Teen-Ager Sentenced for Role in 1993 Brawl : Courts: William Huang is ordered to serve in a work release program and pay $1,200 restitution to two football players who were shot.

A teen-ager who supplied the gun used to shoot two Westlake High School football players during an interracial brawl will spend a month cleaning up freeways and performing other hard-labor tasks for his part in the fracas.

William Huang’s 30-day sentence to the county’s work release program, imposed Friday, comes on top of the seven months he has already spent in custody.

As part of the sentence, Municipal Judge Bruce A. Clark also placed Huang on probation for five years and ordered him to pay $1,200 restitution to the two football players, even though the 18-year-old did not personally inflict their injuries.

Huang’s attorney said at Friday’s hearing that the teen-ager, who lives in Rowland Heights, has cleaned up his act since the Feb. 3, 1993, brawl at North Ranch Park.

“He is doing well in school and has cut off all alliances with co-defendants in this case,” Los Angeles attorney John E. Meyers wrote in a letter to the judge. “He is not likely to run afoul of the law in the future.”

In a case that has dragged on for two years, Huang is the second defendant to be sentenced for the melee that left David Behlig and Scott Smith hospitalized and a third football player slightly injured from gunshot wounds.

John Yi, 17, was sentenced in April to one year in jail for shooting into the crowd during the fight.

Two defendants, James Lee and his brother, Frank, have fled the area and are presumed to be in their native Taiwan, authorities said.

Another teen-ager, Oubansack (Andy) Sonethanouphet, whom prosecutors believed was the principal assailant, was acquitted.

Huang pleaded guilty last month to two counts of assault. Prosecutors believe Huang brought a gun to the fight and allowed another teen-ager to use it--something Huang initially admitted, but now denies. The defendant says he got confused during a police interview because he had no Chinese interpreter.

In his guilty plea, Huang also admitted hitting a teen-ager with a club.

The brawl initially was supposed to be a fistfight to settle an ongoing feud between Curtis Simmons, 17, and Westlake High schoolmate James Lee, 17, of Thousand Oaks, according to court records. Simmons showed up at the park with a large group of friends, including numerous football teammates, while Lee came with five carloads of supporters armed with baseball bats and guns, according to testimony.

Huang, also a native of Taiwan, used an interpreter at the sentencing hearing.

Deputy Dist. Atty. John Vanarelli said he is glad the case is over because it has been hard on the victims and their families.

“In large part, through no fault of their own . . . they didn’t really ever feel like they got justice,” Vanarelli said.