Deputy D.A.’s Son Held After S & L Is Robbed; Guilty of Earlier Heists

A deputy district attorney’s son, who has already served 23 months in federal prison for bank robbery, has been arrested on suspicion of robbing a University City savings and loan of $256.

John Mark Hewicker III, 25, is being held without bail at the Metropolitan Correctional Center pending a hearing next Thursday. Hewicker, who was arraigned Wednesday, is accused of using a gun during a Dec. 16 holdup of Flagship Federal Savings & Loan.

Hewicker served 23 months of a three-year sentence after admitting in 1985 that he had robbed eight banks in San Diego and La Mesa. In those robberies, no weapon was displayed, a factor that prompted federal prosecutors to accept a guilty plea to two felony counts while dropping six others.

A probation report prepared in 1985 said Hewicker had grown up under an “authoritarian” and “impersonal” father, Deputy Dist. Atty. John Hewicker II, who is an extradition specialist and former FBI agent.

Drug, Alcohol Addictions

His defense attorney, Ramon Castro, said the younger Hewicker suffered from cocaine and alcohol addiction and has been unable to live up to the family tradition of success. His grandfather, the late John Hewicker, was a Superior Court judge for 21 years and was known for the severity of the sentences he handed down.

At the time of sentencing, Castro told U. S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving that Hewicker grew up in a family “where mistakes and errors were not condoned or allowed . . . the family was unable to accept anything but success.”

Castro, who is again representing Hewicker, said he has only spoken to him briefly and cannot say whether the same problems that led to his earlier robbery rampage might again have pushed him over the edge.

As the son of a law enforcement official, Hewicker spent part of his sentence in solitary confinement to protect him from other inmates. He served time in federal prisons in Florida, Minnesota and North Carolina before being paroled in May, 1987.

Since then he has held a variety of jobs and lately had been working for a water-softener firm and living in University City, Castro said. He is still serving a five-year probation. The current charges are bank robbery, which carries a maximum 20-year sentence, and armed robbery, which carries a maximum 25-year sentence.

According to an FBI affidavit, a man matching Hewicker’s description robbed City National Bank in La Jolla of $1,600 on Dec. 21, but no charges have been filed in that robbery.

The gun and getaway car described in the affidavit are similar to those used in the Dec. 16 stickup, the affidavit said.