Film producer seeks immunity

Press, 17 May 1989, Page 11

Film producer seeks immunity

NZPA-Reuter Los Angeles Robert Evans, producer of “The Godfather” and “Chinatown,” will testify in the murder of a New York entrepreneur only if granted immunity from prosecution, his lawyer said yesterday. Mr Robert Shapiro said this after a Los Angeles judge ruled that Mr Evans could refuse to answer questions in the so-called “Cotton Club” murder case by invoking his constitutional right against self-incrimination. Asked what it would take for Mr Evans to testify, Mr Shapiro replied: “At this point, only a grant of immunity.” The prosecutor, Mr David Conn, said he was not planning to grant immunity to Mr Evans, whom he has not ruled

out as a suspect in the death of Mr Roy Radin. Mr Radin’s badly decomposed body was found in a remote canyon north of Los Angeles in June, 1983. He had been shot several times in the back of the head.

Prosecutors allege that Mr Radin, aged 33, a millionaire vaudeville show promoter who dreamed of becoming a movie mogul, was murdered because of a dispute over the financing of the ill-fated film “The Cotton Club,” which Mr Evans produced. The film, a lavish production starring Richard Gere and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, was a box-office disaster, losing an estimated SUS 42 million ($7O million).