shift from Clemency to Proclaiming Innocence
It’s a good question. Nothing about the judicial review of prisoner petitions is simple. Essentially, you’re asking why the Courts haven’t granted me relief. The assumption inherent in this line of thinking is that the government and the courts are efficient, reliable, and just, and place primary emphasis on following their own rules.
Challenging the Judicial Process: Imperfections and Assumptions
Let’s analyze that general proposition. Everyone knows droves of people are wrongfully convicted. The examples of people exonerated after one, two, three, or even four decades in prison are numerous. We must conclude that the trial-level judicial process is imperfect, despite the advertised “proof” found beyond a reasonable doubt.
So why would we assume the Appellate process is perfect? On appeal, all presumptions favor the state, and a host of procedural and substantive rules limit relief. It’s more likely that Appellate decisions are flawed than the underlying verdicts.
Appellate Hurdles: A Closer Look at My Case
Before 1987, and the referendum on California Supreme Court justices Reynoso, Grodin, and Bird, the reversal rate in California for serious cases was about 12%. A similar percentage of state prisoners gained habeas relief in Federal Court. After the passage of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act following the Oklahoma City bombing, the combined federal/California reversal rate for serious cases dropped to about 1%.
This drastic reduction, 96%, in Appellate relief for prisoners can’t be explained by a dramatic improvement in the fairness and constitutional rigor of criminal trials. It reflected an abandonment of the safeguards and constitutional fidelity that swept the judiciary in the 1960s through the 1980s. Trials are worse now than in the 1980s because prosecutors and judges know there is a negligible risk of reversal, no matter what they do.
Advocate for justice in light of Joe Hunt’s unfair legal treatment by supporting his bid for a fair parole review. His commendable behavior and positive contributions highlight his rehabilitation. Sign the petition to endorse a balanced review of his case, emphasizing the need for justice and fairness in our legal system.
New Evidence and Its Impact on the Case
In my case, I had indisputable proof that exonerating evidence developed after my conviction would bring about a different result if I were retried. I had the result of my co-defendant’s second trial and declarations from jurors exposed to the new evidence several years after my conviction.
As for my co-defendant, Jim Pittman, he was almost convicted in 1986, with an 11-1 guilty vote. Retried in 1988, a year after I was convicted, Jim, under the State’s theory, was the actual shooter. In his 1988 trial, Jim had the benefit of just one of several witnesses, Nadia Ghaleb, who came forward after my conviction to say they knew Ron Levin and had seen him after his alleged murder in June 1984. In that trial, with the new evidence as the only distinction, the vote was 10-2 for acquittal. The case for murder against Pittman was then dismissed.
Regarding the declarations from jurors at a trial held a few years after my conviction, these jurors heard from all the major witnesses called against me in 1987, and they also heard from 41 additional defense witnesses in the Levin case. In their sworn declarations, these jurors stated the new and exonerating evidence was both credible and persuasive. They asserted that if it had been up to them, they would have voted to acquit me in the Levin case. Those declarations are available on this website and explain how they were exposed to the evidence developed after my 1987 conviction.
I repeatedly presented those juror declarations upon appeal, pointing to the implications of the differing result in the two mistrials of my co-defendant, Jim.
Navigating the Appellate Maze: Evidence and Obstacles
However, the state and federal courts chose to ignore that evidence. As for the juror declarations, they refused to consider them, citing an obscure rule that states the thoughts and beliefs of jurors are inadmissible in any effort to overturn a verdict rendered by those jurors. I responded by pointing out that I wasn’t attempting to use the thoughts or mental processes of the jurors who convicted me to impeach their verdict. Rather, I was offering the conclusions and opinions of jurors from a different trial who were exposed to witnesses located after conviction to show that the new evidence was credible and persuasive.
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So, after refusing to consider the incontrovertible proof that actual jurors would find the new witnesses exonerating, the Appellate courts opined that my conviction should stand as I had no credible proof that a different result at retrial was likely or even possible.
There it is in a nutshell. All Appellate papers are available through this website; see for yourself.
Help bring more attention to Joe’s case for compassionate release. Hunt’s petition points to health issues, numerous trial irregularities, and new youth offender laws.
🌟 Join the Conversation: Ask Joe Series
Do you have questions about Joe Hunt’s case or want insights on the justice system? Be a part of our ongoing “Ask Joe” series. This is your chance to engage directly with Joe and delve deeper into his story and experiences. Post your questions on our Facebook page or X.com, and stay tuned as Joe addresses your queries in upcoming segments. Your question could be the next one we explore in our journey for justice and understanding.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to interact and gain perspective straight from Joe. Ask away, and let’s unravel the complexities together!
The following FBI documents describe how Ron Levin (alias Ronald Rothchild, alias Ronald Levine, alias Sam Goldberg, alias Ronald Weatherby) got out from under FBI charges of bank larceny for passing $250,000 in fake checks: by disappearing.
When the Beverly Hills Police department decided that Joe Hunt was the suspect, with no body and only circumstantial evidence, the letter says, “no further investigation will be conducted.”
When investigators began connecting the dots and began looking into Levin’s criminal history, they compiled a list that was “just a sample” of what police had on file under his name: grand theft, battery, stolen property, a stolen vehicle, harassment, robbery (indicated as “211”), burglary, and an alleged drug act involving a minor.
When investigators went to Levin’s listed place of employment, they found that the address was a fake: nothing more than a mailbox in an office building.
In an FBI interview with a corporate security administrator for Fidelity Group, investigators learned that Ron Levin deposited bad checks into two accounts and immediately attempted to withdraw the funds. Following Levin’s suspicious activities, Fidelity hired an investigator, who learned that Levin had an extensive criminal history and had over 100 civil court filings against him, and had associates in organized crime.
In an interview in which Joe Hunt discussed the infamous “to do” list that was part of his trial, Joe mentioned the multitude of lawsuits Levin faced, and how they left the unrepentant con man unfazed.
“The idea of civilly suing him — it’s just like, get in line,” Joe said. Levin had boasted to Boys Club members that he was an expert at converting criminal fraud into a civil matter to avoid arrest, so legal action simply didn’t seem like a meaningful option.
Joe explained that the list was written out not as a literal plan of action, but part of a desperate ploy to intimidate Levin into paying back funds he had swindled from Joe and Joe’s investors.
Levin tried to pull a similar bank fraud with Progressive Savings and Loan, as detailed in the following letters to the U.S. Attorney:
Further FBI investigation revealed that Levin also heisted a drawing by Andy Warhol from an art gallery, and then offered his “services” to the gallery to help recover it.
Then there was Levin’s theft of $500,000 (in 1980s dollars!) worth of video and photographic equipment, detailed in this story from the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner that called Levin’s loot a “One-man video warehouse.”
The story illustrates that Levin’s criminal history ran the gamut from sophisticated cons to common thievery.
Joe Hunt discusses how if had he been released, he and his wife would have hoped for children.
Transcript:
Well, we would’ve wanted to have children, we’ve discussed that. But unfortunately, that ship has sailed.
I mean, she’s four years younger than I, and so, we’re both passed that really. I mean, theoretically possible, potentially, but it’s ill-advised at our ages.
But we even had a name for our daughter, should we have one.
When we first met and shortly before we married we were talking about it. I had some hope at that time that I’d be released by action of the courts, so we had a name for our little girl in mind.
So, that’s a point of sadness and regret for me, and her as well.
Joe Hunt discusses the sixteen people he helped avoid a life sentence and the dozens that received sentence reductions.
Transcription:
Well yes, I’ve been working, I’ve done habeas petitions and I’ve litigated on behalf of other prisoners.
I’ve also been trying to have them freed, to vacate their conviction, and so, over the years I’ve filed dozens and dozens of—probably close to something like 150—petitions on separate cases.
And I’ve also helped prisoners when I was in the county jail in San Mateo for four years, and I was in Los Angeles County Jail for almost five years total.
I helped other prisoners that were pro per, acting as a mentor to develop the theory of the case, investigate their case, and understand the rules, evidence, and to prosecute their sentence theory.
Anyhow, in total, the sixteen people that I’ve helped either avoided a life sentence because they were acquitted or were released by the courts.
In addition, there were dozens of cases of sentencing reduction.
Joe talks about what he thinks happened to Ron Levin. It’s likely that Levin jumped bail, especially in light of witness accounts that Levin was researching Brazilian extradition treaties and had inquired about dyeing his hair.
Transcript:
I have thought about this a great deal over the years and tried to extrapolate what he would do or did in that situation so you know, his actual fate as a matter of personal knowledge is a mystery to me because my last point of contact with him was June 5th.
So far as I can reconstruct and recall, what I have seen of course is the same eyewitness accounts that my jury in San Mateo heard, about people in some cases had prior relationships with Ron, had been over to his house, as Gerard had been for dinner, or had contact with him like Robbie Robinson and had seen him subsequently.
So those eyewitness reports, and some of them were asked to take polygraphs, and the ones who were asked took polygraphs passed them with flying colors. And so those reports have been persuasive to me of the fact that Ron Levin was alive through the last sighting, which was three years after his disappearance in Mykonos, the island of Mykonos in Greece.
I’ve also, since I’ve worked so hard on this case, I’ve seen the testimony and read interviews of people like Oliver Wendell Holmes (no relationship to the great jurist), but he was employed by Levin to work on Levin’s pending criminal cases. The charges Levin was facing before he disappeared and he said that Levin was discussing with him and researching Brazil’s extradition treaties and policies, which I find highly suspicious.
How many people are doing that right before they jump bail?
You know and then furthermore, John Duran, his hairdresser at the time said that Levin called him right before he disappeared and asked him how do I dye my hair. And then detective Les Douler tells us that brown stains that he tested and were not from blood but there was some brown staining in the porcelain of Levin’s bathtub which would be consistent with some last minute change to his hair color.
Now when he was seen late in ’86 and ’87, he had his gray hair, so the postulate and the hypothesis is that Levin initially decided to change his hair but didn’t like it and letting it grow back out grey by when he was seen in Tucson Arizona and when he was seen on the island of Mykonos.
Levin’s grey hair was one of his most striking features people say that he was kind of a he had a very distinctive look back in ’84, in ’83 in Beverly Hills. He graced the cover of a magazine once.
Anyhow, so based on the information evidence that I’ve seen and also based on statements of Levin made in my presence where he said that he would never go back to prison. I deduced a long time ago that he fled and when he was no longer available after June 6, 1984 and I couldn’t get a hold of him and I heard other people couldn’t get a hold of him, and by June 24th I had concluded that he had fled.
He had a pending case so he couldn’t just up and leave without violating the terms of his bail and he wouldn’t just violate the terms of his bail unless he intentionally fled so that was the conclusion I reached and I think it’s the conclusion the Beverly Hills Department reached for the first couple of months as well.
Joe describes how the bleakness of prison life can lead to thoughts of suicide.
Transcript:
Yes, I’ve been on yards that were so dark, I mean what we’re talking about is referred to in the prison system as active mainlines—like active level 4 mainlines in the California system.
An extremely dysfunctional society exists—as tribal—and the men are under tremendous pressure, and it’s bleak.
So, a lot of people commit suicide.
They don’t do it necessarily by hanging themselves, most often it’s a drug overdose. And a number of people that are brought back from overdoses now is really high because they have a special drug that they use to bring them back.
Otherwise, most of these people would have been successful. But you know, the level of despondency, despair, depression, as a result of the conditions of confinement, on active main lines is high.
And what was called the SHU, Special Housing Unit, for a number of years had guys that were doing 20-30 years behind walls, with no outside exercise other than what we call a dog run, which is just like a 10×10 cement area opened to the sky.
They get an hour of that or something a day, so in that level of misery, suicide becomes something that many people think about, a lot of people attempt, and of course, tragically some people succeed at.
That is probably the most primary and basic offense against the spirit—against the human spirit—possible.
Joe Hunt describes an uncanny experience involving law enforcement, donuts, and his spiritual beliefs.
Transcript:
It was 1987, I was in the Los Angeles County Jail in what they call the high power wing. So with me are people that have had fights and serious disciplinary problems in L.A. County Jail, people that are down from the penitentiary that are considered potential threats to the security of the institution, and high profile cases like myself.
So I got my own cell along this tier, and I’d just finished reading the Autobiography of a Yogi, which is considered the crest jewel of all spiritual autobiographies by many people—and I think the most read autobiography of all time. Anyhow, I’ve just finished the book, and the book is full of stories of things that are beyond all of our experiences. I mean levitating things, the power of prayer, various manifestations of spiritual beings and entities.
I’ve finished reading the book, I’m lying down on my bunk, the book’s on my chest, and I’m thinking, nothing in my life is in any way…I’ve had no experiences on that level at all. However, I was also thinking that the tone of the author—the way the book was written—I couldn’t imagine that the guy would make it up. The author seemed so sincere, had a great style, was witty, knowledgeable… I couldn’t… it just didn’t make any sense that it was a fabricated story. So, I’m thinking those things and my thoughts conclude with, “But I couldn’t pray for a bag of donuts and get them.”
And just at that moment, I heard a key turn in the lock at the end of the corridor, to which the cells of high power are opened. Anyhow I heard this key turn, I heard some boots coming, and I looked up—and there stopping in front of my cell was a deputy sheriff of the Los Angeles County Jail system. And he looked at me, and I didn’t know this guy, mind you, I had no interaction with him. He said—and he was holding a bag of donuts—and he looks at me and he says, “Hi, would you like some donuts?”
It was kind of an uncanny experience, and I’m not saying that I started believing or having any faith in prayer at that time, because I didn’t, but it put me back on my heels so to speak and made me think a bit. I started meditating as a result of an invitation in the autobiography, and I’ve been doing so ever since for 30 years.
Joe Hunt talks more about the Claim of Right Defense.
Transcript:
So if the jury had been properly instructed, and had received the law on the Claim of Right Defense, based upon the prosecution’s own theory of the case, they would have had to acquit me of robbery.
If I had been acquitted of robbery, and the special circumstance of robbery, I would not now be doing life without.
I would have received at most a sentence of 25 to life, and I would have been parole eligible like 20 years ago.
So, you know, this is a sort of issue, which because of legal procedural rules, the place to raise it is at trial and certain waiver and negligence documents take hold after you have been convicted. I didn’t learn of this legal theory until 1988 when I read a case called People v. Tufunga, which was a California Supreme Court decision on the Claim of Right Defense in the case of Mr. Tufunga.
Joe Hunt describes the deceit, pretense and posturing rampant through BBC, and the prevalence of flaws in the judicial system.
Transcript:
There are cases which say that prisoners can maintain their innocence and that no inferences to be drawn against them for making that assertion.
The reason the law has changed on the subject is they have come to realize that not all prisoners are guilty, that there have been so many cases where people have been wrongfully convicted, that it would be extremely unfair to coerce prisoners that maintained their innocence to say that they’re guilty as a precondition of release, since society itself must admit that all human processes, including the trial process, does not necessarily arrive at the truth.
I mean, there’s so many cases where there have been, with seemingly overwhelming evidence, where the person ended up being exonerated.
There was a huge number of cases before DNA, which, subsequent to DNA, were reinvestigated, and turned out the people that were convicted were innocent.
There’s that famous Florida case, where a guy convicted of seven rapes by seven women that independently identified him as their rapist and turned out not only was it not him, but it was a guy who’s almost a foot taller, a hundred pounds heavier, just massively different.
My case, we have no blood, no bullets, no body. We have a guy that was saying that he was gonna run, researched Brazilian extradition treaties, likely changed his hair the day before he disappear, changed his hair color, and was subsequently seen by like 10 independent, uninvolved citizen witnesses who they attested to his being alive.
So it’s pretty interesting to see how the judicial process could go wrong in my case when it’s all based upon, a “he said” sort of inference.
Like, Joe said that he killed him, therefore not only must he be dead but that Joe would of course tell the truth on such a subject. That’s the common inference. And of course that inference ignores the actual real-world dynamics of what was taking place between me, and the various factions of the BBC at the time and Ron Levin.
There was a lot of deceit going on, pretense and posturing. Everybody was trying to manipulate each other through smoke and mirrors. And my assertion as of June 24, 1984 meeting, that I had knocked off Ron Levin was part of the posturing and the dynamics between me and a faction of the BBC that was trying to, and ultimately did, steal the crown jewels of the BBC. Raided some of our accounts and took our… after torching with an acetylene torch a lock that doors of a warehouse in Gardena for Microgenesis of North America.
Joe Hunt discusses the Natural and Probable Consequences Doctrine, which results in “aiders and abettors” of a crime getting the same punishment as perpetrators.
Transcript: I’ve often said to some of the other men in prison that they’re my people, in that these are my peers, this is who I’ve lived with.
I’ve bonded with some of these guys, some of these men who are doing life without and are murderers are my friends.
Now a lot of them are here on this aiding and abetting theory of what they call vicarious liability in the law, and there’s several different ways that vicarious liability can be assigned but one of the principal ones is the aider and abetter rules and there’s also something called the Natural And Probable Consequences Doctrine. So under aiding and abetting if you exhort, encourage, incite or aid someone in a felony and that felony results in somebody’s death, under the felony murder doctrine and under the aider and abetter doctrine, together, stitched together, you end up with the same liability as the actual perpetrator, and this can be a travesty.
It does not, this is not the sort of travesty that occurred in my case, that’s of a different stripe, but it is the travesty that we’re giving, society is giving, handing out “life without” sentences to men who never had a moment where they crossed that line and became intentional murderers.
In fact they never actually chose to do an action that directly resulted in another person’s death. They never curled their finger around the trigger of a revolver or plunged a knife into somebody and so they didn’t have the — they never did anything that manifested the sort of depravity that you would associate with a “life without” sentence. A sort of malice of forethought or maliciousness or wickedness.
They might have done something like got talked into by their homeboys or actively decided to be a getaway driver or they might have been members of a gang and went to back to up a buddy in a confrontation with another gang and then suddenly their buddy pulls a gun and shoots somebody.
Unexpectedly to all of them and they end up doing “life without” time under the Natural And Probable Consequences Doctrine or aiding and abetting gang activity doctrine.
And it’s just so unfair because society is presuming that they are, that they were so given over to malice and depravity that they would kill another person, but really there’s no proof that they ever reached that state in their life. But the prosecution theory is otherwise.
So most civilized countries in the world, they don’t have doctrines like that and they don’t put people away for life without possibility of parole at all. Let alone in an instant where the person actually never chose intentionally.
In this interview, Joe Hunt explains the history of the “Billionaire Boys Club” name. BBC actually stood for “Bombay Bicycle Club,” but, to Joe’s embarrassment, was changed to Billionaire Boys Club in the media.
Transcript: Well I’ve always been embarrassed by the name being in the media. I was a jerk in many ways in my early twenties, but I did not run around with a group of people called myself the Billionaire Boys Club or us the Billionaire Boys Club.
We had a company called BBC Consolidated North America and the initials were taken from something called the Bombay Bicycle Club which was a restaurant with some video games in Chicago, and when Dean and Dan would come out to Chicago, we would go to the Bombay Bicycle Club and I just hung out there. So in a bit of whimsy, we decided to name the first company BBC Consolidated North America.
Now I’ve heard transcripts of some interviews that Tom and David may have given to IPC productions before the 1987 mini series, and told IPC productions that we would sometimes jokingly or boastfully refer to ourselves as the Billionaire Boys Club, but I don’t recall that, I just don’t.
I don’t have any connection with that name until seeing it in print with the media, and I wouldn’t have named us that, and I don’t like the name.
Certainly my own background is not from wealth and privilege. We grew up in Van Nuys, a block away from the Van Nuys Junior High, in a lower middle class area. And you know I remember there were a couple years when my dad was on food stamps. My family was on food stamps, so we were not from a family of riches and privilege.
The name “Billionaire Boys Club” has become associated with scandal, but in this interview, Joe Hunt describes all of the legitimate business enterprises his organization — actually named BBC, which stood for the Bombay Bicycle Club — was pursuing.
Transcript:
We were organized to do legitimate business. Businesses at the outset of BBC ranged from a car company called West Cars of North America that were importing grey market automobiles from Europe so these were cars that were not up to EPA and American Department of Transportation or DOT spec.
We had a warehouse in Gardenia with a lift and a 2 gas analyzer. We had an employee named Frank Rabinsky who was our mechanic and it was our intent to import these cars from Europe and bring them into compliance and sell them. At the time there was a significant difference between what cars were selling for Europe and what luxury cars were selling for in the United States. It was an attempt to arbitrage that difference and secondly we have a company called Microgenesis of North America.
We hired a guy named Eugene Browning to build a sophisticated sort of rock pulverizer called a cyclotron and our goal was and we ultimately did. So some men go under contract with a group that was doing gold mining and wanted to use those same connections with them.
We also had Financial Futures Trading of North America which was a legitimate way to manage money for people by trading spreads in the interest rate futures market at the New York Mercantile Exchange and in the Chicago Mercantile exchange.
Joe expresses hope that society will understand that those who committed crimes as teens or young adults may grow to become profoundly different people by middle age.
Transcript:
I do I hope that attention is drawn to the fight of people who have life without the possibility of parole. Because there is a Japanese philosopher that wrote that Enlightenment, once it’s achieved, amounts to the same thing no matter how you got there.
In other words, you could have come through a life of sin and wickedness, but at the point where you wake up and you live up to the potential of the human being — so you have compassion for other people, you have a conscience, you have a desire for selfless action — when you have gotten over yourself and you’re feeling the (value) in other people, and you reach the point where you are willing to sacrifice on behalf of others for the greater good, when you get to that point, no matter how you got there, that consciousness is the same. Regardless of your past.
I’ve seen — this forget about me for a second here — I’ve met other people who have life without (parole) that are actually profoundly good human beings. They’ve reorientated themselves and they did so, the ones I that I know, before there was any possibility of commutation. They did that work, and it was difficult work for them, of redeeming themselves and resurrecting the spirit within them and reaching their potential as human beings. Without any thought of using it as a way to get out, but merely because there was a call in their souls when they woke up to do so.
So a lot of men got their cases when they were 18, 19, or 20 and when they are 35 or 40, their orientation has absolutely no relationship to where they were as teenagers.
So I do hope that society as a whole becomes acquainted with this fact and thinks about it. And this being primarily a Judeo-Christian society, that they make room for the fact that the suffering of these men, and the work they have done, is redemptive, and possibility invite them back to that role in society.
Transcript: I was trading at a place called Cantor Fitzgerald for some of my investors, which included the May brothers, and some other people. And I had some of my own money there, and Dean had some money, Ben had some money, and so we were trading commodity futures, contracts for Cantor Fitzgerald which was a local brokerage house that had an office in Beverly Hills.
Anyhow, I saw the opportunity, I was also trading for Ron Levin through first Rauscher Pierce Refsnes, a regional commodity house, and then Clayton, so how I was trading for them and what was actually going on there is an interesting and complicated story.
But setting that aside for a moment, I saw the opportunity to go long, to keep on futures contracts. I thought it was going to be a big move, the interests rates were going to go down which would have meant that future contracts would have gone up. So I told Levin about it.
We had made some money already in the accounts that had been set up with Levin. I was owed around a million dollars at that time since my deal with Levin. So I said to him look, I see this opportunity and I’m going to be buying stuff for my other clients and I’m going to buy some of the account for you, but I’d like to be paid what’s owed me under our contract right now. I said, is there going to be a problem getting me a half a million dollars of a million owed by Friday? This was on a Monday.
He said no problem, and I said well, I’m going to be putting on accounts, I’ll be putting on trades for my own account and for my investors. Is there going to be any problem getting that money by Friday? And he said absolutely no problem — go ahead and do it.
So I put on a bigger position than I had cash for margin at Cantor, and I also put the position on for Levin. Anyhow, of course Levin didn’t pay. I’m sure he had absolutely no intention of paying, just why he would say that after I told him about the context, I don’t know. It was just part of the cruelty of Levin back in those days. This is like 1983, I believe.
Anyhow, so, the money is not forthcoming and on Friday, Cantor Fitzgerald wants their money, because that’s business, and margin call’s due that day. So it was a five day call period back in that time.
Anyhow, I didn’t have it, if the position had declined a little bit it wouldn’t have been a problem had I had the half of million, but the result was they sold it, which was there right and was particularly appropriate. And he moment they sold it in the morning when they blew the position out it was declining at that point. The result was that my investors’ money had been wiped out.
Again, if I had the half of million dollars the position would have been sufficiently margined and that sale would have never occurred. Anyhow, as luck would have it, I was right, and (futures) took off and went on this historic run from what I think was fifty-five to eight-five which was a huge move. Interest rates declined substantially. Now the position, the notional position, that would have been taken on in the Levin account went on to make millions but my investors had lost their money and this was the point at which the BBC shipwrecked which is rather than just straightforwardly telling the outside investors that money had been lost, I just couldn’t emotionally deal with having that conversation.
And since Levin was promising, and had a bunch of excuses and was promising to pay, I thought there is no reason to tell them. I’ll just tell them that everything is fine. In fact, I’ll tell them that everything is going well, and when I get this money from Levin, I will restore the funds that had been lost by the investors and give them a profit.
Now, it’s easy to say at this distance, but the truth was, I couldn’t have cared less about the money at the time. I was just emotionally incapable of facing these people and telling them that I had lost their money.
I knew their money was important to them. Some of them were like widows and orphans investors. There was scholarship money for their children, or money for their children’s tuition for college, money for health matters and stuff like that and I just couldn’t see facing them, so I made a spectacularly stupid mistake and told them everything was cool. And it wasn’t cool.
Joe Hunt describes his daily meditation practice, and how it gives him a sense of optimism despite his incarceration.
Transcript:
In order to renew myself, I meditate every day, twice a day.
I do something called pranayamas, which is translated as a set of energization exercises that focus more on the flow of energy in the body than they do on the physical movement.
Like martial artists that work with chi — energy — it’s the same thing, only with the refinement just to promote the free flow of energy throughout the entire body rather than a connection to any particular martial practice.
Anyhow, the meditation is the wellspring from which I try to renew myself emotionally and physically and spiritually everyday.
Some days meditation goes a lot deeper than others, and I’ve experienced at times, states that were otherwise inaccessible to me. And what I mean to say by that, is up until the time I started meditating, I was completely unaware there were higher stages of consciousness.
People could talk about them, but they’re not real unless you actually experience them yourself. And having experienced some of those states, I’ve become personally convinced that we are spirit. We’re not just an animal. And that the spirit survives the life — the bodily life, the bodily existence – so I mean, this is true to me.
It’s a matter of the testimony of many of the great human beings down through the ages, but it became real to me while meditating. And, I would say that my optimism, which prevails most of the time, is rooted in what I’ve personally experienced while meditating.
Joe Hunt explains why he should have been acquitted of robbery using the “Claim of Right” legal doctrine, which exempts people who are reclaiming what is rightfully theirs. Collecting on a legitimate debt is not a robbery at all, because you lack something called the animus furandi of robbery, which is the intent to take property belonging to another.
Transcript:
It feels pretty technical but it affected me and it had really harsh repercussions on my life.
I was charged and convicted of a robbery, and one of theories is that I came in and I had extorted a check for 1.5 million dollars from Levin.
Now unfortunately, my attorneys, at that trial in 1987, their legal education did not extent to something called the Claim of Right Doctrine, which was common law defense to allegations of robbery in California and throughout the United States. That you are taking back from somebody your own personal property or collecting on a legitimate debt is not a robbery at all because you lack something called the animus furandi of robbery, which is the intent to take property belonging to another.
So lacking that mental state, you can’t be convicted of robbery because that is now is a stated element of robbery in law. So for example, you know back in the 1800s if somebody took your horse, if you pursued them and shot them, you might be guilty of manslaughter or murder, but you wouldn’t be guilty of robbery, because it’s your horse.
Now under the state’s theory, Levin owes me 4 million dollars and that is something that he acknowledged publicly and to prosecution witnesses. The state’s theory was that I was seeking to force him to pay me what he owed me from a legitimate business transaction, that being the case, the jury should have been instructed on the Claim of Right defense.
And had they been instructed, given the fact that the prosecution theory was as described, I would have been acquitted of robbery. Unfortunately, when this issue was raised, it was considered too late to have anything done about it, due to certain legal procedural rules.
Joe talks about what he thinks happened to Ron Levin. It’s likely that Levin jumped bail, especially in light of witness accounts that Levin was researching Brazilian extradition treaties and had inquired about dyeing his hair.
Transcript:
I have thought about this a great deal over the years and tried to extrapolate what he would do or did in that situation so you know, his actual fate as a matter of personal knowledge is a mystery to me because my last point of contact with him was June 5th.
So far as I can reconstruct and recall, what I have seen of course is the same eyewitness accounts that my jury in San Mateo heard, about people in some cases had prior relationships with Ron, had been over to his house, as Gerard had been for dinner, or had contact with him like Robbie Robinson and had seen him subsequently.
So those eyewitness reports, and some of them were asked to take polygraphs, and the ones who were asked took polygraphs passed them with flying colors. And so those reports have been persuasive to me of the fact that Ron Levin was alive through the last sighting, which was three years after his disappearance in Mykonos, the island of Mykonos in Greece.
I’ve also, since I’ve worked so hard on this case, I’ve seen the testimony and read interviews of people like Oliver Wendell Holmes (no relationship to the great jurist), but he was employed by Levin to work on Levin’s pending criminal cases. The charges Levin was facing before he disappeared and he said that Levin was discussing with him and researching Brazil’s extradition treaties and policies, which I find highly suspicious.
How many people are doing that right before they jump bail?
You know and then furthermore, John Duran, his hairdresser at the time said that Levin called him right before he disappeared and asked him how do I dye my hair. And then detective Les Douler tells us that brown stains that he tested and were not from blood but there was some brown staining in the porcelain of Levin’s bathtub which would be consistent with some last minute change to his hair color.
Now when he was seen late in ’86 and ’87, he had his gray hair, so the postulate and the hypothesis is that Levin initially decided to change his hair but didn’t like it and letting it grow back out grey by when he was seen in Tucson Arizona and when he was seen on the island of Mykonos.
Levin’s grey hair was one of his most striking features people say that he was kind of a he had a very distinctive look back in ’84, in ’83 in Beverly Hills. He graced the cover of a magazine once.
Anyhow, so based on the information evidence that I’ve seen and also based on statements of Levin made in my presence where he said that he would never go back to prison. I deduced a long time ago that he fled and when he was no longer available after June 6, 1984 and I couldn’t get a hold of him and I heard other people couldn’t get a hold of him, and by June 24th I had concluded that he had fled.
He had a pending case so he couldn’t just up and leave without violating the terms of his bail and he wouldn’t just violate the terms of his bail unless he intentionally fled so that was the conclusion I reached and I think it’s the conclusion the Beverly Hills Department reached for the first couple of months as well.
Joe describes the case of 12 gang members who all received life sentences because they were in a van with one gang member who spontaneously decided to pull a trigger.
“A number of people that are in prison who never did anything that shows a sort of moral abandon or depravity to justify a ‘death in prison’ sentence…. They were peripheral characters in a crime that spiraled out of control.”
Transcript: So you have a number of people that are in prison who never did anything that shows a sort of moral abandon or depravity to justify a death in prison sentence because that’s what life without is. It’s death by imprisonment sentence it’s a slow death, 60 years in the case some of these of men that were locked up earlier 70 years in prison.
They were peripheral characters in a crime that spiraled out of control that wasn’t conceived at the beginning to take another person’s life and in there because a lot of these guys were teenagers at the time of the incident that gave rise to their life sentence. They didn’t really have the maturity or clarity to recognize that their behavior could have resulted in the taking of another person’s life but they might have participated in a whole several robberies with assurance being given by all concerned that no one is going to get killed and we are just going to show the gun to intimidate them and then sitting in a getaway car being a wheel man and the guy who goes in actually shoots somebody much much to their shock and in some cases indignation of the base men.
I worked on this one case where there twelve guys in a van. They were Vietnamese and they were being pursued by a car filled with rival gang members, this call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded, when suddenly one of the guys in the van was not talking about it or discussing it with anybody else because one of the guys in the van became a state witness, that witness describes what happened as one of the guys just suddenly jumps out of the van and runs up to the car of the pursuing gang people and opens fire.
They all, all people all the 12 people in the van end up getting charged under the national and probable consequences doctrine with the murder. Even though they hadn’t agreed to this behavior and when the shooter gets back to the van they immediately, all the people in the van according the state’s own witness said what the hell did you do you just go off and do that without talking anybody and they were so mad they were considering shooting that guy for what he had done.
Nevertheless, they all got life sentences for that so that’s the sort of anomalies that can occur because of these inflexible murder doctrines and aiding and vetting doctrines. They cast a really wide net and a lot of the people that are caught with these life without sentences and life sentences are there because of vicarious liability and they don’t deserve it it’s really not defensible in their case.
I say that not speaking — because obviously I’m not the conscience of society — but you know its generally recognized that California in particular has a much harsher penological regime then anybody else in the entire civilized world. I mean there’s more people doing life without in California then there are in the whole rest of the world so far as the statistics show, and so per capita, the per capita statistic, it’s just off the chart.
So it’s something that I feel having met some of these men that are now 20, 25 years older 30 years older and are scheduled to death for death in prison that it should be looked at. It is an injustice because they never actually made a conscious decision to take another person’s life willfully or deliberately or intentionally.
Dead or Alive? Billionaire Boys Club founder, convicted of murder, contends victim is still living. Prosecutors doubt witnesses’ accounts.
July 12, 1996 Alan Abrahamson
Ron Levin is dead. Or maybe he’s not.
Joe Hunt helped kill him and then buried the body in the Angeles National Forest.
Or maybe he didn’t and, like Elvis, Levin keeps turning up: at a funeral, driving a car through Brentwood, even relaxing in a taverna on a trendy Greek island.
Levin’s body has never been found.
And therein lies the riddle that has dominated a reprise of the Billionaire Boys Club saga–the drama that riveted Los Angeles in the 1980s and played out again over recent months at the Criminal Courts Building.
Is Levin really dead? Or has Levin, a skilled con artist, staged his own disappearance and pulled the ultimate con?
Hunt, the charismatic leader of the club and himself a man who’s been described as a con of some renown, was convicted nine years ago of murder. Since March, he and his lawyers have been back in court, arguing that he deserves a new trial, mostly on grounds that Levin is alive and well.
