San Diego

A U.S. magistrate ordered Thursday that a deputy district attorney’s son accused in three bank robberies be held without bail.

John Mark Hewicker III, 25, of La Jolla pleaded innocent to the charges in a grand jury indictment handed up Wednesday.

His father, John Hewicker II, specializes in extradition matters for the district attorney’s office. The younger Hewicker’s late grandfather was a San Diego Superior Court judge.

U.S. Magistrate Roger McKee granted the government’s motion to keep Hewicker in the Metropolitan Correctional Center until his trial. McKee said there was a reasonable chance that Hewicker might be a danger to the public if allowed out on bail.

Hewicker pleaded guilty to robbing two banks in East County in 1985, saying that he needed the money to support a cocaine habit. He was originally sentenced to four years in federal prison, but the term was later modified and he served 23 months before being paroled in May, 1987.

Two of the banks he is accused of robbing are in La Jolla and a third is in University City. The robber netted $2,700 from the hold-ups.

Hewicker’s father declined to attend the detention hearing, reportedly because he did not want to give the impression that he was pressuring a court to release his son on bail.