Local News in Brief : Pastor Gets Probation for 1985 Wife-Beating

The pastor of a Burbank church was sentenced Wednesday to a one-year suspended sentence and three years’ probation for beating his wife.

Pasadena Superior Court Judge Coleman Swart also ordered the Rev. James Allen Lewis, 41, of Burbank, pastor of the New Life Church, to provide restitution to Tyroze Vizier, from whom he is divorced, for legal and medical expenses caused by the Dec. 6, 1985, beating.

Lewis originally pleaded not guilty to three counts of corporal injury to a spouse but later pleaded no contest to one count in a plea bargain, Deputy Dist. Atty. Edmund Millen Lutes Jr. said. “I think it’s a just and equitable sentence because, as the judge pointed out, Lewis is held in high esteem in his church and community,” Lutes said.

The maximum sentence Lewis could have received was four years in state prison, Lutes said.