EX-HEAD OF BILLIONAIRE BOYS CLUB BLAMES LIFE SENTENCE ON LAWYER.

Byline: Janet Gilmore Daily News Staff Writer

Former Billionaire Boys Club leader Joe Hunt said Wednesday that his one-time lawyer's indifference and inattentiveness led to his 1987 murder conviction for the death of a man he believes is still alive.

Testifying in his bid for a new trial, Hunt told a judge that his former attorney, Arthur Barens, took little notice when he suggested ways to bolster their case. And Hunt accused Barens of rejecting the truth about the origins of a ``to do'' list that prosecutors argued was a blueprint for murder.

``Neither by my orders or individually did I kill Ron Levin,'' Hunt said Wednesday. ``I told (Barens) as a matter of personal knowledge I couldn't say where Ron Levin was . . . but it was my feeling he had fled to avoid prosecution.''

Hunt is serving a life prison term for murder in the 1987 murder of Levin, a Beverly Hills con man who disappeared in June 1984 after conning Hunt with a commodities scam. Levin's body has not been found.

An appellate court granted Hunt the evidentiary hearing that is now under way in downtown Los Angeles.

In the past two weeks, Hunt's lawyers have called witnesses who say they have seen Levin after 1984 and that Levin had the means and the motive for faking his own death to escape criminal allegations.

Hunt, who will return to the stand today, was called as a witness to bolster claims that he should be granted a new trial because of ineffective assistance of counsel.

The charismatic former BBC leader acted as his own attorney in his 1992 trial for the murder of businessman Hedayat Eslaminia, and he persuaded eight jurors to vote for acquittal. The case was ultimately dismissed.

Barens, Hunt's former lawyer, testified earlier this week that Hunt told him he was involved in Levin's death but that Hunt changed that story and other stories during their conversations.

But Hunt testified that Barens had lied on the witness stand and at other times.

He also accused his former attorney of cutting their meetings short to meet with girlfriends and others, entering into secret deals that posed a conflict of interest and failing to understand complicated matters.

And in one instance, Hunt suggested that Barens rejected the truth about a ``to do'' list found in Levin's home in favor of an explanation he thought would be more marketable to jurors.

The seven-page list, in Hunt's handwriting, included such items as, ``Tape mouth, close blinds, handcuff - put gloves on . . . kill dog.''

Hunt said he told Barens that he and other BBC members drafted the list to scare Levin into settling his financial accounts with them.

But Hunt said that Barens thought other BBC members would contradict that account and that jurors would more likely believe that the paperwork might be from a script since Levin worked on scripts.

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Photo: Joe Hunt, who was convicted of the murder of Ron Lev in in 1987, testified in a hearing Wednesday to get a new trial.

Phil McCarten/Daily News