Habitual Criminal Given Life Sentence After Life of Crime

A Los Angeles man who repeatedly has been set free from prison over the last three decades, only to continue to kidnap, torture and sexually assault women and children in Southern California, was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison with no chance of parole.

The sentence, handed down in a federal courtroom in San Diego, marks the first time in California, and only the fourth in the nation, that the U. S. government has imposed its harshest punishment possible under the Armed Career Criminal Act.

The defendant, Warren James Bland, 53, addressed the court for 45 minutes during the sentencing hearing, at times appearing almost grandfatherly as he described himself as a former alcoholic who has turned his life around and deserves another chance before he is shut away behind bars.

‘Worst Possible Light’

“But it is painfully obvious that I have been cast in the worst possible light,” he said, “and that the court could not view me but as some three-headed monster.”

U. S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving listened patiently to Bland’s protestations. But he was unmoved.

“You have earned the maximum sentence,” the judge said. “Society demands and deserves the maximum protection, and I intend to sentence you to give society the maximum protection.

“You will never, ever harm another woman or child again.”

Bland was convicted this year under the 3-year-old Armed Career Criminal Act, which allows repeat offenders arrested while in possession of a firearm to be sentenced to life without parole.

In Bland’s case, he has been released from prison five times over the last three decades. Five times, he has been rearrested for terrorizing women and children in a series of sexual assaults in Southern California.

He most recently was turned loose three years ago. But, in 1987, he was wounded and arrested by San Diego police and charged in the torture and murder of 7-year-old Phoebe Ho of South Pasadena, whose body was found in Riverside County. The Riverside district attorney has said he will seek the death penalty when Bland is tried for that crime. Bland has been implicated as the prime suspect in the slayings of a Wendy Osborn, 14, of Placentia in Orange County and 81-year-old Ruth M. Ost of San Diego.

Assistant U. S. Atty. Larry Burns cautioned the judge Wednesday not to be fooled by the bespectacled, gray-haired Bland, who stood before the court in a dark blue, double-breasted suit.

‘Looks Fairly Harmless’

“He looks fairly harmless, and yet that’s what makes him so dangerous,” Burns said.

Burns noted that Bland has spent 23 of the last 28 years in prison, has repeatedly tortured and molested new victims whenever he has been released, and is incapable of denying the urge to harm others.

“His track record is one of abject failure,” Burns said. “Prison is the place for Mr. Bland.”

As for Bland, he reviewed his life in a nearly hourlong address to the judge, and he described his efforts over the years to rehabilitate himself, both behind bars and in society. Often, his voice cracked. He would pause, regain his composure and then resume reading from pages of handwritten notes on a thick, yellow legal pad.

“I am just a simple man, not as articulate as the learned counsel here,” he said, pointing to the attorneys flanking his sides.

He said he was born in Los Angeles County, joined the Cub Scouts, the Order of DeMolay and the Junior Chamber of Commerce and learned to enjoy classical music and the theater, along with motorcycle and motorboat racing.

“My father passed away in 1952,” he said, “just when I needed him most.” His mother died later in a hit-and-run accident, he said, and he was escorted from prison to visit her on her deathbed, and once again to attend her funeral.

He said he was married and divorced three times and fathered one daughter. He eventually learned seven trades while in prison, including wastewater treatment and business administration, Bland said. He took pride in claiming credit for introducing macrame into one penitentiary.

He laid much of the blame for his troubles on alcohol, saying he was a “functioning drunk” for years and that most of his crimes were alcohol-related. In 1982, he said, he finally swore off the bottle.

‘A Lot of Guilt’

“I still feel a lot of guilt for what I have done in my past life,” he said. “But I ask, When does a person stop paying for his past crimes?”

The judge pointed out that Bland’s last arrest came while he was in possession of a stolen handgun, at a time when he had taken an assumed name and written an ex-cellmate, saying: “I have a number of two-man operations lined up.”

“Your record clearly and unequivocally establishes that, outside of prison, you are a vicious, incorrigible predator,” Irving said.

The judge sized up the defendant before him, and then told Bland that it was his very grandfather-like appearance that enabled him to lure children and women into his grasp, there to be sexually molested and tortured.

The judge said: “You are particularly dangerous because you are a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”