Olds Convicted of Murder Attempt Against Galanter

Mark Allen Olds, the neighbor who slashed City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter’s throat during a nighttime burglary of her Venice home, was convicted Monday of attempted murder.

But a Superior Court jury acquitted Olds, 28, on a more serious charge of premeditated attempted murder for which he could have received life in prison. The maximum sentence Olds now may receive is 12 years’ imprisonment.

“I am very relieved that this long ordeal is past,” said Galanter, 46, in a statement issued from her City Hall office. “While I will always carry the physical and emotional scars from this incident, I look forward to finally putting this behind me and getting on with my life.”

Galanter testified against Olds at both his preliminary hearing and during the trial.

At the time of the May 6 attack, Galanter was running against incumbent City Council President Pat Russell in a hotly contested race that pitted Galanter’s slow-growth philosophy against Russell’s pro-development record.

Galanter won the race while still hospitalized. She spent 56 days in the hospital recovering from severe wounds to an artery in her neck and her vocal cords.

The injuries left her with limited use of some neck and throat muscles and a permanently husky voice. She also must undergo more surgery.

The verdict was a victory for Olds’ attorney, James M. Epstein, who apparently convinced the jury that Olds acted in panic.

“Everyone (jurors) agreed this was a horrendous crime,” said jury foreman Daniel Dolensky, 37, a Bellflower pediatrician. “I bought every bit of her (Galanter’s) testimony. Everyone felt that at the time he committed the act, since the knife wounds were inflicted on her neck, that he did intend to kill her.”

But, Dolensky said, during three hours of deliberation Friday the jurors carefully read and reread instructions from Superior Court Judge Raymond Mireles that defined premeditation.

“There just wasn’t enough evidence to determine that the act was indeed premeditated,” Dolensky said.

It took only two or three votes to decide the verdict, Dolensky said. Two jurors originally favored the premeditation charge but changed their minds. The final verdict was guilty of second degree attempted murder and burglary.

Epstein, who volunteered to represent Olds for no fee, said prosecutors turned down an offer before the trial for Olds to plead guilty to exactly the same charges on which he was convicted.

“I thought the D.A. was trying to railroad (Olds) . . . for political reasons,” Epstein said. He called the trial “$60,000 in wasted taxpayers’ money.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Dale Davidson said he still believes he made the right decision in seeking a conviction on the stronger charge.

“I can’t imagine anybody in their right mind thinking he shouldn’t have been tried on (attempted) first-degree murder,” Davidson said.

Olds, a former gang member, had lived across the street from Galanter for 2 1/2 years when he broke into her home May 6 and attacked her.

Three days later, Olds surrendered to police and admitted slashing her with a knife, which he said he later threw into the ocean. Police also found Olds’ fingerprints in Galanter’s home.

During the trial, Olds testified that he had smoked PCP-laced cigarettes at a party the day and night before the attack. He said he returned home after midnight and took a dose of cocaine hours before the 5 a.m. break-in of Galanter’s home.

He said he entered the house solely because he needed money and was looking for valuables. However, Olds said, Galanter awakened and began screaming. Olds said he stabbed at a “shadow” in his panic to make the screams stop and then fled.

But Galanter offered a different version of events. She testified to the horror of first being awakened in the dark by an intruder and held down on her bed while a knife was thrust twice into her neck. Only afterward did she set off the alarm and begin screaming, she said.

Davidson, the prosecutor, argued that Olds’ possession of a knife and Galanter’s testimony that she was attacked before she could scream meant the crime was premeditated.

Dolensky said the jurors discussed the conflicting versions of what happened but concluded that the sequence of Galanter’s screams ultimately didn’t matter because Olds acted without premeditation.

It was a “rash impulse,” juror Margo Feist of Hawthorne said.

Olds is scheduled to be sentenced by Mireles on Dec. 14.

Jurors reached their verdict Friday afternoon after five days of testimony. The verdict was sealed until Monday morning.

Three jurors said that over the weekend they experienced incidents of harassment that Mireles referred to the Sheriff’s Department to determine if they are related to the case.

In one instance, a rag was stuffed into the gasoline tank of a woman juror’s car and set on fire. The car sustained some damage.

A second juror said a man in a car sat in front of her house and kept staring into the windows.

Dolensky said he was walking on a street when a car, “speeding recklessly,” came toward him. The car ultimately sped off after grazing a utility box.

Mireles told The Times that it was “kind of doubtful” that the incidents were related to the Olds case. But, he added, in his 15 years as a lawyer and a judge he never had heard of a similar series of “unusual occurrences.”