"The guy had pretty much waged war on me and was coming after me -- like 'Cape Fear' or something," Hollywood testified.
After the window incident, Hollywood said he spotted Nicholas Markowitz on a neighborhood street, got out of the van he was riding in, pinned the boy against a tree and yelled, "Where's your brother?!" Hollywood's friend William Skidmore punched Nicholas in the stomach, Hollywood said, and then the two forced him into the van they were using for a trip to Santa Barbara's annual Fiesta celebration.
Hollywood said he wanted to confront Ben Markowitz but denied that he thought holding Nicholas would lead him to Ben, who was described by prosecutors as a white supremacist who wore swastika tattoos, despite his Jewish background.
Under questioning from his attorney, James Blatt, Hollywood cast himself as a nonviolent type so concerned with Nicholas' welfare that he ordered the boy unbound after Skidmore had tied him up with duct tape.
Worried about Skidmore's "aggressiveness," Hollywood said he had the man drive back to Los Angeles. But Hollywood couldn't answer Lynn's pointed questions about why he didn't let Markowitz go back as well, saying only that he was distracted by "a million things," including the broken windows at his house, which he wanted to show that weekend.
Hollywood's friend, Ryan Hoyt, has been sentenced to death for shooting Markowitz. In court Tuesday, Hollywood said he was shocked when Hoyt, at a birthday party in the Valley, told him that he had killed and buried the boy instead of driving him back home, as Hollywood said he had asked Hoyt to do.
Hollywood said Hoyt believed Markowitz's disappearance was for the best.
"What did you think Ben was going to do when he found out about some guys kidnapping his brother?" Hoyt said, according to Hollywood. Hollywood said he didn't buy that logic and exploded at Hoyt.
"I was in disbelief," Hollywood said. "I was angry -- but he seemed so serious, almost scared, saying 'What should I do?' "
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steve.chawkins@latimes.com
