Witness in Burglary Case Sounds Alarm Over Familiar Ring

The courtroom scene had an familiar ring to it Tuesday for a Calabasas woman called as a witness in a burglary case.

Burglary victim Sharon Cooper was asked from the witness stand if she could identify any of the stolen loot in the courtroom.

Cooper said yes, and pointed to a gold-and-pearl pin on a table in front of prosecutor Burton J. Schneirow that had goods recovered by police. But then she craned around Schneirow and pointed toward the spectators in Calabasas Municipal Court for the preliminary hearing.

“The ring on that lady’s finger over there is mine,” Cooper told the astonished courtroom.

After hurried consultation between lawyers, spectator Geraldine Serpico voluntarily surrendered the ring she was wearing to a bailiff. It was entered as evidence.

Serpico was identified by court officials as the girlfriend of defendant Wells Lee Bond, 37, of Woodland Hills. Bond and Julio Freeman, 42, of Sherman Oaks face charges stemming from several break-ins, including the Oct. 2 burglary of $50,000 worth of jewelry and other property from Cooper’s Calabasas Park home.

“I designed that ring myself 12 years ago,” Cooper, a real estate agent, said later. “The woman wearing it was sitting right across the aisle from me in the courtroom. I started to shake when I saw it.”

Freeman is charged with burglary, and Bond with receiving stolen goods from Cooper’s home. Serpico is not a defendant.

The men were arrested Oct. 10 after leading police on a chase through Chatsworth. Investigators said Freeman and Bond may have used walkie-talkies, police scanners and various disguises in burglaries at scores of San Fernando Valley homes.

Municipal Court Commissioner Richard Brand ordered the defendants bound over to Van Nuys Superior Court for March 18 arraignment and pleas in the Cooper case.

Schneirow said Tuesday’s experience was a first for him. “I’ve been doing this since 1969. I felt like Perry Mason,” he said.