Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Ex-Deputy Gets Jail Term and Fine for Attacks : Courts: A prosecutor calls the retired officer ‘an adult bully’ for punching a man and kneeing a boy.

A former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, whom a prosecutor called “an adult bully,” was sentenced Monday to 90 days in County Jail and fined $2,025 for separate assaults on a man and a boy that occurred months after the deputy retired.

Michael J. DiDonna, 33, of Palmdale was convicted by a jury Thursday of punching a Palmdale man in February, 1992, and of kneeing an 11-year-old boy in the groin in June, 1992, at a Little League field in Quartz Hill.

Antelope Municipal Judge William Seelicke on Monday allowed DiDonna to remain free at least until the end of the month but denied his request for a new trial. DiDonna’s attorney said he hopes to delay the jail sentence pending an appeal.

DiDonna, a nearly nine-year veteran, retired from the Sheriff’s Department in December, 1991, because of an injury. His last assignment was lecturing students in the Westside Union School District to avoid drugs as part of the sheriff’s Substance Abuse and Narcotics Education (SANE) program.

“I think this guy was a real problem. He appears to be an adult bully,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Wayne Little. DiDonna was convicted of misdemeanor battery for the attack on the man and of misdemeanor inflicting injury on a child in the other incident.

Seelicke sentenced DiDonna to 90 days in jail, fined him $1,350 and placed him on three years probation for the attack on the boy, but said DiDonna could serve 30 days of the jail sentence on a Caltrans crew. The judge added 10 additional Caltrans days and a $675 fine for the attack on the man.

West Los Angeles attorney David Ogden, who represented DiDonna, said his client denied attacking the boy but acknowledged that the boy and DiDonna’s son had an altercation. DiDonna also maintained that he was assaulted first by the other man, Ogden said.

During the trial, Little said, there was testimony that DiDonna, who coached youth sports in the Quartz Hill area, had cursed and threatened a 13-year-old referee during a game in late 1989. Little said others nearby had to restrain DiDonna from pursuing the youth.