PORT HUENEME : Report Urges Jail for Gay Man’s Attackers

Three former Seabees should be sentenced to Ventura County Jail rather than state prison for severely beating a homosexual man on the Port Hueneme beach in May, according to Department of Corrections reports made public Friday.

The reports by psychologists at the department’s diagnostic center at Chino differed from presentence evaluations made in July by the Ventura County Corrections Services Agency. The local probation department recommended prison time for Sean McGeown, 18; Michael Breninger, 20, and Kenneth Cummings, 20.

Ventura County Superior Court Judge Lawrence Storch, who in July postponed the sentencing so the state diagnostic center could examine the men, delayed it again on Friday. He asked the county agency to re-examine its findings in light of the new recommendation.

According to court records, the defendants were on leave from the Naval Construction Training Center in Port Hueneme when they met Richard Heffernan, 54, of Santa Ynez, at an adult bookstore.

They accompanied Heffernan to the beach and then attacked him, according to court records. In interviews with probation investigators, all three men said the only reason for the assault was that Heffernan was a homosexual.

Heffernan had to undergo extensive facial surgery and spent several weeks in a hospital.

The men pleaded guilty to assault charges in June. They remain in custody and have been discharged from the Navy.

In the new reports, the state investigators described all three men as having little or no criminal history and said they have shown remorse for the attack.

“In order not to minimize the seriousness of the offense,” all three reports said, the men should serve the maximum time possible in County Jail, which normally would be one year. The psychologists said they were not considering issues of punishment or deterrence, only whether local probation with jail time would be successful.

Storch scheduled sentencing for Oct. 25.