Minor trial off pending plea

The murder trial of the woman accused of killing veteran music exec Charlie Minor had been expected to get under way today in L.A. Superior Court. But a last minute plea-bargain has shelved Suzette McClure’s murder trial, during which her attorney was planning to expose the seedy side of the record promotion business.

Barring any complications with the deal, McClure is expected to be sentenced on May 19, thus avoiding a trial and closing the case after more than two years.

McClure allegedly shot Minor — a successful, well-liked record promotion exec and former Giant Records prexy — to death on March 19, 1995, after an argument in Minor’s Malibu home. She has been held without bail since her arrest just hours after the Sunday morning killing (Daily Variety, March 20, 1995).

Attorney Vera Bradford had planned to argue that McClure was sucked into the fast-lane lifestyle of the music biz as part of a defense strategy that would have offered insight into McClure’s state of mind at the time of the killing, a move designed to make her client sympathetic to the court.

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Bradford was also expected to emphasize the at-times unorthodox methods used by promotion execs in attempting to secure airplay for their artists’ releases. She had planned to disclose how “strippers and prostitutes are used as bargaining chips in the music business,” among her “bombshell” revelations.

The killing of Minor sent shockwaves through the music industry. Not since the death of Creative Artists Agency booking agent Bobby Brooks in 1990 or concert promoter Bill Graham in 1991 had there been such a huge outpouring of emotion for a music industry exec.

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Martina Birk

Update: 2024-07-03

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