Murderer Is Sentenced to Youth Authority; Victim’s Kin Outraged : Crime: A judge reluctantly prevents a state prison term for the 17-year-old convicted of killing his roommate.

Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald set aside his personal views Friday and sentenced a 17-year-old Huntington Beach youth to the California Youth Authority instead of state prison for shooting to death his roommate almost two years ago.

Brian Applegate, who turns 18 this month, will be freed from custody when he turns 25. He was convicted by a jury four months ago of first-degree murder in the Jan. 8, 1989, shooting of Paul Londono, 25, whose body was burned beyond recognition and left on a beach.

The sentence outraged the victim’s family, who considered the punishment far too lenient. Fitzgerald told The Times later that he agreed with them.

“This kid deserves a much stiffer sentence for what he did,” Fitzgerald said. “It was a vicious, vicious killing. . . . I understand how the (Londono) family feels.”

The judge said he was limited, though, by a unanimous recommendation in a Youth Authority diagnostic study that Applegate should serve his entire sentence in a juvenile facility. Applegate was 16 at the time of the murder, but he was tried as an adult.

Applegate testified that he had been physically and sexually abused by Londono and could never have escaped him unless he killed him. Dr. A.S. Atesalp, a Youth Authority psychologist who participated in the diagnostic study, wrote that “killing his tormentor was the only solution he thought was left to him, subject to repeated degradations, humiliation, and physical abuse.”

Fitzgerald, who technically sentenced Applegate to 27 years to life, had two other options. He could have sent Applegate to state prison, which would have assured no release before he was in his early 30s, or he could have ordered a prison term in which Applegate would serve the first part of his sentence at a juvenile facility until he was 25.

The judge said that if he ignored the study’s recommendation, the appellate courts would reverse his decision on the grounds that he abused his discretion.

“If I could have found some way to get around it, I would have sent him to prison,” Fitzgerald said. “But with a unanimous recommendation, I just couldn’t ignore what the Youth Authority had to say.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Patrick H. Donahue said the jury rejected Applegate’s molestation claims by returning the first-degree murder verdict. But Deputy Public Defender Carol Lavacot said the diagnostic study makes it clear that her client told the truth about being sexually molested.

“It would have been a tragedy to send Brian to prison,” she said. “He’s already come a long way through counseling. I think he’s really going to shine when he gets out.”

Meanwhile, the victim’s family claims that the Applegate case has made a mockery of the criminal justice system. Through heavy sobs, Londono’s mother, Jenny Londono, said after the sentencing: “Murderers go free in this county.”

The victim’s sister, Martha Pagano, called the judicial system “ludicrous.”

“We went through all the headache of getting him tried as an adult, and now he is going to serve his time with little boys,” she said. “What good did it do to bring it to adult court?”

The prosecutor told the family: “I’m not going to blast the judge for what he did. I told the jury not to consider punishment because that was the judge’s job. It would be hypocritical for me now to say anything about his decision.”

Donahue, who had asked for a state prison sentence, said he was concerned that Applegate cannot be rehabilitated by age 25--”I really wonder if this is the kind of guy you take a chance on.”

Lavacot said she had felt so sorry for the victim’s mother after the preliminary hearing that she had bought a book on grief by C.S. Lewis, gift-wrapped it, and gave it to the woman in an attempt to help her. Friday in court, Londono angrily tossed it back to her, still wrapped.

“I know how she feels, but they are blinded about who Paul Londono really was,” Lavacot said.

Though Lavacot claims that her client is not gay, Londono and Applegate met at a gay bar in Florida where Applegate worked. They moved to Southern California together a few months before the shooting.

The evidence showed that Applegate shot Londono while Londono slept in bed at their apartment. Then he hauled the body to the beach in a sleeping bag, where he ignited it with gasoline. The body remained unidentified, although police had a missing person’s report from the Londono family.

Authorities were unaware that Applegate had killed anyone until a few months later, when his new roommates noticed bloodstains on some bedding. Eventually confronted by police, Applegate confessed to the shooting and identified the burned body as Londono’s.