Judge Reduces Actor’s Sentence By a Year

A Van Nuys Superior Court judge has reduced by one year the sentence of an actor charged with felony drunk driving during a crash that injured a Studio City man and his two sons.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Richard G. Kolostian, who sentenced Kenneth Charles Swofford to 28 months in June, reduced the sentence by one year Wednesday, saying it was a hardship on Swofford’s family and that he had erred in making the initial sentence so stiff.

Swofford’s attorney, John Yzurdiaga, had requested the sentence reduction.

Swofford, 55, who played a high school principal in the television show “Fame,” which aired in syndication until 1987, had pleaded no contest at an earlier hearing to drunk-driving charges stemming from the Dec. 11 accident.

Swofford was driving west on Ventura Boulevard when his car swerved into oncoming traffic and crashed head-on into a car driven by George Charous, 37, of Studio City. Charous suffered a broken leg and fractured spine. His son, Paul, 11, suffered a skull fracture, and his other son, Stephen, 6, suffered a broken leg.

At the time of the initial sentencing, Kolostian noted that the actor had no prior history of arrests or convictions, but the judge said he was going to give Swofford a stiff sentence because “unless a first-time drunk driver is sentenced to jail time, we won’t have any effect on drunk drivers.”

Under terms of a plea bargain, Kolostian could have given Swofford a maximum sentence of four years.

Kolostian also ordered Swofford to pay $9,600 in restitution to the Charouses.