Teen-Age Robber’s Sentencing Delayed After Emotional Plea

After a last-minute effort by defense attorneys Wednesday to head off the sentencing of teen-age bank robber Mark Berman to the California Youth Authority, a Sylmar Juvenile Court judge postponed the formal sentencing until today.

But Judge Burton S. Katz said he intends to send Berman to a state institution rather than a county counseling program requested by the boy’s family.

After hearing two days of testimony from defense witnesses urging that Berman be placed in the county home, which would almost certainly mean a shorter term than state programs, Katz began reciting an order giving the 17-year-old Tarzana youth the stiffer Youth Authority sentence.

Family Cries

As Berman’s mother and two older brothers burst into tears at the news, attorney Paul Geragos, who had characterized Youth Authority centers as “schools of crime,” asked Katz to put off making the formal ruling until a psychiatric study of Berman could be completed.

Katz rejected Geragos’ request, noting that he could order Berman removed from the Youth Authority and placed in a different program at any time. But Geragos and Berman’s father, Martin, who also is acting as an attorney for his son, said Katz would give up jurisdiction over the youth once he is sent to the Youth Authority. They then asked that the sentencing be postponed until the issue could be clarified this morning.

“I postponed the sentencing as a courtesy,” Katz said after the hearing. “I know the courts always retain that tether to pull back and make further judgments in the interests of the minor . . . and I still intend to sentence him to Youth Authority.”

Berman and 17-year-old Michael Morrison, both of Tarzana, were charged with the May 23 armed robbery of $4,000 from Encino Savings & Loan Assn. and the theft of three cars at gunpoint during May.

Berman pleaded guilty to the charges on Aug. 2. Morrison has not entered a plea, and proceedings in his case have been postponed until the state Court of Appeal can rule on Katz’s order closing pretrial hearings.

Geragos had asked Katz to sentence Berman to the Dorothy Kirby Center, a county-operated facility in the City of Commerce that offers extensive individual and family counseling for seriously disturbed youngsters. A probation officer from Kirby testified that the average incarceration there is nine months and that the maximum stay has been two years.

Average Term 18 Months

But Katz argued throughout the two-day sentencing hearing that Berman should be placed instead in the Ventura School for Boys, a Youth Authority facility that offers less counseling and has an average custody time of 18 months. Youth Authority officials could keep Berman in custody until he turns 25.

“At Kirby, he would be mixed with murderers, child molesters, rapists, people that are severely mentally disturbed,” Katz said. “I’m not convinced that he is mentally ill and I don’t think he is so grave that he needs that intensity of treatment.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jerry Bowes said the longer Youth Authority commitment would make sure that Berman “is held accountable” for his crimes.

Geragos, however, argued: “The Youth Authority is the place of last resort” in the juvenile system. “You’ve got nothing but chronic offenders. You’ve got nothing but people who have not been able to adjust after they have been given break after break. They graduate up to Youth Authority. . . . It’s an absolute hell house,” he said.

“Why put him in a cesspool to test his mettle rather than in a better environment where he would have access to counseling?”

Berman’s father, his voice cracking, asked Katz to place the youth at Kirby Center so that the entire family could participate in his rehabilitation.

“As a father, I have to admit a partial failure to be standing here,” he said. “If he goes to Kirby, we will have had all the tools and the wherewithal to continue that kind of therapy afterward.”