Youth, 18, Faces Trial in 1985 Bank Robbery

An 18-year-old Tarzana youth was ordered Tuesday to stand trial in a 1985 bank holdup and theft of a car at gunpoint, but two other bank-robbery charges were dismissed because of insufficient evidence.

Michael Scott Morrison, who was 16 when the crimes were committed, is scheduled for arraignment Jan. 27 in Van Nuys Superior Court on two counts of armed robbery. The charges stem from the January, 1985, robbery of a teller at the Barclay’s Bank branch in Tarzana and from the May, 1985, theft of a car from the parking lot of a Woodland Hills restaurant.

After a two-day preliminary hearing, however, Van Nuys Municipal Judge James M. Coleman dismissed two other armed-robbery charges relating to the May, 1985, holdup of a teller and a customer at Encino Savings & Loan Assn. in Encino.

The Encino victims were unable to identify Morrison as one of two assailants who wore Halloween masks and police uniforms and stole a total of $3,000.

Morrison’s alleged accomplice, Mark Berman, 18, of Tarzana, pleaded guilty in Sylmar Juvenile Court to armed robbery in August, 1985, and was sentenced to the California Youth Authority. Officials there can release him at any time, but must free him before his 25th birthday.

Although Berman was prosecuted in juvenile court, a judge ruled in October, 1985, that Morrison was unfit for treatment there and should be tried as an adult. His preliminary hearing was delayed more than a year while the defense unsuccessfully appealed the judge’s ruling.

Morrison is free on bail pending trial. If convicted of the two charges, he faces a maximum of nine years, four months in state prison, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Lloyd M. Nash.

Morrison’s father, Allan Eugene Morrison, 52, of Tarzana, faces trial himself on three charges of loan sharking and one charge of attempted extortion in an unrelated case. The senior Morrison is scheduled for trial Feb. 17 in Los Angeles Superior Court.