Ex-Convict Is Indicted for Having Gun

A San Diego ex-convict was indicted Thursday under a new federal law that carries the possibility of life in prison without parole, the third ex-convict local prosecutors have charged under the law in the past two weeks.

Under a law aimed at “career criminals,” Gary Bogdanoff, 51, who has been convicted of five violent felonies in San Diego and Los Angeles in the past 20 years, was charged in a single-count indictment with being a repeat felon in possession of a gun, Assistant U.S. Atty. Larry Burns said.

If convicted, Bogdanoff faces at least 15 years in prison and up to the no-parole life term under the 1986 law, the Armed Career Criminals Act, Burns said.

Enamored of the law, and the possibility of lengthy prison sentences for repeat offenders, federal prosecutors expect to “make aggressive use” of it, he said.

Burns was the prosecutor last year in a case that resulted in a no-parole life term for Warren James Bland, convicted of being a repeat felon carrying a gun, the first time the sentence had been imposed in California.

Bland’s conviction was overturned July 11 by a federal appeals court for reasons unrelated to the sentence.

Prosecutors intend to bring Bland to trial again on the gun charge, Burns said.

Bogdanoff was being sought for a parole violation March 30 when officers arrested him at a downtown San Diego hotel and found a .357 magnum revolver in his waistband, the indictment alleges.

No date has been set for Bogdanoff’s arraignment, Burns said. Bogdanoff is being held in state custody pending a parole revocation hearing, Burns said.

Bogdanoff’s most recent conviction was in March, 1985, in San Diego Superior Court for assault with great bodily force, Burns said.

Since 1967, Bogdanoff also has been convicted of voluntary manslaughter, burglary, armed robbery and assaulting a police officer, Burns said.