Man Guilty of Threatening Prosecutor : Justice: The no-contest plea came during jury selection in the trial of a father who called the district attorney’s office in anger over the way his son’s beating death was handled.

A Newbury Park man was convicted Monday of threatening a deputy district attorney whom he blamed for mishandling the case against two men accused of beating his son to death.

Charles Flores, 48, pleaded no contest to a charge of threatening great bodily injury or death. The plea came as jurors were being chosen Monday for his trial in Ventura County Superior Court on charges that he threatened to kill Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard E. Holmes in a Feb. 6 phone call to the district attorney’s office.

According to transcripts of the conversation, Flores told Deputy Dist. Atty. Ronald C. Janes that he was “laying dead for Holmes” in the Courthouse parking lot, armed with a gun. Flores was angry that Holmes refused to file murder charges against two men accused of beating his son to death outside a party. He further blamed the prosecutor for failing to win severe penalties in their trials on lesser charges.

Judge Charles R. McGrath accepted Flores’ plea, telling him he would likely serve only six months of the maximum possible three-year sentence and be fined only part of the maximum possible $22,700 in fines for the charge. Flores remained free on $25,000 bail pending sentencing on July 10.

Flores said he decided not to defend himself at the trial because “I’m not into it. . . . This is not important to me. The only thing important to me is my son’s death.”

Flores’ son, John, died of brain injuries suffered in a brawl outside a party in Newbury Park on Jan. 20, 1989.

Flores arrived at the party uninvited and was asked to leave three times, but refused, according to court records.

A fight broke out, during which another party-goer grabbed Flores by the hair and slammed his head against the pavement.

The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department arrested Larnell Bush and John Yurek in Flores’ death. Bush was convicted on July 19, 1989, of aggravated assault and sentenced to 90 days in jail and five years probation. A jury acquitted John Yurek on Aug. 30, 1989, of a manslaughter charge.

Holmes said Monday that he never expected Flores to enter the plea that could send him to jail, giving up a chance to air his grievances against the prosecutor in a trial.

“You could have knocked me over with a feather,” Holmes said. “He has tried to make a cause celebre out of this. He has complained to everybody. He complained to the State Bar Assn., which exonerated me. He complained to the U.S. attorney’s office, he complained to the grand jury, he complained to the California attorney general’s office and to the newspapers.”

The attorney general’s office is still investigating Holmes’ handling of John Flores’ death, said Deputy Atty. Gen. Patrick Brooks.

Holmes said Monday that Flores first threatened him in February, 1989, before Yurek’s trial began. “He threatened to shoot me when I filed manslaughter and not murder charges against John Yurek,” Holmes said.

Holmes said he did not prosecute Flores for that incident because “When somebody is under distress such as having lost a child, a grievous loss such as that, you try and cut them some slack.”

However, prosecutors did press charges against Flores after his phone calls to the district attorney’s office on Feb. 6, one of which was taped.

“You people screwed us over bad,” Flores told Janes in the taped conversation. “I’m going to get you out of that office and I don’t give a damn how I have to do it. I don’t care if it’s political, I don’t care if it’s the media, I don’t care if I have to hire someone to blow that building clear to Santa Barbara.”

Flores has filed civil lawsuits against seven people he believes were involved in his son’s death, including Yurek and Bush.