Club Owner Charged In Killing

PORTLAND - After nine years as a suspect in the disappearance of a student who worked at his nightclub, Larry Hurwitz has been charged with aggravated murder.

Hurwitz, the former owner of the Starry Night club, had told police he met two employees, Tim Moreau and George Castagnola, at the club in January 1990 to discuss counterfeit tickets discovered by a concert promoter. Moreau admitted printing the bogus tickets, then drove off, Hurwitz claimed.

Moreau, a former Reed College student, was never seen again.

On Friday, an attorney for Castagnola revealed that Moreau's body lies somewhere on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge.

The attorney, Forrest Rieke, said that Castagnola made incriminating remarks to a former girlfriend who taped the conversation, leading to Castagnola's arrest.

Rieke said that, in exchange for his cooperation in finding Moreau's body, Castagnola will receive a 10-year sentence for pleading guilty to murder.

Norm Frink, chief deputy Multnomah County district attorney, said Friday that cutting a deal with Castagnola solved a case that investigators had failed to crack despite nearly a decade of effort.

"This is a case where we were dead in the water a year ago," Frink said.

Hurwitz was extradited from Vietnam last December on federal income-tax evasion charges. He pleaded guilty in May to the tax charges and was sentenced to one year in prison.

Castagnola was arrested about two months later.