Man Accused in Feud Demands His Day in Court : Vandalism: Authorities file charges against two people to end escalating dispute involving rock throwing and a car chase in La Canada Flintridge.

The trouble started at some rowdy youth parties last year in the wealthy neighborhoods north of Glendale. According to sheriff’s deputies, alcohol was plentiful, adult supervision was minimal and two young men mixed it up violently, igniting an ugly feud.

Then the trouble followed one of the young men home and ensnared his family. Vandals broke windows and dented cars in front of the family’s spacious La Canada Flintridge house. The parents blamed their son’s youthful foe and set out to catch him.

The trouble was reported to deputies, who were unable to crack the case or defuse the situation over a three-month period.

The trouble finally found its way to the county courthouse in Glendale. A prosecutor tried to end the increasingly dangerous feud without taking it before a judge. When that failed, he filed criminal charges.

On Wednesday, a jury is scheduled to begin sorting through the trouble during a Glendale Municipal Court trial demanded by one of the men involved in the feud.

Patrick Glen Johnston, 22, a former La Crescenta resident now living in Newport Beach, has admitted only that he threw rocks at the house on one occasion. He pleaded no contest last month to a reduced charge of disturbing the peace.

But the owner of the house, Ara Aprahamian, has refused to accept a similar plea agreement. He was charged with using a pool cue to smash the front windshield of Johnston’s 1990 Saab after it was demolished in a collision with a light pole.

Before Johnston’s arrest, Aprahamian had stood watch for countless nights, hoping to catch the vandal who had caused what he estimated was $10,000 in damage to his house and cars. He believes he was justified in committing that brief emotional act on a car that was already destroyed. He has demanded a chance to make his case before a jury.

“It’s not fair,” said Sophia Aprahamian, the defendant’s wife. “My husband has no criminal record, and he’s not going to get one for this. They’re prosecuting my husband on the same level as Patrick Johnston. Sure, what he did wasn’t right, but look at the circumstances.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Pargament said last week that he suspects people on both sides have committed serious offenses, but said he lacked the witnesses and evidence needed to file charges in most of the incidents.

It was Pargament who finally decided to charge both Johnston and Ara Aprahamian with a single count of vandalism each.

“How could I forget that monstrosity?” he said of the case. “It was a nightmare.”

He added: “Both the Sheriff’s Department and I tried our hand at peaceful negotiations. It was more than a minor failure.”

By early March, he was already concerned about the hazardous rock-throwing incidents and a high-speed car chase through a residential neighborhood. He also considered a report by deputies alleging that Sophia Aprahamian, through a third party, had threatened to have someone severely injure Johnston.

Pargament said he had urged the Aprahamians and Johnston to get restraining orders that would force them to stay apart. But after Johnston failed to pick up such an order, someone “served” it by attaching it to a rock and hurling it at a house that Johnston often visits, the prosecutor said.

“At that point, I said enough is enough,” Pargament said. “The peace was not restored. A non-criminal solution was not working. . . . I wanted to put a stop to this nonsense for the safety of the community.”

Deputies and the prosecutor believe that Ara Aprahamian was present during the last rock-throwing incident. But there was insufficient evidence to charge him, they said.

So Pargament charged Johnston with throwing a rock at the Aprahamian house and charged Aprahamian with smashing Johnston’s windshield.

He said the windshield had salvage value although the car was destroyed. “I took what I could prove and filed equal charges against both,” the prosecutor said.

He believes that his strategy was correct. “Since I filed that case, we haven’t had one more incident of disruption involving these people,” he said.

But Ara Aprahamian, a real estate broker who is facing steep legal bills, doesn’t think much of Pargament’s plan. “That stupid idea of his has already cost me $3,000,” he said.

He denies using a rock to deliver the restraining order, saying a business acquaintance simply left it on the doorstep. “Only a moron would throw a rock with his name on it,” Aprahamian said.

One of the few things that the Aprahamians and investigators agree on is the origin of the feud. They say Johnston and the Aprahamians’ son, Greg, 18, were involved in heated confrontations at several parties last year in La Canada Flintridge and La Crescenta.

Deputies say both men were often accompanied by sidekicks recruited from Altadena.

Investigator Gary Stead of the Crescenta Valley sheriff’s station said that at one party, Johnston was struck in the face with a bottle and required about 10 stitches. Johnston told deputies that his memory of the attack was fuzzy, but he believed that Greg Aprahamian or one of the teen-ager’s friends had hit him. There were no witnesses and no arrests were made, Stead said.

The Aprahamians said their son told them that Johnston was hurt when he ran into a plate-glass window.

When vandals began striking in front of the Aprahamians’ house in November, the family suspected that it was related to the youthful feud. On one occasion, vandals used concrete blocks to damage two Cadillacs parked out front. The vandals threw a gallon-jar of pickled cauliflower into one vehicle, but the glass container did not shatter.

On another occasion, a large rock crashed through a front window and dented a file cabinet in the house.

The Aprahamians reported the incidents to deputies, but investigators said there was no way to tie the rocks to a specific offender. Even a license plate number the family wrote down did not prove who was driving at the time.

The family complained that deputies were ineffective in catching the vandals.

But Stead said: “We’ve had radio cars parked near his house and on at least one occasion he was very irate and drove the deputy off.”

Ara Aprahamian said he only questioned the tactic. “Who’s going to be stupid enough to get caught throwing rocks while a sheriff’s car is parked there?”

In addition to the vandalism, the Aprahamians said they also received many anonymous late-night calls from someone who whispered that Greg would be killed or that the house would be burned.

The family said they became increasingly impatient with deputies and felt embarrassed that their vandalism reports kept appearing in the local newspaper.

Ara Aprahamian said he became obsessed with catching the culprits himself. He and his sons began nightly vigils, sitting in the dark by the kitchen windows, watching for suspicious cars. Finally, Ara Aprahamian started hiding his car in a neighbor’s driveway, sometimes accompanied by a burly friend who works as a security guard. He kept in contact with family members by walkie-talkie.

On Feb. 9, Aprahamian said he saw Johnston’s Saab pull up in front of the house with the headlights off. He said Johnston and four friends jumped out and began tossing rocks. When Aprahamian turned on his engine, the vandals hustled back into the car and fled. Aprahamian chased the Saab for several blocks until it crashed outside a flower shop near Foothill Boulevard.

Johnston and his companions were arrested near the scene. Johnston told deputies that he crashed after Aprahamian bumped his car from behind, but investigators found no evidence that the cars had touched.

While deputies were rounding up Johnston and his friends, Aprahamian grabbed a pool cue that he had brought for protection and spoke to a woman standing near the wrecked Saab. “I said, ‘This guy has been terrorizing my family for the past three months!’ ” he recalled.

Aprahamian said he then smashed the windshield with the cue. Deputies found it still embedded in the shattered glass at a tow yard days later.

On March 3--his birthday--deputies asked Aprahamian to come to the station. He was booked on a vandalism charge, fingerprinted, photographed and released.

On May 20, Johnston entered his no-contest plea for disturbing the peace. Pargament said he had no evidence linking Johnston to any threatening calls or damage beyond the Feb. 9 incident for which he was arrested.

Glendale Municipal Judge Joseph DeVanon ordered Johnston to pay a $150 fine and a $202.50 penalty assessment. He also gave Johnston a one-year suspended sentence on condition that he obey all laws and stay away from the Aprahamians.

Pargament made the same offer to Ara Aprahamian, hoping that the conditional sentence would keep the two apart. Aprahamian rejected it. He worried that while on probation, he could easily be jailed over any future run-in with police.

The Aprahamians believe that Pargament balanced the scales of justice unfairly. “Why should my husband be prosecuted the same as Patrick Johnston?” Sophia Aprahamian asked. “That’s the crux of the issue. . . . We didn’t go to his house and throw rocks at him. This is not justice.”

Johnston’s Beverly Hills attorney, Jerome M. Jackson, said Johnston family members will testify at Aprahamian’s trial. But he said they declined to comment otherwise on the dispute.

Pargament stands by his decision to file equal charges, saying it was the only way to end a reckless feud that had moved into a third household when someone threw the restraining order attached to a rock.

“It’s like a contagious disease,” he said. “It’s starting to spread. I can’t resolve who’s responsible for the large amount of damage. I don’t have the proof. But I can deal with the problem of stopping this.”