Prosecution Takes Last Shot at Maniscalco : Trial: Lawyer-biker is portrayed as murder mastermind during closing arguments in lengthy case that has stretched for years.

SANTA ANA —  As the climax of one of Orange County’s longest and most intriguing murder trials drew near, a prosecutor Wednesday portrayed radical lawyer and biker Thomas Maniscalco as a cruel “godfather” who masterminded a triple execution to avenge rip-offs of his drug and money-counterfeiting empire.

In closing arguments to a Superior Court jury, Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard King said that Maniscalco used his “intellect and his intelligence” to mastermind what nearly became a perfect murder--”the plan to kill Richard Rizzone and avoid detection. . . . He almost pulled it off.”

Maniscalco has been held without bail for more than six years in Orange County Jail. He is accused of ordering the 1980 Memorial Day weekend murders of two men and a woman in a Westminster home. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

As a founder of the Hessian motorcycle gang, Maniscalco, now 45, allegedly built a far-reaching narcotics and money-counterfeiting operation based in Orange County. The prosecution charges that he planned the brutal shooting deaths of Richard (Rabbit) Rizzone, 36, a fellow biker and boyhood friend who Maniscalco believed was stealing from him. Rizzone’s 19-year-old girlfriend, Rena Miley, and his bodyguard, Thomas Monahan, 28, were also killed in the attack.

According to King, the gunman was Maniscalco partner Phil Warren, who died during a confrontation with police in Moore, Okla., in 1982. Daniel Duffy, another Hessian biker, is also charged in connection the slayings and is awaiting trial.

King argued that although Maniscalco himself did not pull the trigger on the .22-caliber Ruger, “the defendant was the chairman of the board, the Godfather, the person who called all the shots.”

Maniscalco’s intention, King said, was to kill Rizzone because Maniscalco believed he was guilty of stealing drugs and money from his drug-and-counterfeiting organization.

Maniscalco denies playing any role in the murders and says that he has an alibi. “I was enjoying a day with my family,” Maniscalco said of the time of the killings during a brief interview Wednesday in the courtroom.

Police gathered evidence for four years before Maniscalco was arrested, in 1984.

Years of legal wrangling and nearly nine months of trial have made the case the second-longest in county history, after that of serial killer Randy Steven Kraft. It has been plagued by problems and delays, one of which was the suicide of the previous presiding judge. .

On Wednesday, Maniscalco--who has exchanged his scruffy, long-haired biker look for a conservative suit and short haircut--smiled at his attorneys as he entered the courtroom and scribbled notes during King’s argument.

In reviewing the evidence against Maniscalco for the jury Wednesday, King used charts and three mannequins to depict the places and numbers of bullet wounds to each of the victims.

The prosecution’s star witnesses are Robert Robbins and Bruce Van Arsdell, former associates of Maniscalco who were granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for their testimony.

King told the jury Wednesday that Robbins was an accomplice to the murders because he participated in the burglary of Rizzone’s Westminster home after the slayings.

Robbins had testified that Duffy went to the house on the day of the murders along with Warren, but that it was Warren who shot Rizzone and then shot Monahan eight times when Monahan unexpectedly walked into the house. Rizzone’s girlfriend, Rena Miley, had been lying naked in a nearby bedroom. Miley was subsequently raped and shot to death.

Miley “was a beautiful 19-year-old who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” King told the jurors. “She was their dessert. After they finished their dessert, she got three bullet holes in the head.”

According to Robbins, he and Maniscalco arrived at Rizzone’s home right after the slayings and began searching for money and drugs and stole Rizzone’s motorcycle.

Defense co-counsel Joanne Harrold and Andrew Roth will give their final summation today.

Harrold said Wednesday that she and Roth still contend “that it was Robbins who committed the murders, and that Maniscalco played no role in the slayings and is being framed.