2 Sentenced in Mob Attack on Rival Student : Courts: They’re given 13-year terms for attempted murder of black youth that some said was hate-related. Prosecutors say school competition led to assaults.

A judge on Friday ordered two young men to spend 13 years in prison for trying to kill a Rancho Santa Margarita High School student, saying the attack showed great “cruelty, viciousness and callousness.”

As their families and friends wept, Derek Thomas Jones, 20, of Huntington Beach and Russell Takeo Scarce, 19, of Lake Forest bowed their heads and were led out of court in handcuffs.

Jones and Scarce were found guilty last month in the beating and stabbing attack on Ruben Charles Vaughan III, 16, in a Portola Hills neighborhood in what prosecutors described as a case of high school rivalry run amok.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Matthew Anderson said he hoped the sentence would send a wake-up call to Orange County. The sentences included the maximum nine-year punishment for attempted murder, plus four additional years for inflicting great bodily injury and using a deadly weapon.

“I’m hopeful this will send a message to pay attention to what’s happening and prevent this from happening again,” Anderson said. “This case was a very violent, horrible case.”

Vaughan’s mother, Day Aaron, said only that she agreed with Anderson as she left the courtroom.

Jones, who is white, and Scarce, whose family describe themselves as Japanese-Anglo, were part of a group of 30 graduates or students of El Toro High School who attacked Vaughan, a high school football player, and five other students from Santa Margarita High School on Aug. 5, 1994, prosecutors said.

The case drew anger from local minority leaders who noted that someone in the mob had shouted a racial slur. Vaughan is black. Some community leaders questioned why hate-crime charges weren’t filed.

Anderson said that despite the epithet, investigators concluded that school rivalry, not racism, was the prime motive for the attack.

“In this case, the attack on Ruben Vaughan was already underway when a racial slur was made, so it was very clear the crime was not motivated by racial anger,” he said.

In a letter to Superior Court Judge Richard L. Weatherspoon, Scarce said he was sorry.

“I know that what happened to Ruben Vaughan may have halted or even ended his dreams,” Scarce wrote. “I am truly both remorseful and sympathetic toward him and his family.”

The sentences came over the objections of defense attorneys who insisted that neither young man was trying to kill Vaughan.

Scarce’s attorney, Cathy Jensen, argued that the mid-range term of seven years for attempted murder would have been more appropriate.

“I believe in rehabilitation,” she said. “Our current prison system doesn’t have that as a goal anymore.”

But the judge told attorneys that he would not waiver from his sentence.

“Mr. Vaughan was particularly vulnerable because he was trapped in a cul-de-sac with a vicious mob,” Weatherspoon said.

Prosecutors said Scarce had been involved in an earlier fight with other Santa Margarita High School students and that he and the others who attacked Vaughan had been looking for another fight as revenge for the confrontation.

The group from Santa Margarita High School was searching for a party in a Portola Hills neighborhood when they crossed paths with Scarce’s group. During the attack, Vaughan came to the aid of a friend who had been punched and sprayed by Mace by Scarce, and then became separated from his group, prosecutors said.

The El Toro High School group, led by Jones, chased Vaughan around a cul-de-sac in the neighborhood. Scarce hit Vaughan on the head with a metal pry bar while others punched and kicked him. Jones stabbed him six times with a knife or screwdriver as he lay helpless, prosecutors said.

Vaughan suffered a concussion, a broken jaw, a broken nose, a laceration on his left cheek, and six stab wounds to his left back, hip, knee, and thigh, according to a pre-sentencing report by the county Probation Department.

At the time, Jones was on probation for felony auto theft. Both men had prior records for assaults or theft, the reports said. Four other juveniles were tried earlier in connection with the attack and sentenced to a year or less in the California Youth Authority, Jensen said.

Vaughan, who was not in court Friday, attends Foothill High School in Tustin where he played baseball last season, his mother said.

Vaughan’s mother told a probation officer that although her son is healing physically, he still has trouble sleeping at night because of the trauma of the attack, the pre-sentencing report said.

“Can you ever be almost murdered and then be OK?” she asked the officer.

Defense attorneys said they will appeal the verdicts.