Lawyer Pleads Guilty to Drug Sales Charge

A former public defender, whose three brothers have been linked by police to a Lake View Terrace-based crime ring, pleaded guilty Monday to a charge of selling cocaine with an armed associate and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Jury selection was beginning for his trial when Kenneth Eugene Settle, 38, of Sylmar changed his plea and was immediately sentenced by San Fernando Superior Court Judge Bert Glennon Jr.

Los Angeles police have said three of Settle’s brothers are members of the Bryant Family crime ring, which authorities believe has drug operations in 20 to 25 cities throughout the country and has been responsible for 18 killings since 1982. Two brothers are awaiting trial on charges that they killed a 2-year-old girl, her mother and two men over a drug deal in Lake View Terrace. The third is awaiting trial in Los Angeles on a charge of conspiring to sell drugs.

Settle will be evaluated by state psychiatrists to determine if he is eligible to serve his term in the California Rehabilitation Center, a treatment facility for drug addicts run by state prison authorities.

Settle, who served as a public defender for four months in 1988 and was working as a private attorney with a limited practice when he was arrested in October, will return to court Feb. 6 to hear the results of his evaluation.

Settle had been charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and eight counts of cocaine sales with the special allegation that he was accompanied by an armed associate. He faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in state prison if he had been convicted of all charges, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael J. Grosbard.

Settle’s two co-defendants pleaded guilty Monday to single charges of transporting cocaine. Eric Lido Estrada, 18, of San Fernando was sentenced to three years in state prison. Frank Garcia, 25, also of San Fernando, was sentenced to four years in state prison. Garcia received an additional year because of the special allegation that there was also a gun in the car in which he was transporting cocaine, according to Grosbard.

Grosbard said he agreed to the reduced plea because the sentences were appropriate and the case for conviction on all charges was not strong.