The State - News from Oct. 27, 1986

A San Jose district attorney’s son who was initially ordered to serve a two-year burglary sentence in a county jail must instead serve the time at a state prison, an appeals court ruled. William Michael Himmelsbach, 25, son of Santa Clara County Dist. Atty. Leo Himmelsbach, was sentenced in February to county jail by a Superior Court judge who ruled the young man would be singled out for harm by other inmates who might recognize his father’s name. The judge also said that Himmelsbach was “blonde and slender which would make him the target of sexual abuse in state prison.” The appeals court said that the defense did not present any facts to substantiate those claims. Himmelsbach and another man pleaded guilty to charges in a 1984 break-in at an auto repair shop. While the prosecutor’s son was given the two years in county jail, plus five years’ probation, his co-defendant received three years in state prison.