Jesse James Hollywood

Jesse James Hollywood
Photograph taken in 2005.
Born	Jesse James Hollywood (1980-01-28) January 28, 1980 (age 37) West Hills, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Residence	Currently housed at Calipatria State Prison, Calipatria, Imperial County, California.
Other names	Michael Costa Giroux and Sean Michaels
Known for	Kidnapping and ordering the murder of Nicholas Markowitz
Children	John Paul Hollywood-Reis

Jesse James Hollywood (born January 28, 1980) is an American former drug dealer who kidnapped and ordered the murder of Nicholas Markowitz in 2000. He was arrested in 2005 and is serving life without parole at Calipatria State Prison in Calipatria, California.

Hollywood was born to Jack and Laurie Hollywood and was raised in West Hills, Los Angeles. As a child he was involved in junior baseball league. His father Jack moved the family to Colorado in an attempt to run a restaurant in the mid-1990s, but returned to West Hills in 1995.

Hollywood attended El Camino Real High School where he played baseball.

During his adolescent years he started power lifting and ingesting muscle supplements to help build up his muscle mass. His coach would later describe him as an "emotional kid" who was later expelled for erupting into a violent fit of rage at one of his teachers near the end of his sophomore year. He transferred to Calabasas High School where he played on the varsity baseball team until he injured his back and leg, forcing him to give up the sport.

Investigators believe he started selling illegal drugs a year before he ordered the murder of Nicholas Markowitz. He recruited his former high school friends William Skidmore, Brian Affronti, Benjamin Markowitz, and Jesse Rugge to dispense narcotics for him and build up a profitable illicit drug operation. He had been a close friend of Benjamin Markowitz, playing on the same junior baseball league and would visit the same Malibu, California gymnasium to exercise together.

At the time of Ryan Hoyt's arrest, Hollywood fled the country through Canada and went to Brazil with help from his father Jack Hollywood, his godfather Richard Dispenza (who was unaware he was a fugitive at the time), and his girlfriend at the time. Law enforcement agencies and the Markowitz family offered a reward of US$30,000 for information leading to Hollywood's capture, this was later raised to US$50,000. Hollywood lived on Copacabana Beach where he assumed the identity of "Michael Costa Giroux" and claimed to be a native of Rio de Janeiro, and later on, of Saquarema.