Defendant’s Words Used Against Him

If it weren’t for Kenneth Leighton’s big mouth, he might not be in the deep trouble he is now--facing a possible death sentence for allegedly masterminding the murders of two witnesses against him.

Leighton bragged to at least three people about killing Jamie Navaroli and Navaroli’s girlfriend, April Mahoney, prosecutors said Tuesday as the murder trial opened in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Both were shot in West Hills on Nov. 4, 1998; Navaroli died that day and Mahoney on Dec. 24.

“Did you hear what I gave Jamie for Christmas?” prosecutors quoted Leighton as saying. “I gave him April.”

The statement, repeated to jurors by Deputy Dist. Atty. Jessica Dabney, was emblazoned across a poster-sized court exhibit for all to see.

Defense attorneys said Leighton shouldn’t be taken seriously.

“It was a joke,” Deputy Alternate Public Defender Henry Hall said. “It was tasteless and crass.”

Deputy Public Defender Michael Gottlieb said outside court that Leighton “has a big mouth.”

Leighton, 37, allegedly became so angered when he learned that Navaroli and Mahoney were going to testify against him in an unrelated burglary case that he decided to kill them, prosecutors said, and he enlisted his good friend and now co-defendant, Randall Williams.

Williams, 36, was implicated when Mahoney, in her dying breaths at a hospital, gasped out that “Randy” had shot her, and then identified Williams in a police photo lineup.

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Defense attorneys contended that Mahoney’s dying declaration can’t be trusted, and that the prosecutors’ key witnesses--who include drug dealers, addicts, felons, thieves and wife beaters--are a collection of liars.

“The reason the witnesses are disgusting is because Leighton and Williams hung out with them,” Dabney said.

Leighton and Williams are being tried together but with separate juries in the downtown courtroom of Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Terry A. Green. Because his courtroom has only one jury box, one panel of jurors has to sit in the courtroom audience. The two panels swap places every week.

Expected to last until mid-May, the trial may involve more than 100 witnesses in what attorneys on both sides say is a mostly circumstantial case.

Before the killings, Leighton allegedly told others he thought Navaroli was a “rat” for cooperating with police. He also threatened to kill Navaroli during a phone conversation, prosecutors said.

Fearful, Navaroli and Mahoney told police about the threats and entered into a witness protection program, Dabney said.

But the couple, without explanation, took the money given to them by the program and returned to West Hills, where they had lived and where Navaroli resumed dealing drugs.

On Tuesday, Hall said there were no phone records verifying that Leighton’s alleged threats ever took place. He described them as “broke” and “homeless.”

Navaroli had other enemies who wanted him dead, Hall said. He played a videotape in which Navaroli boasted to police that he had informed on 15 drug dealers.