Judge Gives a Sentence of 10 Years to Brando : Crime: Marlon Brando, speaking tearfully for the defense, testifies that he and his ex-wife failed their son.

The eldest son of acting legend Marlon Brando was sentenced to 10 years in state prison Thursday for the shooting death of his half-sister’s Tahitian lover.

Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Robert Thomas imposed the sentence on Christian Brando at the end of a three-day hearing that included an hour of rambling, emotional testimony from his famous father.

“The only thing everyone can agree on is that this was a tragic situation for everyone it touched,” Thomas said in announcing the 32-year-old welder’s punishment.

Without looking at his father in the front row, Brando bowed his head as he was led from the courtroom by sheriff’s deputies.

Just before sentencing, he had turned toward the family of Dag Drollet, his victim, and Drollet’s 5-year-old daughter.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “. . . If I could trade places with Dag, I would. I’m prepared for the consequences.”

Prosecutors had sought a maximum sentence of 16 years in prison for Brando, while the defense hoped that the judge would follow the county Probation Department’s recommendation of three years plus additional time for using a gun.

But Judge Thomas chose a middle course. He imposed a penalty of six years for voluntary manslaughter and an extra four years for the use of a gun.

With credit for time already served and good behavior, Brando will be eligible for parole in about 4 1/2 years. His lawyer, Robert Shapiro, said he could probably be placed in a work-release program or halfway house in four years.

The sentencing brought to a close one of the most publicized criminal cases in Los Angeles history. Journalists and photographers from around the world crowded into the courtroom and pursued Marlon Brando, who eluded them by leaving the courthouse through an exit normally used for defendants in custody.

Wearing a black turtleneck and wrap-around sunglasses, the actor ignored questions being shouted at him by reporters as he climbed into a chauffeured black Mercedes that glided off toward his hilltop home in Beverly Hills. It was at the secluded estate that Drollet, 26, was shot to death last May 16.

On Thursday, the elder Brando took the witness stand in a tearful plea for leniency for his son, describing Christian’s childhood as a nightmare of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of his mother, actress Anna Kashfi.

He said he married Kashfi only because she was pregnant. The couple divorced less than a year later.

“I led a wasted life,” the 66-year-old actor said. “I chased a lot of women and she was very jealous.” He found her “probably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known . . . (but) she came close to being as negative a person as I have met in this life, as cruel.”

Brando said the very fact that she did not attend her son’s hearing showed what kind of mother she was.

Brando said that by the time he gained permanent custody of Christian, the boy was 13 and starting to drink and do drugs. He was, the actor said, “a basket case of emotional disorders.”

“Perhaps I failed as a father,” he told the court. “The tendency is always to blame the other person. There were things I could have done differently. . . . I did the best I could.”

Asked by Shapiro about the public’s perception that Christian is the spoiled child of a rich and famous man, Brando exploded: “Either they’re a lying son of a bitch or they don’t know what they are talking about!

“Of all my children--and I have nine--Christian is the child who from the very beginning has been the most independent. I’ve offered money to Christian and he wouldn’t take it. . . . He wanted his own identity and he worked hard to get it.”

Gesturing toward photographers in the jury box, he said the Brando name had blown the case out of proportion.

“This is the MARLON Brando case,” he said. “If Christian were black, Mexican or poor, he wouldn’t be in this courtroom. Everyone wants a piece of the pie.”

Brando broke down when he recounted the aftermath of the shooting. He said that as Drollet’s body was being carried out of the house, “I asked the officers to unzip the bag. I wanted to say goodby to him properly. I kissed him and told him I loved him.” Brando began his dramatic testimony by refusing to take the oath. “I will not swear on God,” he said, but he agreed to tell the truth under penalty of perjury.

He often digressed from the subject he was asked to talk about. His answers were punctuated by sobs and curses. At times, he spoke directly to individuals by name who were seated in the packed courtroom.

He delivered a long apology in French to the dead man’s family. “I cannot continue with the hate in your eyes,” he said. “I’m sorry with my whole heart.”

Drollet’s father later said he believed Brando was acting.

The prosecution declined to cross-examine Brando. “No questions,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven Barshop, lead prosecutor in the case.

Afterwards, both sides expressed disappointment at the sentence.

“It was the court’s call,” Barshop said. “It was reasonable under the circumstances.”

Barshop had wanted to try Christian Brando for first-degree murder, but found his case in disarray after a taped confession by Brando was ruled inadmissible because he had not been properly advised of his Miranda rights.

Then his star witness, Brando’s troubled half-sister, Cheyenne Brando, fled to Tahiti--beyond the reach of a subpoena--where she was ruled incompetent after several suicide attempts. She is now hospitalized in a Paris psychiatric clinic.

With neither the confession nor the key witness, prosecutors agreed to allow Brando to plead guilty last January to voluntary manslaughter with a gun. He has insisted from the beginning that the shooting was accidental.

“He’s getting away with murder, definitely,” said Jacques Drollet, the victim’s father.

Shapiro said Christian and his father were relieved to have the nine-month ordeal behind them.