2 in Murder Case Plead Guilty to Robbery

Two Sun Valley brothers who had faced the death penalty on charges of murder pleaded guilty to robbery charges instead Friday and were sentenced in San Fernando Superior Court to two years each in prison.

With credit for the 15 months they spent in jail awaiting trial, Daniel Henry Sickler, 27, and Tony Sickler, 24, are expected to be released as soon as their paperwork is processed, said Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner.

The brothers were charged in the April 20, 1990, shooting death of Ted Anthony Lugo, 28, of Sun Valley at Frenchman’s Flat campground in the Angeles National Forest.

Prosecutors said that the Sicklers and Lugo, who were camping together, robbed another camper at gunpoint.

After the robbery, the victim armed himself. When Lugo returned to the victim’s campsite a short time later, the victim shot him in the chest, Gibbons said.

Contending that Lugo’s death resulted from the robbery in which all three men participated, prosecutors charged the Sicklers with murder with special circumstances that could have led to the death penalty.

Gibbons said Friday that prosecutors agreed to drop the murder charges in exchange for a guilty plea to the robbery charges because there were conflicting reports from witnesses and “because the Sickler brothers were at their own campsite when the shooting occurred.”

Judge Howard J. Schwab accepted the plea bargain and imposed the sentences.