Athlete Guilty of Battery in North County

In a case that left jurors surprised at the violent life of some North County teen-agers, a college-bound former star athlete at San Dieguito High School was convicted Thursday of misdemeanor battery.

“The witnesses’ recall and consciousness of the details of fights was something out of a James Bond novel,” said jury foreman Ron Ranson, a theater arts professor at UC San Diego. “They could remember the blows and the kicking and how to position themselves and keep their heads down, an amazing awareness of violence.”

‘All So Surprising’

Ranson, 46, a resident of Leucadia, added, “What made it all so surprising was that this was not some everyday beating in South Los Angeles, but an incident with good kids from good families.”

The Vista Municipal Court jury convicted Erik Heipt, 19, of joining five of his friends in beating and kicking Craig Beveridge, 20, a Palomar College student, in a fight shortly after midnight April 26 in the parking lot of a Vons market in La Costa.

Heipt, a June graduate of San Dieguito High who has enrolled at the University of Colorado, could be sentenced to up to six months in jail and fined $2,000. Sentencing is set for Sept. 24.

Heipt is also charged with two counts of felony battery for allegedly kicking two students in the head at a party May 30 in Olivenhain. A preliminary hearing in that case is set for Oct. 13.

In all, nine current or former athletes at San Dieguito High are charged in three ganglike, brutal beatings in North County. Seven of the nine are charged in Juvenile Court.

Juror William Levinson said jurors were not without sympathy for Heipt or skepticism about the version of events presented by Beveridge. Several votes were taken during five hours of deliberation over two days before a unanimous verdict was reached.

“Neither side had a monopoly on the truth in this thing, but there was more credibility on the prosecution side,” said Levinson, 65, a retired newspaper reporter and editor from New York now living in La Costa and writing a humor column for the La Costan newspaper.

“Nobody felt happy about bringing back this verdict because it (the April 26 beating) was a tawdry episode all the way around, for everybody involved,” Levinson said.

Another juror, Jim Pierce, 35, and a graduate of San Dieguito High, said the testimony of a Vons employee proved crucial because it provided an account from someone other than the combatants.

“The case just shows how San Dieguito has changed for the worse,” he said.

Like other jurors, Levinson said he was taken aback by the witnesses’ matter-of-fact description of violent events.

“In the description of the knifing at Vista High, witnesses remembered the knife going in and the fight being between lettermen and non-lettermen,” Levinson said. “Their awareness of things like that gives me a feeling they are rather familiar with it, and that’s not a good feeling.”

Heipt denied beating or kicking Beveridge. He said he tried to pull Beveridge away from his friend and now co-defendant Jeff Penacho, 18, after a dispute that began from adjoining cars on La Costa Avenue.

He said he particularly wanted to help Penacho because he had been unable to help Penacho avoid being stabbed when a concert at Vista High erupted into fighting a month earlier.

Heipt left Wednesday for Boulder, Colo., to begin the fall semester as a business major. His father is attorney John Dennis Heipt, a vice president of Science Applications International Corp., a San Diego-based defense contractor and think tank involved in “Star Wars” research.

Defense attorney Thomas Warwick said he hopes the judge, in sentencing Heipt, does not ruin his academic career by sending him to jail.

“Look at Mr. Heipt--a 3.2 grade-point average, a fine scholar, captain of the wrestling team, everyone at school says he is a fine individual, a fine family behind him,” Warwick said. “There is no doubt he will make a significant contribution to society.

“Obviously, the judge has to punish him, but I just hope that punishment does not end what promises to be a productive life. This is one of the best young people I’ve ever come into contact with.”

End to Violence Wanted

Deputy Dist. Atty. Karen Tripp, who handled the prosecution with Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Brian Michaels, said she hopes the conviction will end the escalating violence among North County coastal teen-agers.

“The conviction is significant because this group of defendants, including Heipt, have been involved in multiple incidents,” Tripp said. “We think we’re on the road to stopping these incidents before there are more beatings and more victims.”

She agreed that mention of the stabbing was an eye-opener for jurors.

“It made jurors aware we’re not just dealing with one incident, but a pattern of behavior,” Tripp said. “It took real courage for our witnesses to come forward.”

Tripp said the district attorney’s office will wait to review a Probation Department report before deciding whether to recommend a jail sentence. A jail sentence, however, is uncommon for first-time offenders in misdemeanor battery cases.

The defense has sought to portray the muscular Beveridge, a weight-lifting enthusiast, as the aggressor in the fight. Judge Michael Harris refused to allow testimony from a defense witness saying that Beveridge had a reputation for having a violent temper.

Make It ‘All a Little Easier’

Beveridge, who cried while testifying about the beating, said the verdict “will make this all a little easier to live with.”

“Now, Mr. Heipt has to go through some of the pain I’ve gone through,” Beveridge said. “I just hope he changes and doesn’t hurt anybody else.”

Beveridge’s girlfriend, Holly Mayeux, 17, a senior at San Dieguito, said, “I just hope it shows all those guys they can’t hurt people and laugh and brag about it.”

Mayeux testified she was knocked down twice while trying to help Beveridge.

Beveridge’s father, mother and older brother attended the trial daily. “I think this trial has laid the groundwork for ending the fighting,” said Shirley Beveridge, the victim’s mother. “As a community, we can’t tolerate this. Gang fights only get worse, not better.”