Youth Sentenced to 41 Years in Slaying of Theater Usher

A Gardena teen-ager convicted of murdering a recently married Torrance movie usher during a botched robbery was ordered Wednesday to spend 41 years and four months behind bars for his crimes.

Under the sentence imposed by Torrance Superior Court Judge William C. Beverly, Charles Mooney, 18, will serve his time in the California Youth Authority until he is 25, but will be transferred to state prison afterward. Attorneys in the case said he will be at least 43 years old before he becomes eligible for parole.

Mooney’s accomplice in the shooting, 19-year-old Kevin Waters, received the same sentence in September, but was ordered immediately to state prison.

A jury convicted both men in August of murder, robbery and four counts of assault in connection with a Jan. 13, 1991, attack in which they tied up and beat four workers at a Del Amo Fashion Center theater before shooting Donald Hernandez, 19, in the mouth. Jurors told attorneys afterward that they could not decide which man pulled the trigger.

Hernandez, who had married his Carson High School sweetheart just five months earlier, died two hours after the early morning robbery. His 20-year-old widow, Serena, appeared at Waters’ sentencing to tell the court how the murder had shattered her life. She did not attend the hearing for Mooney on Wednesday.

Mooney also was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years in state prison for five South Bay bank robberies and a residential burglary committed in 1990. He pleaded guilty to those crimes in return for an agreement that he would serve the additional time concurrent with the murder sentence.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Janet Moore said Mooney had been arrested and was free pending a juvenile court proceeding in the robbery case when he tried to rob the Torrance theater.

“State prison is where he belongs, not the Youth Authority,” Moore said. “The judge is being extremely fair with him. He is giving him an opportunity that I hope he takes, but I don’t think he will.”

Deputy Public Defender Gina Laughney, Mooney’s attorney, said the Youth Authority commitment “is the only chance he has to make something of his life.”

“He’s going to serve a long, long time, but eventually he will be getting out,” Laughney said. “This way, he’ll have an opportunity for an education and, I hope, a chance for some psychological counseling and guidance.”