2 PCP, Firearms Dealers Get Prison Terms

Two men who had offered to sell undercover federal agents 15 pounds of powerful explosives and eight ounces of liquid PCP in the parking lot of Taft High School in Woodland Hills were sentenced to prison terms Monday.

U. S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall sentenced Edward Steven Pajak, 37, of Tujunga to five years in federal prison on one count each of conspiracy to transfer firearms, possession of unregistered firearms and conspiracy to distribute PCP in the Dec. 10, 1986, incident.

John Robert Sargent, 32, of Simi Valley was sentenced to eight years in federal prison on the same counts.

The two could have been sentenced to a maximum of 55 years each, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Carolyn Turchin, who had asked the judge for “a more significant sentence.”

The sentencing came after a plea bargain with prosecutors in which the government agreed, in exchange for guilty pleas from Pajak and Sargent, to dismiss one count each of possession with intent to distribute PCP and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug-trafficking offense. The government also dismissed a count against Sargent of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Sargent had a previous felony conviction for armed robbery, Turchin said.

Marshall sentenced a third defendant, Danny Roman, of Lone Pine, Calif., on May 4 to five years of probation and 300 hours of community service because “he was only peripherally involved,” Assistant U.S. Atty. David A. Katz said. Roman arranged for the undercover agents to meet Pajak and Sargent at a Denny’s restaurant across the street from Taft High School on Ventura Boulevard.

After meeting federal agents at the restaurant, Sargent and Pajak led them across the street to a school faculty parking lot where they had parked a car holding the explosives, nine electric blasting caps, two silencer-equipped pistols and the PCP, Katz said.

Authorities closed off a section of Ventura Boulevard for more than two hours while a bomb squad removed the explosives.

Donald F. Ewald, who admitted masterminding the scheme to sell the explosives to bail a former business partner out of jail, is scheduled to be sentenced July 27.