ATTORNEYS SEEK TO OUST HUNT JUDGE : DEFENSE CONTENDS JURIST IMPROPERLY REFUSED RECUSAL.

Byline: Janet Gilmore Daily News Staff Writer

Lawyers for former Billionaire Boys Club leader Joe Hunt filed legal papers Wednesday seeking to replace the judge currently presiding over a hearing to determine whether Hunt should get a new murder trial.

Hunt contends that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephen Czuleger improperly refused to recuse himself from the case. Hunt wants all proceedings halted until another judge decides if Czuleger should be replaced because of alleged bias and a possible conflict of interest.

Since Monday, Hunt's attorneys have been calling witnesses to testify that the man Hunt was convicted of killing in 1984, Beverly Hills con man Ron Levin, had the skills and motive to fake his own death. Witnesses also have testified to seeing Levin after his 1984 killing.

Czuleger has presided over these hearings but Hunt's attorneys doubt that he has an open mind.

Hunt's attorneys note in the writ filed in the state Court of Appeal that the judge has referred to the victim's disappearance as a ``murder'' and that the judge unfairly decided to narrowly focus the issues to be addressed in the hearing.

Attorney Rowan Klein contends that the judge also was involved in a case against Levin when he was a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office many years ago.

Czuleger issued a declaration earlier stating that he did not prosecute a case against Levin and that claims of a conflict of interest and bias are unfounded. He indicated that Hunt's attorneys made such claims because certain rulings did not go their way.

Nevertheless the writ cites a section from the Code of Civil Procedure that reads ``No judge who refuses to recuse himself or herself shall pass upon his or her own disqualification . . . the question of disqualification shall be heard and determined by another judge . . .''