Ex-Harvard Student Gets 10 Years in O.C. Robberies

A former Harvard student from La Habra convicted of committing a series of armed robberies back in Orange County during vacation breaks from his studies was sentenced Friday to serve 10 years and 4 months in prison.

Jose Luis Razo Jr., 22, convicted in Santa Ana in June of six robberies and an attempted escape from police, had been a star athlete and scholar at Servite High School in Anaheim, leading to scholarship offers from several colleges. Before that he had been an altar boy, president of a Boys’ Club service group and once won an outstanding-youth award in La Habra.

Razo also showed an interest in others in his hometown barrio and later wrote a college paper expressing concern that so many Latinos from his hometown barrio had ended up in prison.

“He was the symbol of success for his community, school, church, and especially his family,” probation officer Kathleen S. Didier wrote to the court. “For some reason, he chose to sabotage his success.”

Superior Court Judge Jean H. Rheinheimer had wide latitude in deciding Razo’s penalty for his conviction for six robberies and an attempted escape from police--a minimum of two years and a maximum of 15 years and 4 months.

The judge said she decided on a sentence closer to the maximum because there were multiple victims and the crimes showed premeditation and planning, not just “temporary aberrant misconduct.”

Looking directly at Razo, the judge told him: “The court has searched its conscience and has done its best to impose a sentence that is just and is fair. This is not a happy sentencing for this court.”

Razo showed no reaction during the sentencing hearing. His family, sitting directly behind him, remained relatively calm, although a girlfriend and his mother had tears in their eyes as they left the courtroom.

Small Businesses Hit

The robberies occurred between Dec. 26, 1985, and June 29, 1987, and the targets were a variety of small businesses, usually fast-food restaurants. Razo was arrested a month after the last robbery, when he told police that he might have information for them about a murder in Santa Ana. During that interview, he ended up confessing to a dozen armed robberies in which he wore a ski mask.

He later recanted his confession, claiming that he had been under the influence of the drug PCP when he talked with La Habra police. In his drug-crazed state, he said, he had thought of himself as the robber.

But the court permitted most of Razo’s confession to go before the jury. Jurors said later that it was the key evidence against him because he showed a remarkable ability to recall details of the crimes.

The jurors discounted Razo’s subsequent testimony that he learned the details from the real robber while he was doing a school paper about crime in Latino barrios. “He’s a liar,” one of them said.

The jury did acquit Razo on four of the 10 robberies in the charges against him. However, several jurors said they believed that he had committed those four crimes but gave him the benefit of the doubt because of conflicts in the evidence.

Thrown Out of Court

In two of the four robbery charges for which he was acquitted, the jurors did not hear that part of Razo’s confession. That portion had been thrown out by the court because it came after Razo told police that he wanted to see a lawyer. In a third robbery, the victim said she did not believe that Razo was the bandit who had held her up. In a fourth, a Harvard classmate gave Razo an alibi, saying he was still in school at the time.

In interviews with The Times after his arrest, Razo said he turned to crime because he needed money. He also said he was uncomfortable at Harvard, which has few Latino students.

“I’m a home boy now,” Razo said. “At Harvard I didn’t fit. . . . I was confused.”

Razo entered his freshman year at Harvard in September, 1985. The first robbery occurred at the Driftwood Dairy in La Habra when Razo was home on a holiday break two months later.

While at Harvard, Razo kept above-average grades and played linebacker on the university football team.

But probation officer Didier, after an interview with Razo, wrote that the defendant began running with college students who had more money than he and that this could have been the motive for turning to robberies.

“He apparently had quite strong feelings with regard to his cultural heritage; however, he allowed himself to be influenced by the more negative aspects of his surroundings,” she wrote.

In several of the robberies, the victims testified that their attacker told that them he would kill them if anything went wrong.

“Don’t hit any buttons; I don’t want to kill you. But I will if the police get here,” one victim was told.

Razo, under orders from the judge, named the person he contended had actually committed the robberies. His defense collapsed when prosecutors showed that that person had been in jail when several of the robberies occurred.

Razo attorney John D. Barnett then tried to convince jurors that Razo might have been trying to cover up for several different robbers, partly out of fear of retribution.

At Friday’s sentencing hearing, Barnett pleaded with the court for a lenient sentence.

Blessed and Cursed

“He is blessed and cursed with a very agile mind, a very complex mind; he feels things very deeply,” Barnett told the court.

Barnett cited numerous good deeds by Razo as a youngster: Raising money for cancer victims, caring for the handicapped and the elderly, his concern for fellow Latinos in the barrio.

“He wanted to make this community a better place to live,” Barnett told the court. “He is an extraordinary and unusual young man . . . with limitless potential.”

Barnett later declined to relate Razo’s comments in reaction to the judge’s sentencing decision. Several members of Razo’s family, including his parents, also refused to answer reporters’ questions.

“I don’t think my son is innocent, I know he is,” was the only comment Jose Luis Razo Sr. made outside the courtroom.

In a long letter to the court pleading for leniency, Razo’s mother, Guadalupe Razo, said she believes that her son is covering up for others.

“I remember he would sit for long periods of time as a youngster and apparently marvel at the notion that Jesus let himself be crucified in order to save others,” the mother wrote. “I firmly believe he is thriving on that notion today.”

Mother Pleaded

She pleaded with the court: “Why allow prison men to siphon his youthful vigor and all the love he has for the world?”

Attached to her letter to the court were a list of more than 100 signatures of friends who supported her request.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Ravi Mehta, who had asked for the maximum sentence, argued that the sentence of 10 years and 4 months was the least Razo deserved.

“He earned his way to Harvard; now he has earned his way to prison,” Mehta told the court.

Mehta said outside the courtroom Friday that he did not believe Razo deserved leniency because of his past good deeds.

“Someone asked me if I felt bad about asking for the maximum. I said, ‘For this guy? No way.’ This wasn’t a weekend shopping spree.”

One victim told the probation officer that ever since the robbery, she has been afraid to go alone into the storeroom, where the robber first confronted her.

Friday’s sentencing hearing lasted several hours, mainly for other motions before the court. The defense wanted to subpoena Mehta’s county personnel records, claiming that it may be a legitimate issue whether Razo had a legal trial. Mehta at the time of the trial was on leave from the district attorney’s office and working for County Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez. But because he had begun the case before the trial, he retained that assignment.

After lengthy argument, Rheinheimer quickly dismissed it as an irrelevant issue.

The sentencing was also delayed by a controversy over whether to permit television cameras and audio recording by radio reporters. Such media coverage is rarely denied. But after an in-chambers hearing with the lawyers, Rheinheimer announced that she would not permit anything but newspaper cameras. When television news reporters asked time to bring their lawyers into court, however, Razo’s attorneys asked for a second in-chambers meeting with the judge.

When they emerged, a second time, the judge reversed her order and permitted the cameras.

The defense had requested a new trial for Razo based on lack of evidence. Rheinheimer denied the motion. She told Razo: “I think they (the jurors) hoped above hope that they could rely on some evidence that someone besides you had done these crimes.”

The judge also told Razo, “I hope you use the (prison) time constructively.”

Razo could be out of prison in 3 1/2 years, his lawyers said.

He has already served nearly two years in Orange County Jail but was released shortly before the trial when a Latino film maker interested in his story was able to raise the $150,000 bail. He was taken back into custody on the day of his conviction.