Hauk Still Favors Lenient Term for Woman Bandit : Court: Judge says before making a decision on the resentencing, he will hold hearing to try to determine if she was under a ‘Svengali’ influence.

A Los Angeles federal judge said Monday he is inclined to again give a light sentence to a woman convicted of bank robbery, but before making a decision he will hold an unusual hearing to determine if she acted under the “Svengali” influence of her boyfriend.

On May 9, 1989, U.S. District Judge A. Andrew Hauk sentenced Danielle T. Mast to two years in federal prison, rather than the 57 to 71 months prescribed by federal guidelines, for robbing five South Bay banks.

At the time, Hauk declared that women are “soft touches” for clever men, “particularly if sex is involved.” He also said, “This girl has fallen under the malevolent influence” of her boyfriend, Lonnie Jackson, “who’s a crook of the first water in my book.” The remarks drew intense criticism from women’s rights organizations.

Earlier this year, a federal appeals court reversed Hauk’s decision.

Jackson was not charged in any of Mast’s crimes, but has 11 felony convictions, according to court documents. He is now in state prison on a bank fraud conviction, Mast’s lawyer, Philip Deitch, said.

Mast, a former high school cheerleader dubbed the “Miss America Bandit” by the FBI, has never admitted her role in the robberies and never claimed Jackson coerced her.

Moreover, Jackson’s name never came up during Mast’s 1988 trial. His name surfaced through papers filed by Mast’s trial lawyer, David Wood, at sentencing. Wood alleged that Mast was sexually involved with Jackson and “succumbed to the Charles Manson syndrome--attachment to a sophisticated hustler who uses cocaine, sex and a ‘fast lane’ lifestyle to subdue a vulnerable young lady.”

Although Hauk expressed skepticism at a criminologist’s report submitted with Wood’s memo, he accepted its conclusions and decided to issue what he conceded was an “extremely lenient” sentence.

Mast was released from the Federal Detention Center at Pleasanton last November after serving 18 months and spent two months in a Eugene, Ore., halfway house. She will be credited with that time when she is resentenced.

Now 26, Mast is working as a secretary in Portland and living with her grandparents while on five years of supervised release.

The appeals court did not address the Svengali issue when it ruled in February. Rather, it reversed Hauk’s decision on technical grounds, saying the judge had ignored a previous conviction for drunk driving in determining Mast’s sentence.

“As I feel now, my inclination would be to reimpose the same sentence, but do it a little differently,” Hauk said Monday.

He said that the appeals court had directed him to resentence Mast under the guidelines after making additional factual findings, which the court did not specify.

But Hauk interpreted the directive to mean findings about the Svengali issue, referring to the maleficent hypnotist in George Du Maurier’s 1894 novel, “Trilby,” who used evil means to persuade a young girl to do his bidding.

Hauk said he would hold a hearing in October in order to learn everything possible about Mast. He said he wanted reports from two psychiatrists, one hired by the government and one by the defense. And he wants to hear from officials at the prison and the halfway house, her probation officer and anyone else with relevant information.

“I want to know everything about you, Miss Mast, at the time of these acts,” Hauk told the defendant. “One way is to know what you had in your mind at the time. . . . You said you had been misidentified. I don’t believe that . . . I want to know your motivation . . . your entire relationship with Lonnie Jackson, because he is a bad man with a bad record.”

Hauk, 78, noted that Mast had never admitted her role in the crimes and suggested that this would be a good time to do that. However, Deitch said he was not clear if his client was free to talk because he had just learned she is the subject of another criminal investigation involving bank fraud.

Deitch said he thought further relevant testimony about Jackson’s possible role could be provided by several women who cooperated with authorities in a bank fraud case involving Jackson last year. He said the women could provide information about Jackson’s mode of operation that would tend to corroborate Hauk’s Svengali conclusion.

In a brief submitted for Monday’s hearing, Assistant U.S. Atty. Gregory W. Alarcon said Hauk’s conclusion was “implausible and incredible.”

Hauk retorted that the government had never made a formal response to the criminologist’s report, which first advanced the theory in 1989.