Family Seeks to Stop Plea Bargain for Bar Bouncer : Crime: Prosecutors plan to offer Eric Charles Meyer a plea of voluntary manslaughter instead of murder. The family of the man killed at Pancho & Wong’s in Redondo Beach will try to thwart the plan.

The family of a man who was fatally injured last month in an altercation with a bouncer in a Redondo Beach bar has launched a campaign against a plea bargain to be offered on Tuesday to the bouncer, who has been charged with murder.

Eric Charles Meyer, who pleaded not guilty to the murder charge, will be offered a plea to voluntary manslaughter, which would carry a term of 16 years, making him eligible for parole in about half that time. The maximum penalty on a second-degree murder charge is 15 years to life.

“There has got to be some way the justice system can help us,” said Betsie Alvey of Harbor City, whose husband, Michael, suffered massive head injuries when Meyer ejected him from Pancho & Wong’s bar Sept. 1.

Alvey died at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center three days after the run-in without regaining consciousness. Meyer, 32, of Torrance, had been scheduled for a preliminary hearing Oct. 15.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Gilbert Garcetti, who heads the Torrance branch, said prosecutors have instead decided to allow Meyer--whose criminal record includes convictions for robbery and making telephone threats--to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

“He will be admitting his prior conviction and he has agreed to plea to the high term, which is 16 years,” Garcetti said.

Garcetti said the charge of voluntary manslaughter is appropriate for the case.

“We cannot prove second-degree murder. The facts do not establish second-degree murder in our opinion,” Garcetti said. “You have a bouncer who perhaps is a little too quick to take action and maybe a little too strong and aggressive dragging someone else, basically in a choke hold, and then throwing him down two or three stairs, and he hits his head on one of the stairs.

“I cannot believe that conduct rises to the level of murder.”

Redondo Beach Police Lt. John Nelson agreed.

“This is a manslaughter case, and I think we all knew it going in,” said Nelson, who supervises the detectives assigned to Alvey’s slaying.

“You have to look at the realities of cases and realize where they’re going to go.”

Meyer’s public defender, Lourdes Cawdile, could not be reached for comment.

Alvey’s parents, Patricia and David Alvey of Carson, said they, too, had been notified of the offer and were as outraged as Alvey’s widow. With his death, Michael Alvey left behind three small children, they noted. The family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in civil court against Meyer and Pancho & Wong’s.

Patricia Alvey said she received a phone call Thursday evening from the Redondo Beach police detective investigating the case, notifying her “that he was basically going to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter, and that the murder (charge) would be out.”

“I was speechless. I broke down and cried,” she said. “This just isn’t enough for a death. I’m a parent. I have lost my son.”

Alvey’s mother said she first tried to call the state legislators in her district but was told they could not help because the matter was a judicial one and it would be illegal for them to intervene.

So, she said, she will gather signatures for a petition to present to the judge, asking that Meyer be forced to face first-degree murder charges.

“If I have to stand in front of a market and stop people, I will,” Patricia Alvey said. “Everybody knows about this incident. I’m sure I’ll get a lot of signatures.”

Betsie Alvey concurred.

“A man that was 25 years old and had three kids doesn’t deserve to have somebody get away with eight years, good behavior,” she said. “No amount of years will bring him back, but at least it gives me and my family some feeling that he’s going to pay for what he’s done.”