Reiner Urges Maximum 10-Year Prison Term for Keating : Sentencing: Los Angeles County district attorney asserts that anything less would ‘diminish the gravity’ of his crime.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner said Thursday that former Lincoln Savings & Loan operator Charles H. Keating Jr. should receive the maximum 10-year sentence for cheating investors because anything less would “diminish the gravity” of his crime.

Keating deserves the severest penalty, Los Angeles County’s top prosecutor said, because Lincoln is the nation’s biggest thrift failure and because Keating specifically targeted elderly investors who bought bonds issued by Lincoln’s parent company, American Continental Corp. in Phoenix.

But Keating’s lawyer, Stephen C. Neal, said there is “nothing in the record to justify” a 10-year term or “any other lengthy sentence.” He said Judge Lance A. Ito first must rule on “significant issues” raised by the defense, which is seeking a new trial.

Keating, 68, was convicted Dec. 4 on 17 counts of state securities fraud.

Turning up the political heat, Reiner called groups of reporters to his office and spoke to them by telephone to explain why he was urging a harsh sentence for Keating.

Only last fall, Reiner severely criticized Judge Joyce A. Karlin for the probation term she gave a Korean-born grocer convicted of killing a 15-year-old black girl over the suspected theft of a can of orange juice.

The sentence sparked a storm of community protest, which led to Karlin’s reassignment to Juvenile Court and an investigation by the state Commission on Judicial Performance, as well as an appeal of the sentence.

But the prosecutor defended his comments on the eve of Keating’s sentencing as “appropriate” for an advocate like himself. He wouldn’t speculate on the effect they might have on Ito, who presided over the case.

He also defended the prosecution’s strategy in the Keating case, which some critics have called too limited in scope and likely to be reversed on appeal. The critics include two deputy district attorneys running for election against Reiner this year.

While federal authorities took more than two years to amass a complicated, far-reaching indictment four months ago, Reiner set up a quick, narrowly focused prosecution that was “nothing other than a simple case of theft,” he said.

“We tried to take a rifle shot, and it got Keating between the eyes,” he said.

Reiner said his office will ask that Keating be sent to prison immediately after sentencing and not be allowed to remain free pending an appeal.

“If he is out, he will be as dilatory as possible and drag out the appeal as much as possible and then come back in five years with a note from his doctor saying he is too ill to be put in prison,” Reiner said.

The prosecutor contended that Ito ruled in favor of the defense on every close legal issue during the trial, making the conviction “bulletproof.”

Neal called “nonsense” the idea that Keating is a flight risk. He also asserted that there are significant issues for appeal, primarily a jury instruction that allowed Keating to be convicted simply for offering bonds that later proved flawed.