Local News in Brief : Robber Gets Maximum Sentence of 24 Years

Aconvicted robber with a lengthy criminal background was sentenced Wednesday to 24 years in prison by a Van Nuys Superior Court judge who called the man a menace to the community.

Vincent Harris, 25, of Los Angeles was convicted last month of six charges, including robbery, assault and possession of a firearm by a felon. The charges stem from two incidents in March, 1987.

In the first, a Sherman Oaks apartment manager and her husband were robbed at gunpoint on March 12, 1987, after Harris approached her about an apartment, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lloyd M. Nash said.

In the second incident 12 days later, Harris held a gun to a Beverly Hills woman and her elderly mother-in-law and robbed them in the parking garage of their residence.

Harris was arrested as he fled the garage. At the time of the first robbery, he had been free from prison only three weeks and was on parole, Nash said. Harris had served six years of a nine-year sentence for robbery, kidnaping and rape.

“What we have here is a very dangerous individual,” Nash said in urging Judge C. Bernard Kaufman to impose the maximum sentence of 24 years. “He had just gotten out of San Quentin and immediately . . . resumed a criminal life style.”

“God only knows when and if you’ll stop being a menace to the community,” Kaufman said.

Harris will be eligible for parole in 12 years.