Lawyers Argue Over Sentencing for Maas

Though the most serious, race-related charges against Earl M. Maas have been wiped from the slate, the prosecution and defense still cannot agree on what sort of picture to draw of the Normal Heights electrician.

A federal judge Monday interrupted Maas’ sentencing on misdemeanor tax charges after a defense lawyer called the case “Mickey Mouse” and a prosecutor described Maas as “a psychiatrist’s field day.”

Maas, 51, spent 110 days in jail earlier this year, charged with helping his son, Michael Eugene Maas, cover up a racial hate campaign that drove a black family from their neighborhood.

In arguing to keep the elder Maas jailed awaiting trial, federal prosecutors repeatedly portrayed him as the head of a household that brought drugs, shootings and fear into a quiet residential area.

In September, however, felony charges of witness intimidation and obstruction of justice against Maas suddenly were dropped. He was allowed to plead guilty to the two minor tax counts--failing to file a tax return in 1985 and making a false claim on his 1984 return.

On Monday, as U.S. District Judge Earl B. Gilliam prepared to sentence Maas, defense attorney Michael Pancer described him as an upstanding businessman trapped in a “nightmare” of false accusations.

But Assistant U.S. Atty. Lynne Lasry branded Maas as a man who had “made a very bad impression” on law enforcement agencies but was “clever about not getting caught.”

Their disagreement was over whether Maas should be placed on probation--the maximum penalty he faced under terms of a plea bargain.

Pancer argued that the charges against Maas were minimal. His 1985 tax return was late because he was in jail on the race-related charges when the filing was due, Pancer said. When his 1984 return was corrected, Pancer added, Maas owed the government less than on the falsified return.

“All his life he’s been hard-working, earned a good income and had no problems with the law,” Pancer said, suggesting there was no reason to place Maas on probation.

Maas asked, too, that the whole matter simply be put to rest.

“I don’t feel as though the punishment fits the crime for me to serve any time on probation,” he told Gilliam. “The time I served is behind me, and I would like this whole thing behind me.”

But Lasry challenged the portrayal of Maas as the innocent victim of a prosecutorial error. She called him “a psychiatrist’s field day” who took credit for other people’s good deeds.

Arguing for a five-year probation, she said Maas had an inflammatory relationship with his sons and their friends, and that he needed monitoring. She argued, too, that the dismissal of the race-related charges was “not an exoneration of Mr. Maas.”

As at the earlier hearings on Maas’ pretrial release, Lasry took note of several shootings at Maas’ Normal Heights home. She said it was important, as terms of his probation, that Maas be barred from communicating with people who had been witnesses against him, and that he be prohibited from possessing guns.

Pancer lashed out at Lasry’s recounting of Maas’ background.

“This man from Day One, your Honor, has been unfairly smeared,” he complained to Gilliam. “It seems to me to be totally unfair to keep rehashing these old charges that have nothing to do with Earl Maas.”

Gilliam finally cut off the colloquy. He gave Maas three weeks to return property to his son’s former girlfriend--one of the key witnesses against the Maases--and delayed sentencing until Dec. 8 to see if Earl Maas will follow his directive.

Michael Maas will be sentenced by Gilliam a week later. He pleaded guilty in October to three misdemeanor civil rights violations, a felony charge of threatening his ex-girlfriend and drug-related charges. Already imprisoned for an attack on the woman, the younger Maas faces 10 additional years in prison under terms of a plea bargain.

Michael Maas, 28, admitted placing a burning cross on his black neighbors’ lawn, setting fire to their pickup truck and placing a racist hate letter in their mailbox.