Convicted Acid Sprayer Draws 6-Year Prison Term

A Van Nuys deliveryman believed responsible for spraying acid on more than 500 cars and seven people over four months last year was sentenced Monday to six years in state prison.

San Fernando Superior Court Judge Robert D. Fratianne imposed the sentence on Thomas Lee Larsen, 37, who pleaded no contest Jan. 12 to five counts of assault with a caustic chemical and one count of felony vandalism for the acid-spraying incidents that occurred from March to July of 1986.

The victims, including a 10-year-old girl, suffered minor injuries and were not hospitalized.

Fratianne, who listened to testimony from two psychologists urging that Larsen be placed in a residential treatment center for a chronic personality disorder, called the case “difficult,” but said the protection of society is paramount.

“He’s had opportunity after opportunity,” Fratianne said.

While Making Deliveries

According to a probation report prepared to help the judge in sentencing, Larsen sprayed people and cars in the San Fernando Valley and in Orange and Ventura counties with sulfuric acid while making deliveries for a Chatsworth hardware company.

In an 18-page letter to the court, Larsen said he went on the acid-spraying spree because he was angry with the judicial system over a probation-violation charge against him that was eventually dismissed.

Larsen was on probation at the time for three counts of lewd contact with a 16-year-old boy.

“In a nutshell, I just wanted to throw as many monkey wrenches into those proverbial wheels as possible. The spraying did that by attracting the attention of many police agencies,” Larsen said in the letter.

Larsen said in the letter that he did not intend to hurt anyone, that the victims only “happened to be in the way.” During the trial, the 10-year-old victim testified that she was sprayed in the eye while she stood between two parked cars, waiting to cross Bryant Street just west of De Soto Avenue.

Larsen was arrested last August in a Valencia parking lot by undercover police who said they saw him leaning out of a passenger-side window, squirting parked cars.