Dead Man’s Parents Face Accused Youths : Courts: The Mission Viejo couple express frustration at leniency of New York juvenile justice system. Boys plead guilty for reduced sentences.

When the chance came in a New York City courtroom this week to face the youthful accomplices in his son’s murder, Charles L. Blek Jr. showed them photographs of the dead man and his gravestone.

Charles Blek, a Mission Viejo lawyer, spoke directly to suspects Tony Wilkins and Jamel Scott, who police said took part in a robbery in which a third youth fatally shot Matthew Blek, a 21-year-old college student in New York for a summer job.

“I would like you to notice that the marker does not say Tony or Scott,” Blek told the pair, who were 15 at the time of the shooting on a New York City street in June. “It clearly states Matthew.”

By Friday, Blek’s anger toward the teen-agers had shifted to a quirk in the New York juvenile justice law that permitted Wilkins and Scott to plead guilty with light sentences.

The arrangement--approved Wednesday after Blek and his wife made tearful pleas for tougher sentences--so frustrated authorities that the prosecutors called the session “absurd” and even left the judge short on words for the occasion.

“This pain will be with me for the rest of my life,” Mary Leigh Blek told the court. “I wish my words were adequate to describe the utter despair and yearning I have.”

Wilkins and Scott pleaded guilty to manslaughter for their roles in holdups that led to Blek’s shooting and a second killing the same night. The manslaughter plea may allow the two juveniles to be freed after only 3 1/3 years in state prison.

Joseph Lee, the teen-ager believed to have pulled the trigger in both cases, is expected to be tried separately for murder.

“Our entire family is very upset. It’s difficult enough to deal with the loss of Matthew,” Charles Blek said Friday. “The juvenile laws, both (in) New York and California, just make so many exceptions.”

All three youths first were charged with murder, but prosecutors hoped to try Wilkins and Scott under a separate felony murder provision. Authorities would argue that although the two did not pull the trigger, they could be held responsible in the killings because they were taking part in a robbery.

But because no money was actually taken, their crime became attempted robbery. And New York juvenile justice law does not cover attempted robbery, so sentencing for a felony murder conviction would have been thrown to Family Court. Fearing Wilkins and Scott might end up serving only 18 months in the state’s juvenile-detention system, prosecutors instead opted for the plea agreements.

Charles Blek said the juvenile justice laws are “antiquated” in their leniency. They “haven’t caught up with the violence of the 1990s,” he said. “They’re stuck in the 1950s and 60s.”

Blek said he and his wife, who had been active in PTA and school booster groups, now plan to dive into the political realm: trying to toughen sentencing laws for juveniles and promote handgun control. They also have set up a $500 scholarship in Matthew Blek’s name at his former school, Trabuco Hills High School.

“First of all, (we) have to heal within the family,” he said.

Though Wednesday’s court outcome disappointed the couple, Mary Leigh Blek, a homemaker, said she felt glad to have faced the suspects--and the judge and prosecutors who may be inured to the personal toll of violent crime.

“Nobody knows the pain better than the mother and the father,” she said. “I had an obligation to be there. They certainly saw the pain.”

In court, Mary Leigh Blek’s tears fell on the eight-page statement she read seeking longer prison sentences than the 3 1/3 to 10 years called for in the plea bargain.

“I see it replayed in my tortured nightmares: The gun being raised and the gun being slowly and deliberately pointed to Matthew’s head and then discharging,” her statement said. “By that act, you have destroyed a beautiful young life and our family’s future happiness.”

Mary Leigh Blek described Matthew Blek to the suspects as a hard-working honors student with a passion for magic, the violin and wrestling.

She said Friday she thinks her remarks got through to the young men.

“I thought I saw emotion in Jamel’s face. His face tightened up and I thought he looked as if he was going to cry,” she said.

“I don’t know if that was wishful thinking.”