Looking for a pattern
DOWNTOWN LA — One after another, women who said they were approached by Victor Paleologus to be poster girls for a fictitious James Bond film told jurors here Wednesday that the man on trial for the murder of a 21-year-old Santa Monica woman more than three years ago was very polite, respectful and, at times, charming.
The defendant typically dressed in a suit and tie, drove a Mercedes Benz, and was never short on compliments, particularly about the women’s legs, the witnesses said “He approached me and asked me if I was an actor or a model … He thought I had great legs,” said Cathy DeBuono, a 6-foot-tall, athletic brunette and former stunt double on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” who remembers first meeting Paleologus at the Westfield Shopping Center in the latter part of 1998.“He told me that he thought I would be great and that I should audition.”
However, having spent years in Hollywood working as an actor, DeBuono said something didn’t seem right. Paleologus seemed elusive when probed about the film role, and he didn’t want to deal with her agent.
She wasn’t alone. Other women testified that Paleologus never seemed to have a business card on him, even though he was supposed to be casting for Disney. When they tried to get more details on the audition, Paleologus would continually change the subject. One said she brushed him off because he failed to provide any contact information.
The women said there was something else that seemed strange about the 44-year-old restaurateur, who was seated a few yards from them in a Los Angeles Superior Court room writing notes and whispering to his defense attorney throughout the day’s proceedings.
After digging deeper into his background, each woman said they began to unravel a web of lies that made Paleologus, at least in their eyes, transform from an intelligent and pleasant man looking to lend a helping hand into a sexual predator using deceit to lure attractive Hollywood hopefuls into an abandoned Pilates studio so he could rape them.
“He told me numerous times that I had an 80 percent chance of getting the role. He said he believed in me,” said Alice Walker, a striking brunette from Chicago and a former waitress at Houston’s in Century City, who told jurors she practiced for the alleged Bond audition twice with Paleologus before she realized it was a hoax when he didn’t deliver.
“I didn’t understand what the whole charade was about,” said Walker, who testified that she arranged a dinner with Paleologus so she could investigate further why he lied to her. “I just wanted to find out who this person was. I felt like I had to know.
“I know it sounds strange, but I wanted to know why he lied.”
Paleologus has been charged with the murder of Kristi Johnson, a Michigan transplant who was attending Santa Monica College when her body was found in March 2003 at the bottom of a ravine in Hollywood. Johnson’s body was partially covered by a sleeping bag, her hands and feet bound by shoe laces, her face badly decomposed. It is believed she was killed several weeks before her body was discovered.
Johnson’s disappearance gained national attention as her mother, Terry Hall, who testified briefly Wednesday, pleaded publicly for her safe return. Johnson told one of her roommates that she had been approached by a movie executive at Century City on Feb. 15, and the man offered her an audition for a James Bond film. She never returned home from the meeting.
DeBuono and Walker, along with other women, have testified that they had been approached by Paleologus while shopping at the Century City mall and said he told them he was a movie executive looking for a poster girl for the spy franchise. Some said Paleologus asked them to show up at the auditions wearing a white dress shirt and black mini skirt, with nylons and black, high-heeled stilettos — the outfit Johnson was wearing when her body was found.
With no murder weapon or physical evidence linking Paleologus to the crime, Deputy District Attorney David Walgren is relying heavily on the testimony of those women who said they had been approached by Paleologus with the same pick-up line used to lure Johnson to her death. Walgren is looking to show a history of deceit by Paleologus.
Defense attorney Andrew Flier has challenged the memories of those women, one of whom said she was contacted by Paleologus as far back as 1991. Several admitted to picking Paleologus out of a line-up, however, they could not recall specific details of their conversations with officers from the Santa Monica Police Department.
Under cross examination, those same women said it was not unusual for men to approach them claiming to be affiliated with the movie or music industry. They also said Paleologus never threatened them nor said anything or did anything inappropriate, and seemed to be concerned only with casting a beautiful woman for a movie poster.
Flier will have a chance to question Walker today. The trial, which began July 10, is expected to last at least two more weeks.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 20, 2006. Read the original PDF.