by Don Lasseter
Of course, spending time at Cole Crest meant that Stacy came to know Karl Norvik. She had mixed feelings about him. “He seemed kind of remote to me at times. They had a baby grand piano in there. David and I would be getting ready to go out and he would be in there playing the piano. It was strange. You’re up there in the hills being serenaded by this concert pianist, but he was absolutely great in playing it. I can’t explain it. I just had this weird feeling about him.”
At one point in time, said Stacy, Mahler considered forcing Norvik to move out. She explained, “His room was the one with a hardwood floor and David wanted to get him out of there so he could turn it into an art studio for me. I was going to attend art classes at UCLA, but it never happened.”
Even social occasions with Karl Norvik bothered Stacy. “Karl had a girlfriend and we four were all going out to dinner one night. She had a male roommate, and when we went to her place, that guy had a dress on. Every time we would go anywhere with them, it would get more weird. His girlfriend finally left him and went back to her husband.”
While Stacy thought the house was beautiful, she hated the narrow, tortuous streets. “You couldn’t get me to even try to drive up there on those crazy, winding roads. Sometimes, to avoid them, I would take the train to Los Angeles and get him to come pick me up at Union Station.” She made the trip, either by car or train, numerous times. “I would go every chance I got and spend time with him—but I never lived in that house with him; I just commuted back and forth.” Stacy eventually discovered she was not the only woman who spent prodigious time at Cole Crest.
David Mahler reportedly tried twice to pass the bar exam in California, but he failed. Unlicensed to practice law in the state, he became a “commodities trader” who also dispensed legal advice. It didn’t take him long to establish a network of clients and associates and to find profitability in his business. For his own reasons, he used aliases in some of the transactions. In these trades and with his income, he acquired a BMW and two Jaguars, one brand-new and one three years old. Mahler registered two of the vehicles in fictitious names.
Karl Norvik, still living in the Cole Crest house, trusted Mahler with his savings, as well as the estate of a close relative. Somehow, Mahler became a majority co-owner of an expensive home and car belonging to Karl and his kin.
Mahler’s relationship with Stacy Tipton continued to careen along its rocky path, sometimes fun and sometimes nerve-racking. Stacy enjoyed going out to nightspots where celebrities also flocked. “We ran into Jennifer Aniston one night at a club and saw several other stars over the years.” After one evening of entertainment along the Sunset Strip, Stacy and Mahler stopped at a popular nightclub for a late supper. Finding it full, even at midnight, they waited outside and watched a film crew at work on a motion picture. “I’m a real film buff,” said Stacy, “with the ability to spot actors, and I saw Dabney Coleman there. I pointed him out to David, and he went over and started talking to him between shots. David said, ‘We’re having a party’ and invited Coleman to come. I’m sure that he wondered, ‘Who the heck is this guy?’ But David introduced the actor to me like they had been friends forever. We finally go inside and get a table. David is trying to be Mr. Big Shot. I seriously doubted that Dabney Coleman knew him. He certainly never showed up at the party.”
Mahler’s audacity probably worked well for him. His aggressive sociability resulted in a growing network of clients for his commodities trading business. But one new business contact came about as the result of a weird coincidence.
Midway through 2005, porn actor Michael Conoscenti had been arrested on a narcotics charge. He needed a lawyer and told a good pal about his problems. The buddy, known as “Captain Bob,” said he had a very good friend who might be able to help, and he gave him the telephone number of a man named Dave. Conoscenti called and spoke to Dave, but he could only get informal advice from him, since Dave had no license to provide legal representation in the state. But the two men chatted about Michael’s problems. This led to more telephone conversations over the next twelve months, but no face-to-face meeting.
Michael happened to have a friend who lived on Cole Crest Drive in the Hollywood Hills. In mid-2006, he stayed with his buddy a few nights and heard mention of a lawyer who lived next door named Dave. The two men strolled over to Dave’s place and were invited inside. In the ensuing conversation, Michael learned this was the same Dave he had been talking to by telephone over the past year. The timing could not have been more propitious for David Mahler.
With his underlying ambitions to find a wedge into the world of celebrity and film, plus a long-standing interest in strippers, fate had stepped in to lend a hand. Through Michael Conoscenti, Mahler met Sheldon Weinberg, and he could see a golden opportunity. This guy had the power to open doors that many men, and more than a few women, could do nothing but fantasize about. He knew countless wannabe actresses willing to do anything for a chance to be in movies. He could provide access to being on-site in houses where porn stars performed for the cameras. On top of that, acquaintance with Weinberg might lead to lucrative financial deals. This all appealed to David Mahler.
The new friendship also struck Weinberg as fortunate. He had long been interested in expanding his investments, and considered Mahler’s knowledge of stock, commodities, and financial dealings worthwhile. The two men immediately bonded.
The companionship with Sheldon Weinberg and Michael Conoscenti led to entanglements for David Mahler with two women who liked showing it all. One of them would become his “fiancée.”
Conoscenti, as Mahler’s new buddy, escorted him to a strip club in the San Fernando Valley. His interest focused on a performer who fit Mahler’s preference for diminutive blue-eyed blondes. He couldn’t take his eyes off Cheryl “Cherry” Lane (pseudonym) who stood five-four, weighed one hundred pounds, and hadn’t yet reached her twentieth birthday. She described herself as an “exotic dancer.” Mahler engaged her in conversations between performances, and perhaps, although there is no evidence to prove it, paid for a private lap dance. She agreed to a subsequent date.
Later speaking of David, Cheryl said the initial relationship was “professional,” meaning he provided her with legal services. But it quickly developed into something closer and more intimate. By early summer 2006, she moved into the Cole Crest house with him.
Mahler’s horoscope had suggested he would have an immoderate taste for the pleasures of life, be domineering, unfaithful in love, violent, brutal, and irascible. Cheryl wouldn’t argue with those predictions. She got her first hints of it when he began showing up in the club where she worked and provoking loud arguments with her, which resulted in the management firing her. During the ten months she shared bed and body with Mahler, Cheryl fell into some legal trouble. He provided money for her bail, facilitating her release from jail while awaiting trial. She later asserted that she paid him back in full, but he claimed she still owed him $7,000. The disputed debt became an ongoing contention between them.
As the live-in relationship deteriorated, Cheryl complained, David’s anger turned physical.
His fury erupted not only against Cheryl, but also at Stacy, who had not given up on Mahler despite his philandering. She came down from Visalia on February 2, 2007. Not surprisingly, a dispute flared up. Stacy reached for the phone, but David grabbed it away from her. He threw it across the room and then violently pushed her into the bathroom. As she collapsed, her head struck the sink, and she landed on the marble bathtub, which inflicted a deep bruise on her lower back.
Appalled, Stacy used her cell phone to call the police. David Mahler was arrested and charged with domestic violence.
Stacy went back to Visalia, and David seemed determined to take out his wrath on Cheryl. During arguments he would push her around. In March, while they yelled at each other, she placed her hand on his open laptop computer. He slammed it into a partially closed position, trapping her fingers and causing a deep laceration. It would leave a noticeable scar.
She did not notify the police, but she moved out soon afterward.
If the loss of Cheryl Lane hurt David Mahler’s feelings, he didn’t grieve very long. Michael Conoscenti had met a curvaceous young woman, Kitty Carter (pseudonym), introduced her into acting in porn films, and brought her to Calabasas to live with him. As Mahler’s interactions with Weinberg increased, he met Kitty and was immediately enchanted. It helped when Kitty and Michael had a violent argument, in which he bit her on the wrist. Any remaining conjugal relationship between them came to an explosive end. David grabbed the opportunity. He would eventually say, “I was really in love with Kitty, other than being that porn star stuff. I met her through my client, Mr. Weinberg. He was having these film shoots in his house. She came over for that, and became my paramour.”
Referring to Kitty as his “wife,” Mahler acknowledged that no marriage had taken place but said he bought her an engagement ring. “You know, we talked about getting married. I said, ‘Will you quit the profession?’ And she just—she couldn’t. And then the whole thing got to be too much for me.”
Stacy Tipton knew of the affairs with Cheryl and Kitty, plus numerous dalliances with other women, but she did not allow his skirt chasing to sever their ties. “He told me about them. Sometimes I would call him, and a party would be going on, and I knew there were hookers there. I would ask, ‘Is that another one?’ I think he had so many that he didn’t even know most of their names.”
Without admitting any jealousy, Stacy said, “I didn’t like a lot of the stuff that went on. I knew all about the stripper and the porn actress.” With a disgusted expression on her face, Stacy added, “I met them. I’d walk into his place and they would be there. Oh, heck yeah. The pictures I have in my mind about that are not pleasant ones.”
Sex between Stacy and David became increasingly problematical. “He could be a little kinky at times.” Some of his desires repulsed her, but she tried to accommodate him as much as her personal values would allow. She later complained, “I’m more of a romantic. Lovemaking is personal, and I didn’t like all of that other stuff.”
Silently pondering those recollections, Stacy spoke up again and divulged more. “One time he and I went to the porn industry’s convention in Las Vegas. I think it was called the Porn-fest. Those women, Kitty and Cheryl, along with one of their boyfriends, were actually staying in our room with us! I thought, ‘This is really weird.’” Stacy’s expression made it clear that the memory disgusted her. She quickly dropped the subject.
The stripper’s youthfulness seemed to bother Stacy more than the girl’s cohabitation with Mahler. “Cheryl, she was the young one, only about eighteen or nineteen. Oh, my God! She was born about the time I graduated from high school! I have seen pictures of her online, too—stuff she later sent me by e-mail. I didn’t really like her. One time I kicked her out of the Cole Crest house. Not really kicked, but just told her, ‘Get out of here.’ I was visiting and couldn’t believe she would be there at the same time.”
Another element of Mahler’s declining existence didn’t escape Stacy’s attention. At the mention of a need for cocaine, she snapped, “Oh yeah, that was him.”
The convoluted affairs and fractured relationships with Stacy, Cheryl, and Kitty were not David Mahler’s only source of female companionship, some of which he chose to pay for directly.
In his tangled network of contacts, he enjoyed a long-term acquaintance with Atticus King (pseudonym), who described himself as an independent contractor–taxi driver. Others called him a pimp. A rotund African American, King stood five-nine and weighed in excess of 250 pounds. Whether unable to find conventional clothing that would fit his rounded body, or just by preference, King’s garish apparel drew attention like a flashing neon sign. His uniform of choice generally consisted of jumpsuits, either brilliant white or glowing red.
Speaking in colorful terms that any self-respecting rapper would envy, King’s vocabulary and creative expressions entertained everyone who knew him.
He and Mahler met in 2002, and they formed a bond of professional convenience, along with a personal friendship. If anyone asked King, he would deny providing prostitutes to Mahler. In his version, Mahler would contact the women, and then call King to go pick them up in his dark green-and-white minivan, emblazoned with a TAXI sign, and bring them to Cole Crest or to a hotel. This took place “many times,” and the driver would usually hang around until Mahler and his “date” completed their liaison.
Atticus also insisted that he didn’t have anything to do with drugs, but he observed that his cohort Mahler used methamphetamine and cocaine liberally. It worried Atticus when he saw this pattern substantially increase in the first few months of 2007. In addition to the narcotics, David Mahler appeared to be consuming a great deal of alcohol.
According to other people in Mahler’s social circle, he was not a pleasant drunk. Some men turn romantic under the influence of drugs and booze; others are hilarious; some turn angry and belligerent. For David, getting high seemed to light a fire of fury inside him, and a tendency to turn violent.
Still, David Mahler could exercise the same charm Stacy Tipton had seen in the early years of their relationship. And when Michael Conoscenti introduced him to yet another woman, Kristin Baldwin, he put on his best face.
The meeting took place before 2006 ended, and prior to an upheaval among Conoscenti, Weinberg, and Mahler.
Kristin happened to be visiting Conoscenti in Calabasas at the same time Mahler showed up for a business conference with Sheldon Weinberg. Conoscenti handled the introductions. David Mahler made the usual flirtatious comments, standard fare when meeting an attractive woman. Kristi Baldwin, gregarious as always, smiled and returned the banter. Neither of them made any overtures for a future hookup.
CHAPTER 9
“ARE YOU MY FRIEND?”
Kristin Baldwin’s periodic presence in Sheldon Weinberg’s home, while visiting Michael Conoscenti over several months, kept her in David Mahler’s field of vision. Eventually a traffic ticket she received emboldened Mahler to invite Kristin on a date. She complained about the citation in the presence of the group at Weinberg’s Calabasas home. Mahler overheard, and offered to help her out with the problem.
His timing couldn’t have been better. Kristin’s relationship with an abusive man had ended earlier; so with no regular male partner in her life, she was open to companionship. Grateful for Mahler’s offer of help, she saw no harm in dating him. He drove a new indigo blue Jaguar convertible, wore expensive clothing, seemed to have plenty of money, and behaved pleasantly enough in her presence. She accepted his offer to join him for dinner.
While their friendship grew closer, the roots of business dealings between David Mahler and Sheldon Weinberg also increased in strength. But those same roots undermined and cracked the sidewalk Michael Conoscenti treaded in connection to his film partnership with Weinberg. In Conoscenti’s view, Mahler, Weinberg, and the actress known as Kitty had been gradually levering him from the business. He couldn’t help but believe they had formed a conspiracy to ease him out and take it over completely. Infuriated, he confronted Weinberg, spelled out his suspicions in explicit terms, and moved out of the Calabasas quarters.
At about the same time, Sheldon Weinberg invited Kristin Baldwin to move in. She had been helping out with a few chores while visiting with Michael. Weinberg not only appreciated Kristin’s skills, but he liked her upbeat personality. He offered her free living quarters, plus a modest salary, in exchange for doing a few clerical duties, helping to keep the place neat, and perhaps cooking a few meals. Kristin agreed and brought her things to the guest room in the first week of March.
The initial dinner session with David had been pleasant enough for Kristin and she saw him more in the next few weeks. A couple of his tenants at Cole Crest would later say they thought she spent a few nights with Mahler, but no one could be certain. It is doubtful that Kristin felt any serious attachment to him, but, as many women might, she probably liked t
he two Jaguars he kept in the Cole Crest garage, his money, and the glamorous ambience of his lifestyle.
With both Kristin and Kitty living in the Calabasas estate, they began having conversations. Inevitably the subject of David Mahler came up. At that point, Kitty still considered herself his fiancée. But when she learned that he had been dating Kristin, all hell broke loose for David.
An insider to the ongoing saga of Mahler’s love affairs revealed that he and Kitty “routinely engaged each other in vicious physical fights that continued after the dating relationship ended.” In David Mahler’s estimation, the romance tapered off to a deep, enduring friendship. Kitty moved out of the Calabasas residence. Her friendship with Kristin remained intact. In April, when Kristin sometimes grew bored with the environment at the Weinberg house, she would spend a few nights with Kitty in an apartment about eight miles from Calabasas.
Romantic turbulence and business problems increasingly led to stress for David Mahler, and he amped up his dependence on chemical stimulants. If Kristin knew about David’s growing drug usage, it did not prevent her from socializing with him. She had known countless people in Westlake Village, Newport Beach, and in Hawaii who felt no compunctions about smoking, snorting, or injecting everything from pot to meth. Thus Kristin drew no judgmental conclusions about people who enjoyed getting high. To her, Mahler was just a guy who could afford expensive entertainment. Several other people close to him grew worried about his expanding drug and alcohol consumption. Sheldon Weinberg would say that Mahler was “definitely” a drug user, “meth or coke, I think.” Drugs may have caused an explosive incident that came in April.