Sentence Goes From No Jail Time to 9 Years

A man who Los Angeles County prosecutors claimed was illegally turned loose by a judge in 1985 after pleading guilty to attempted murder in a $1.3-million jewelry robbery and shoot-out was sentenced to nine years in state prison Friday.

Akop Jack Mkrtchyan, 26, of Los Angeles fired 11 shots at a security guard after tying up a jeweler in a downtown office building in the December, 1983, incident. He was sentenced by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronald E. Cappai.

Mkrtchyan was rearrested by police in May, more than a year after failing to turn himself in when former Superior Court Judge Everett E. Ricks Jr. revoked his initial decision to give the defendant a nine-year suspended sentence and five years’ probation.

Action Challenged

The district attorney’s office had filed legal documents to persuade Ricks to overturn the sentencing based on the fact that Ricks had no authority to strike a portion of Mkrtchyan’s plea in which he admitted having used a gun. State law requires judges to send defendants who use guns to prison.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lucienne A. Coleman, who prosecuted the case, expressed satisfaction with Cappai’s sentence. “Justice has finally been served,” she said.

Coleman, who had asked for an 11-year-term for Mkrtchyan, said that if the security guard had not had a second gun in his waistband, he would likely have been murdered.

Mkrtchyan’s attorney, Charles E. Lloyd, asked Cappai to reject a prison sentence, saying the defendant “is a nice man and he has a very nice family.”

“Justice demands sometimes that there not be a rigid adherence to the letter of the law,” Lloyd added.

Served Under Protest

Lloyd, who was Mkrtchyan’s attorney when he received the suspended sentence from Ricks, served under protest Friday after Cappai refused a motion for a change of defense lawyers. Cappai took the action after Mkrtchyan’s choice, Leon Kirakosian, said he needed a week’s delay to prepare for the sentencing. Friday’s session was the fifth in the case since Mkrtchyan was rearrested, and Cappai contended that a further continuance “would cause undue delay in these proceedings.”

The ruling drew an angry protest from Mkrtchyan, a jeweler by trade, who declared: “I’m pushed in a corner. I cannot defend myself. If I cannot have another lawyer, I’m hanging from the air.”

Mkrtchyan, who must serve half of his prison sentence before becoming eligible for release, was granted 696 days credit for time already served after his initial 1983 arrest and his recent rearrest.