Daily Breeze of July 12,2012
A Simi Valley man fired from a Lennox bondage club because dominatrixes deemed him too creepy for "swingers parties" was found guilty Friday of murdering the establishment's owner.
Jurors in Los Angeles Superior Court in downtown Los Angeles took just 4 1/2 hours Friday to convict David Edward Albert, 55, of shooting John Lavine to death June 27, 2010, setting the La Cienega Boulevard club ablaze, and killing Lavine's pet wolf.
"This has been the most fascinating case I ever tried," Deputy District Attorney Marc Chomel said. "It leaves you speechless."
The killing occurred shortly after Passive Arts Studio owner Lavine told Albert he no longer could work at the club, located in an industrial building under the Los Angeles International Airport flight path.
Albert's job cleaning up the fetish rooms enabled him to socialize with the club's dominatrixes and partake in the club's activities. Customers at Passive Arts chose from a variety of rooms to role-play fantasies with dominatrixes, including a schoolroom with desks and chairs, a "Mae West" cross-dressing room, a "Bastille" jail cell complete with a bondage bed, and a room designed for torture.
Clients paid up to $180 an hour.
Albert sometimes paid $50 for his own sessions, asking dominatrixes to humiliate him, spank him with leather or wooden paddles, and smell their behinds, prosecutors said.
But customers and the working women considered him "creepy" and not worthy of attending "swingers parties."
"Lavine told him he was creeping them out," Chomel said. "He is not aesthetically pleasing to some of the girls and this hurt him and he was very distraught and very despondent."
Banning Albert meant he could no longer play games as a "house slave" to fulfill his fetishes.
Albert confronted his 64-year-old boss in his office, attempted to strangle him, and shot him six times, including once in the back of the head.
He doused Lavine's body with rubbing alcohol used to clean the fetish rooms and set him on fire.
Firefighters found Lavine's body and his dead wolf, Koda, when they doused the blaze.
Deputies spotted Albert hiding in the bushes outside. He was covered in soot and had a bullet casing matching the bullets found in Lavine's body in his pocket.
During the three-week trial, Albert testified that he indeed went to the club that morning with a gun, but not to kill Lavine, Chomel said.
Albert told jurors he planned to commit suicide, but first wanted to ask Lavine for his job back and to be with the club's women.
"He said he was devastated," Chomel said. "It was his whole social connection."
Albert testified that when Lavine told him he could not work there, they fought and the gun went off six times, Chomel said.
Albert's attorney, Winston McKesson, presented witnesses who said Albert had the mind of a teenager, served in the Army and owned a gardening business.
Jurors convicted Albert of first-degree murder, arson and cruelty to animals.
Albert faces 52 years to life in prison when Judge Rand Rubin sentences him Sept. 14.