Officer’s Killer Sentenced to Maximum Prison Term : Courts: Louis Belvin Jr. faces almost 28 years to life in prison for the 1987 Sylmar slaying. He said he thought the man was an unhappy drug customer.

A Los Angeles man convicted of killing an undercover police officer in Sylmar in 1987 was sentenced Friday to a maximum term of nearly 28 years to life in prison.

In sentencing Louis Belvin Jr., 22, of Los Angeles for the second-degree murder of Officer James H. Pagliotti, San Fernando Superior Court Judge Howard J. Schwab said he would recommend to prison authorities that Belvin “never be returned to society.”

Belvin was convicted in December of shooting Pagliotti when the officer tried to arrest Belvin, a drug dealer, for carrying a gun. Pagliotti was in the area as part of an undercover team watching a burglary suspect in an unrelated case.

Belvin testified during the trial that he and a friend, Thomas Lee Mixon, 23, also of Los Angeles, were selling cocaine on a Sylmar street corner on June 22, 1987. Shortly before the shooting, the two men had beaten up a customer who had returned to complain about the quality of the drug he had purchased from them.

Belvin said that when Pagliotti stepped out of an unmarked car and pointed a gun at him without identifying himself, he thought Pagliotti was the customer they had beaten up, returning for revenge.

Belvin ran away, he said, and Pagliotti began shooting at him. Belvin then turned and fired three shots at the officer, fatally wounding him.

However, several officers who arrived at the scene as the shooting began testified that Pagliotti had identified himself as a police officer and that Belvin fired the first shots.

In addition to Pagliotti’s killing, Belvin was convicted of selling cocaine and of assaulting two men in unrelated incidents.

He was sentenced to 27 years, eight months to life in prison, although he will get credit for spending nearly five years in jail before and during his trial.

Belvin’s attorney, Marvin L. Part, said he was disappointed that Schwab did not allow some of the sentences to be served concurrently.

However, Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan M. Speer said she was pleased that the maximum sentence was imposed.

Mixon, Belvin’s accomplice, was sentenced in December to eight years and four months in prison for assault and selling cocaine. Mixon was not charged in the killing.