At some point in the early 1980s, Hollywood producer Robert Evans—who’d worked on such classic films as Rosemary’s Baby, The Godfather, and Chinatown—was introduced to entertainment promoter Roy Radin by a cocaine dealer named Karen Greenberger. Shortly thereafter, Radin was brought on as an investor on Evans’s next movie, the 1984 box-office flop The Cotton Club (directed by Francis Ford Coppola). Unfortunately, Radin never got to see the film he invested in. On May 13, 1983, the promoter was kidnapped by a group of people outside of a Hollywood hotel; his body was discovered a month later, with his face reportedly having been blown away with bullets and dynamite. 

Interestingly, one of the key witnesses in what would become known as the “Cotton Club Trial” was former Sanford and Son star Demond Wilson—best known for playing Lamont, the son of Redd Foxx’s Fred Sanford on the show. Wilson was called upon to testify during the trial because he was one of the last people to see Radin alive the night he disappeared (other than his alleged killers). Radin had been Wilson’s manager and told him he was in fear for his life on the evening in question. Wilson explained that Radin had been expecting to have dinner with some important people regarding The Cotton Club.

‘Sanford and Son’ Star Demond Wilson Was a Key Witness in the Infamous ‘Cotton Club’ Murder Trial

According to Wilson, who was armed with a gun that night, Radin asked him to follow him to the restaurant and pretend to bump into him by accident, giving Wilson an excuse to join the party. Wilson then waited for Radin outside of his hotel room and observed him get into a limousine with four people. However, Wilson eventually lost the limo in traffic somewhere along the way. He went straight to the restaurant from there, only to find out that Radin’s party never arrived.

Prosecutors claimed that Greenberger hired three men to kill Radin for cutting her out of the Cotton Club deal. Greenberger and former bodyguards Robert Lowe, William Mentzer, and Alex Marti were found guilty of kidnapping resulting in murder in 1991. Under California law, the crime came with an automatic sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Evans, on the other hand, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and refused to testify; Greenberger maintained that he had nothing to do with the murder.