A Reviled Criminal Faces a Third Strike

He earned a place among the nation’s most reviled criminals more than two decades ago when he set his sleeping 6-year-old son on fire in a Buena Park motel room, leaving the boy disfigured.

Under sentencing laws of the day, he served less than seven years in prison. After three more years of around-the-clock guard -- the strictest parole in California history -- Charles Rothenberg was free to live the life of his choosing.

Today, the 64-year-old Rothenberg sits in a San Francisco courtroom, on trial again under the latest in a line of aliases: Charley Charles. His hair is gray. His pate is bald. But his dark eyes and bewildered expression match those of the man whose face was seared into California’s consciousness for doing the unthinkable to the boy he said he loved uncontrollably.

This time, Rothenberg faces 25 years to life under the state’s three-strikes sentencing law. He’s charged with possession of a loaded .38-caliber handgun and dozens of rounds of ammunition -- felony crimes for a felon like him. Meanwhile, he awaits a separate trial for ordering credit cards in the names of former neighbors and acquaintances and cashing checks that were not his.

Prosecutors declined to comment until a jury was selected on their decision to pursue a three-strikes conviction -- in liberal San Francisco, a rare prosecutorial tactic for a nonviolent offense. Jury selection was to resume today.

Even before Rothenberg doused his son David’s bedspread in kerosene in the Buena Park Travelodge, lit a match and fled, the New York waiter had a criminal record in three states stretching back to 1958. There were convictions for armed robbery, forged checks and burglary, and a pending warrant for vandalizing and stealing from a Manhattan restaurant where he had worked.

After the 1983 blaze, Rothenberg openly expressed remorse for lashing out at the boy he said he was afraid of losing after his ex-wife threatened to cut off future visits. David received third-degree burns over 90% of his body and nearly died. His courageous recovery brought him international acclaim.

Now 28, he lives out of state and could not be reached for comment. His mother, who remarried, did not respond to efforts to contact her, but prosecutors note in their filings that Rothenberg’s recent arrest triggered fears that he “will do harm to them.”

After his release from prison in 1990, Charles Rothenberg blended into Bay Area life and tried to erase his old identity. Records show he has used many names: Charles Bocca, Saul David Charles, Peter Vito and Mark Stevens. When he fled after setting David afire, he used the name David Love. Some names, such as Charley Charles, were legal changes.

He married twice. He obtained multiple Social Security cards, and invented a new birth date for driver’s license applications, records show. He bounced from job to job as a waiter, often working with what employers described as dedicated fervor. But in the end, it seems, Charles Rothenberg couldn’t escape himself or his past.

There was a charge of attempted murder in Alameda County -- on which he was acquitted in 1996 as Charles Bocca -- in the shooting of a restaurant patron in the head at a low-rent Oakland hotel. There were flashes of anger at co-workers who crossed him.

Records also show he twice filed police reports against people who had angered him. They also show he later made copies of the reports and altered them to make it appear that police would arrest his adversaries if they did not stop harassing him.

Then there were the tall tales, each time slightly different, about a son he loved dearly but lost to leukemia.

In 2001, San Francisco police learned that the infamous arsonist was in town after linking him to a 911 call claiming that a woman was planning to shoot patrons in a gay bar. Police concluded the tip was bogus. That woman was a co-worker of Rothenberg who had angered him.

The district attorney’s office declined to prosecute him in the case. Nevertheless, police investigators alerted their counterparts in the arson unit.

Within weeks, on June 11, 2001, there was a fire in Rothenberg’s San Francisco apartment building. The fire damaged an apartment door and hallway, but there were no injuries. A grand jury eventually declined to indict him for that blaze, but the investigation led to the pending weapons and fraud cases.

Deputy Public Defender Gabriel Bassan has declined to discuss the current case as it moves through trial. However, court papers include testimonials from acquaintances who described his client as hard-working, honest and religious. Bassan also noted that Rothenberg had not been convicted of any crime since his release from prison in 1990, had worked consistently and was willing to make restitution to fraud victims.

But police, prosecutors’ court filings and former neighbors paint a different picture. In 1997, starting over after his acquittal on attempted murder, Rothenberg changed his name to Charley Charles and moved to the Bush Street apartment in San Francisco.

He worked as a waiter at a series of restaurants: the tourist spot Alioto’s on Fisherman’s Wharf, the House of Prime Rib, the International House of Pancakes. There, he spoke often of a son, saying he had died of leukemia after a long stay at a “special place” for sick children, said then-manager Angel Arellano.

“He was an excellent employee -- very dedicated,” Arellano said.

But Arellano said there were outbursts of temper over work-station disputes. Neighbors grew edgy when they saw Rothenberg listening at doors or checking doorknobs.

“We noticed him on our floor hovering around, acting weird,” said resident Kathy Tompkins. “He was kind of like a little weasel. I once came out of my apartment and saw him at the door down the hall. He didn’t live there. Apparently he was trying to get in. Then he just sort of stood there and acted stupid.”

Rothenberg also frightened two other women in the building by leaving them roses, his trademark smiley-face stickers affixed to the cellophane wrappers. In one case, police allege, the woman found the rose inside her locked apartment. She immediately got the manager to change her lock, but a search warrant of Rothenberg’s room would later yield the key -- to the new lock.

Right after the suspicious fire in 2001, San Francisco arson investigators Darcy Keller and Jeffrey Levin placed Rothenberg under surveillance.

Meanwhile, they learned of complaints against Rothenberg by two women who said he obtained credit cards in their names and withdrew thousands of dollars in cash advances. One was a seamstress he had befriended and assisted with the credit card application, which he later changed to route the card to his post office box. The other was a former neighbor whose mail he intercepted.

Days later, arson investigators noticed that Rothenberg was preparing to move out. They secured a search warrant for his apartment and a newly rented hotel room. In his apartment, which was covered in smiley-face stickers, they found the gun and ammunition, forged documents, the key to the woman’s apartment, and information linking him to the arson target.

Before his move was complete, Rothenberg was arrested.

In an interview with Keller, he admitted to owning the loaded handgun and to defrauding the seamstress and former neighbor.

Investigators later learned that Rothenberg had obtained tax refund checks made out to the woman whose apartment was targeted by the arson. To cash them, he presented false ID in the name of the victim, Sparkle Carlson. When the MoneyMart employee who photographed him asked about the curious name, Levin said, Rothenberg said that it was akin to “A Boy Named Sue.”

Investigators later found Rothenberg’s fingerprints on the canceled checks.

Police thought the link to the arson target was evidence of a motive, arguing that he set the fire at the woman’s door shortly after stealing her refund checks in order to frighten her into moving. Prosecutors initially charged Rothenberg with arson. But delays prompted them to change strategy and bring the charges before a grand jury, which declined to indict on the fire. Still, Levin believes there is evidence enough on the weapons and fraud charges to keep Rothenberg behind bars.

Jurors, however, will feel only the tail of the elephant that is Rothenberg’s life. They will not know that the weapons case is a third-strike case. They will probably not know the details of his previous convictions -- although prosecutors will introduce the fact that he has previous felonies for attempted murder and arson with great bodily injury.

In fact, the only jurors who will be seated on the panel are those who say that the names Charley Charles, Charles Bocca and Charles Rothenberg do not ring a bell.