Man Jailed as ‘Career Criminal’ Is Free : Number of People Rallied to Support of County Resident

Kevin J. Sherbondy, a San Clemente resident who drew widespread support in his appeal of an “unjustly harsh” 15-year sentence for having an antique gun while on probation, is a free man once more.

“One of the first things I did was come home, turn on my stereo and have a drink of beer,” said Sherbondy, 25, a handsome, dark-haired ex-surfer who was prosecuted as California’s first “career criminal.”

Sherbondy was released Thursday after spending about 2 1/2 years in federal prison and nearly a week after a federal judge placed him on 5 years’ probation.

Left With Grandparents

Sherbondy left the Metropolitan Federal Detention Center in Los Angeles in a new pin-striped suit and drove home with Art and Ethel Sherbondy of San Clemente, the grandparents who raised him.

“When I got to the sidewalk, I started walking faster and faster, just in case they found something to keep me in there,” he said Friday.

Ordinarily, a conviction for gun possession would not bring a mandatory, 15-year federal prison sentence. But U.S. District Judge Harry L. Hupp imposed the sentence 2 years ago after federal prosecutors in Los Angeles pointed out that Sherbondy was eligible for the 15-year sentence--without parole--under a revised 1986 federal-sentencing law that became effective on the day of his arrest.

In an attempt to keep criminals off the streets, Congress passed legislation requiring a minimum 15-year term for any person possessing a firearm who previously had been convicted of three violent crimes or three serious drug offenses.

Convicted 3 Times

Sherbondy, who had been convicted three times, twice for armed robbery and once for threatening a witness, was prosecuted under the statute.

“He’s not a career criminal. He’s only 23 years old (at the time of his 1986 conviction). There’s no way he could be a career criminal,” said Dannie M. Martin, a fellow inmate in the federal prison at Lompoc, in a segment of the television program “Evening Magazine,” which aired March 17.

In fact, it was Martin, a convicted bank robber, that Sherbondy now credits with helping him win his freedom.

Martin, who heard about Sherbondy’s case, introduced himself in prison and wrote a convincing article about Sherbondy’s plight that was published more than a year ago in the San Francisco Chronicle.

“After the article was published, I started getting 15 letters a day from people wanting to say hello or help me,” Sherbondy said.

Martin’s story stirred interest among some Bay Area residents who said that they did not believe in sending a young man to jail for 15 years for owning an antique gun.

Began an Action Fund

One of those residents, Edward LeClair, began a Sherbondy Action Assn. that attracted a list of prominent people, including several judges, and began raising money for an appeal.

“Ironically, a lot of my support has been from people in the Bay Area. I didn’t even get any mail from anybody from Orange County,” Sherbondy said.

With $10,000, the association hired Dennis P. Riordan, a prominent San Francisco attorney who called the 15-year sentence “a terrible injustice.”

One of three brothers, Sherbondy said his life was always a struggle. He never knew his father, and his mother died when he was 8. He refers to his grandparents who raised him as Mom and Dad.

When Sherbondy was 19, he was convicted of selling cocaine and robbing a suspected drug dealer at gunpoint. He was placed on probation, but less than a month later he robbed another suspected drug dealer at gunpoint and received a 6-year prison sentence. He also was found guilty in 1984 of possessing a weapon in prison.

Then in August, 1986, he was charged with trying to intimidate a witness in an acquaintance’s drug case and pleaded guilty in exchange for probation.

His new troubles began, according to his attorneys, when he split up with his girlfriend. She called the police soon afterward, telling them that he was on probation and informing them about a gun he kept on his bedpost.

Authorities searched the condominium where he was living and found the gun Nov. 17, 1986. That was the day that the new federal “career criminal” law took effect.

Rather ‘Forget It’

Of the ex-girlfriend who turned him in to authorities and told them about the gun, Sherbondy now says: “I believe that thinking about her is just wasteful energy. It’s too negative. I’d just as soon forget it.”

But it’s too soon to consider future plans, he said. The former Saddleback College student who made the dean’s honor list said he will spend the next few weeks “kind of taking it easy.”

News of his release brought happy smiles to the people in the office of Huntington Beach attorney Barry A. Bisson, who also fought for Sherbondy’s freedom, according to Michele Monroe, Bisson’s legal assistant.

“Out of many criminal appeals that I’ve seen here in this office, only three that I know of have cried out for justice. And of the three, only Mr. Sherbondy’s was successful,” Monroe said.