NEWPORT BEACH : Yacobozzi Sentenced to Jail Term

While saying he has “high regard” for Newport Beach attorney William Yacobozzi Jr., a Superior Court judge on Friday sentenced the lawyer to 180 days in jail and three years’ probation for committing perjury and falsifying evidence to dodge a paternity suit.

“I’ve always been impressed with your professionalism . . . and, you’ve kept me awake several nights (because) I have been worried about this thing ever since the trial ended,” said Judge Ragnar R. Engebretsen. But, “I think the legal system has to be protected . . . has to be almost above reproach . . . and we must keep it clean.”

In January, a Superior Court jury found Yacobozzi, 50, guilty on five counts of perjury and one count each of falsifying evidence and conspiring to obstruct justice. In addition to his sentence, the State Bar of California will temporarily revoke his law license Sunday because of the felony convictions.

Although the judge rejected a probation officer’s recommendation of a state prison term and no probation, Yacobozzi said afterward that he thought the jail sentence was “unfair.”

“I think (the sentence) should have been no time,” he said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Wallace J. Wade, who prosecuted the case, said, however, that the sentencing was lenient compared to the possible four years in state prison he had requested.

“Mr. Yacobozzi never admitted his mistakes, even as he blamed everyone else for his wrongdoings,” Wade said after the sentencing. “I just have a respectful disagreement (with Engebretsen) on the appropriateness of this sentencing.”

In his argument to the judge, Yacobozzi defense attorney Grover L. Porter said, “Sometimes, society places attorneys in high standards and we’re only human; we make mistakes.”

By losing his marriage--Yacobozzi’s wife is filing for divorce--his house, his practice and his law license, Porter told Engebretsen, “that is punishment in and of itself.”

Yacobozzi, who has been an attorney for 16 years and once ran for Congress, will began his sentence April 16. Until that date, he said, he will attempt to request a work furlough so he will not have to serve time.

During the sentencing hearing, Porter said he will appeal the guilty verdict. If eventual appeals are unsuccessful, a State Bar spokeswoman said, Yacobozzi would be disbarred permanently.

Yacobozzi’s trial stemmed from a messy paternity suit filed against him in 1988 by Coleen Walters of Huntington Beach. In that suit, which was settled last February, Walters claimed that Yacobozzi fathered her son, now 6.

During that case, Yacobozzi was ordered to take a blood test at the Parentage Testing Center at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. That test found that there was a 99.3% chance that he was the boy’s father.

Yacobozzi asked for and was granted a DNA test that would precisely determine parentage. He eventually submitted results from a March 5, 1990, test that concluded he could not have fathered the child.

The jury found that it was not Yacobozzi who took the DNA test. They also agreed that he sent a substitute to the testing center and gave the still-unidentified man his driver’s license for proof of identity.

Yacobozzi, who has consistently denied the charges against him, insisted that he took the DNA test and somehow the impostor’s photo was inserted--presumably by Walters--into his file. He also claimed that the felony charges were filed because prosecutors held a grudge against him because he had been successful in defending criminal cases against them.