Teen ‘Was Terrified’ of Attackers : Court: Prosecutor in attempted-murder trial details Ruben Charles Vaughan III’s efforts to defend himself against a group bent on revenge.

A prosecutor Tuesday described a teen-ager’s desperate attempt to defend himself against a large group of youths who allegedly attacked and knocked him unconscious as they sought revenge against a rival high school.

He “was terrified,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Matthew S. Anderson told jurors. “He was in fear of his life.”

Anderson’s courtroom account came in the opening of the Superior Court trial of two men charged with attempted murder in the August, 1994, attack on Ruben Charles Vaughan III, who was 15 at the time.

Prosecutors had been urged to also file hate-crime charges against defendants Derek Thomas Jones, 20, of Huntington Beach and Russell Takeo Scarce, 19, of Lake Forest, but they said there is insufficient evidence to prove that race was a motivating factor in the assault on Vaughan, who is African American.

Defense attorneys have denied that race had anything to do with the attack. They told jurors in opening statements that their clients were involved in the confrontation but were not trying to kill anyone and should not be convicted of attempted murder.

Anderson, in his opening statements to the jury, said that Vaughan and five friends, all students at Santa Margarita High School in Rancho Santa Margarita, were looking for a party in a Portola Hills neighborhood when they crossed paths with the other group on the night of Aug. 5.

Anderson said the other group, consisting of about 30 students and graduates from El Toro High School in Lake Forest, was looking for a fight as revenge for a confrontation earlier in the week with other students from Santa Margarita High School.

The prosecutor alleged that Scarce initiated the melee by punching Vaughan’s friend, Chris Collins, who had tried to defuse the situation by offering a handshake.

Anderson said somebody in the group later yelled a racial slur before attacking Vaughan.

Vaughan, who had become separated from his friends amid the melee, broke off a light fixture in a yard in an attempt to defend himself but was overcome by his attackers. He suffered a number of injuries, including a broken jaw and nose and seven stab wounds to his back, side and legs, Anderson said.

Vaughan had testified at a preliminary hearing for the defendants that he threw the light fixture toward his attackers but could not remember anything after that until a resident came out and asked if he was all right.

Anderson told the jury Tuesday that Jones was carrying a knife, and he quoted Jones as telling a friend later: “I just stabbed a black guy.”

Anderson further alleged that during an interview with sheriff’s investigators, Scarce confessed to hitting Collins and striking Vaughan in the face with a pry bar.

But defense attorneys criticized the Sheriff’s Department’s handling of the investigation and said that accounts by other youths of what happened on the dark cul-de-sac could not be trusted because they were “scared out of their minds” about being arrested.

“Anyone close enough to see is close enough to be involved in that attack,” said attorney Cathy Jensen, who is representing Scarce.

Jensen said there is also evidence that some in the Santa Margarita group had taken off their shirts, indicating they were ready to fight.

Deputy Public Defender Christopher Hilger, who is representing Jones, described the attack on Vaughan as a “horrendous act” but said that only assault charges, not those of attempted murder, are warranted.

Vaughan, a student athlete, has since left the private high school because of the incident and is attending Foothill High School in Tustin.

A Municipal Court judge who presided over a preliminary hearing in the case in August was among those who urged the district attorney’s office to charge the two defendants with a hate crime, calling the attack “one of the most vicious beatings I’ve ever seen in a long time.”

The district attorney’s office filed charges of attempted murder against the defendants but repeated its position that there is insufficient evidence to prove that race was a motivating factor. The defendants also face charges of assault with a deadly weapon and battery resulting in serious bodily injury.