Doctor’s No-Contest Molestation Plea Tossed Out; Lawyer Misinformed Him

The no-contest plea of a Santa Monica surgeon to a misdemeanor child molesting charge in Ventura County was overturned by a federal appeals court Wednesday because his lawyer wrongly told him that the judge had promised a 90-day sentence.

Instead of the sentence he was expecting, Dr. John Chizen was given the maximum term, 180 days in jail. But the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said Chizen, now 53, was entitled to withdraw his plea and go to trial because he had relied on his lawyer’s misrepresentation.

As an alternative, the court suggested giving Chizen the 90-day sentence he thought he had plea-bargained for. That idea was endorsed by Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Schwartz of Ventura County, who said it would be preferable to a trial five years after the 1981 incident.

Schwartz added, however, that he feels Chizen’s plea was voluntary, and his office has not decided whether to appeal the ruling.

Chizen, who is still practicing medicine, and his lawyer were both out of town Wednesday and unavailable for comment, their offices said.

Schwartz said Chizen was accused of fondling a 16-year-old boy after picking him up in a bowling alley and taking him to a motel in Ojai. He pleaded no contest after signing a standard form saying the plea was voluntary and the sentence was solely up to the judge.

However, the court said, Chizen later maintained that his lawyer, Sheldon Andelson, had told him that a plea-bargain had been reached and Municipal Judge John Hunter would sentence him to no more than 90 days.

After Hunter imposed the 180-day sentence, Chizen sought to withdraw his plea. He has stayed out of jail during unsuccessful appeals to state courts and to U.S. District Judge David Williams of Los Angeles, who ruled that the plea was voluntary.

But a three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled unanimously that Chizen did not enter the plea voluntarily because he had been misled about the consequences by an apparently honest but mistaken statement by his lawyer.

“Chizen was entitled to rely on Andelson’s representation that a sentence agreement had been struck,” the judges said.

They added that his reliance on his lawyer’s statement, despite the form he had signed, was shown by the fact that he moved to withdraw his plea as soon as he learned that his sentence was not the one he thought he had bargained for.

The unsigned decision was issued by Judges J. Blaine Anderson, Harry Pregerson and Stephen Reinhardt.

The appeals court ruled that Chizen had been misled about the consequences by an apparently honest but mistaken statement by his lawyer.