Ex-Honor Student Gets Prison Term in Slaying : Crime: Judge sentences former Channel Islands High cheerleader Naomi Honohan to two years as an accessory to murder.

A former Channel Islands High School cheerleader and honor student was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison for trying to cover up a murder, despite pleas for leniency from family and friends who argued her biggest crime was dating a ruthless gang member.

“That is her biggest downfall--getting involved with an idiot, a cancer who only cares about himself,” defense attorney Victor Salas told Superior Court Judge Charles R. McGrath.

A Ventura County jury convicted Naomi Honohan, 19, in August of accessory to murder in connection with the shooting death of Paul Martinez, a 21-year-old Whittier man gunned down Dec. 18 on the second-floor balcony of the Motel 6 on Johnson Road in Ventura.

McGrath, who could have sentenced Honohan to a maximum of three years in prison or only probation, said he decided on two years because her acts were serious but not aggravated.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Matthew J. Hardy acknowledged that Honohan did well in school. But he also said that her attitude toward life apparently changed as her relationship with gang member Shaun Bolo became more serious.

“It’s true she did very well in school and does very well at batting her little eyelashes and getting away with it,” Hardy said. “She plays it both ways. I think she is a little con.”

Four other defendants were charged in the case, three of them with murder: 20-year-old Bolo; his brother, Willard, 23, and Steve Hidalgo, 20.

The Bolos of Oxnard are awaiting trial, while Hidalgo of Port Hueneme is serving a sentence of 18 years to life after pleading guilty to second-degree murder. The final defendant--Alfonso Cortez, also accused as an accessory to the murder--is set for arraignment in two weeks.

Martinez was killed while attending a party at the motel after he and Honohan got into an argument, authorities said. The three murder defendants are accused of shooting him as they drove away from the motel. The Bolos fired their shots from Honohan’s car, prosecutors said.

Honohan told authorities that her car was not at the shooting scene, stalling the investigation, Hardy said.

The prosecutor also said that she had displayed a mean and vicious side before the murder, including an incident two years ago when she assaulted a 13-year-old girl whom she did not think was paying her the proper respect, he said. In that case, Honohan ripped an earring out of the girl’s ear and slammed her head first against a window and then the sidewalk, Hardy said.

“I think she’s someone who enjoys the power that comes with being a bully,” the prosecutor said. “To say that she was the victim of anything is ridiculous.”

But that is exactly what Honohan and her supporters told the judge: That she simply got mixed up with the wrong crowd.

Her father, Bill Honohan, said his daughter had her sights on a career in nursing after graduating with honors from Channel Islands High School. Her grades were so good that she finished her course work six months ahead of schedule, he said.

The father said he discouraged her from dating Bolo, but “she thought she could turn him around,” he said.

After high school, while still trying to get accepted into a nursing program, Honohan worked as a cashier at Toppers Pizza. “She was always honest,” one former co-worker said in court.

Honohan, weeping as she sat at the defense table, told McGrath that she realizes her mistakes. If given probation, she said, “you will never see me again.”

Defense Attorney Salas emphasized that Honohan did not take an active part in Martinez’s death. Taking issue with a probation report that recommended prison for his client, Salas said, “This is simply to say that Naomi Honohan is a piece of trash and should be discarded.

“I don’t think that she is vicious,” Salas added. “She is a bright, articulate young lady who did not know what she was getting into with Mr. Bolo.”

But Hardy and Myrna Beltran, the victim’s fiancee and mother of his child, strongly disagreed.

“I think it’s real nice everybody thinks she should get a second chance,” said Beltran, in court with their 9-month-old son. “But what about Paul? His son won’t get a second chance.”

Pointing at Honohan, Hardy told the judge, “This poor little Naomi stuff is just plain nonsense.”

Because prisoners in California serve only about 50% of their time and she has credit for 334 days in jail, Honohan will be eligible for release in about six months, her attorney said.