Federal Judge Refuses Teen-Ager’s Guilty Pleas to Hate Crimes : Courts: The 17-year-old admits his role in an attack on a synagogue and in other skinhead plots. The jurist is upset that an agreement precludes appeals.

A Crestline teen-ager admitted Monday that he conspired to commit a series of attacks as part of a skinhead group bent on starting a race war, but the judge presiding over his case refused, at least for now, to accept his guilty pleas.

Carl Daniel Boese fidgeted nervously as U.S. District Judge William Matthew Byrne Jr. questioned him about his involvement and warned him about possible penalties. When Byrne asked Boese about each of the charges filed against him, the 17-year-old admitted he was guilty of conspiracy and of attacking the Temple Beth David Synagogue in Westminster.

“The maximum penalty that you are facing is 15 years in prison,” Byrne warned Boese, asking him if he understood.

“Yes, sir,” Boese responded quietly.

In addition to the attack on the synagogue, members of the Fourth Reich Skinheads bombed homes in Lakewood and Paramount, prosecutors said. They also plotted to storm the First African Methodist Episcopal Church and spray the congregation with gunfire, prosecutors said.

Christopher David Fisher, the leader of the Fourth Reich Skinheads, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and other charges last week. He faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, though prosecutors and defense lawyers have recommended that he receive 10 years along with counseling.

Although Boese pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge and the attack on Temple Beth David Synagogue, he pleaded not guilty to a third charge against him, which accuses him of using a bomb in the Temple Beth David attack on Jan. 18.

The bombing charge carries a 30-year sentence. Under a plea agreement reached with prosecutors, government lawyers have agreed to drop that charge in exchange for Boese’s guilty pleas to the other counts.

As part of that deal, prosecutors and defense attorneys would recommend that Boese be given a sentence of 51 to 63 months. He would also be ordered to undergo counseling.

But at the last minute Monday, Byrne announced that he was not prepared to accept the agreement because it contains a provision prohibiting Boese from appealing the sentence if it is within the recommended range. Byrne has long objected to plea agreements that prevent appeals, and he balked at the idea again Monday.

“There is a basic unfairness,” Byrne said. “There is also a basic frivolousness.”

Byrne said he would take up the issue of Boese’s pleas today, and prosecutors said they would consider appealing if Byrne continued to refuse to accept the agreement.

The arrests of the Fourth Reich Skinheads members were the result of an 18-month FBI investigation into weapons trafficking by white supremacists in Southern California. Although Boese and Fisher are the only Fourth Reich Skinheads to face federal charges, a number of other cases have grown out of the same probe.

Last month, a San Fernando Valley couple were convicted of weapons charges and another man pleaded guilty in that case.

Also arrested as a result of the investigation were three Orange County suspects. Monday, federal authorities disclosed that they have agreed to allow one of them, reputed skinhead Geremy C. Von Rineman, a chance to enter a court-sanctioned diversion program that could lead to the dismissal of the single federal weapons charge. The agreement with Von Rineman gives him the chance to complete a supervised 18-month program as an alternative to jail.

“I think that’s the best way for him to go,” said his attorney, Stephan A. DeSales. “He’s not going to hurt anyone.”

Von Rineman’s former girlfriend, Jill Scarborough of Anaheim, who also is charged with the same weapons count, is scheduled to stand trial in December. She was threatened Monday with incarceration for failing six drug tests since she was released pending her federal court trial. The test results were positive for methamphetamine.