Valley Drug Lord, 2 Associates Get Death Sentences in Slayings

San Fernando Valley drug lord Stanley Bryant, head of a once-thriving crack cocaine empire based in Pacoima, and two of his associates were sentenced Thursday to be executed for the 1988 slayings of two rivals and two witnesses, including a 2 1/2-year-old girl.

The death sentences had been expected for Bryant, Donald Franklin Smith and LeRoy Wheeler, who were convicted last summer by a jury that recommended the death penalty. The three showed no reaction when Superior Court Judge Charles E. Horan ordered them to be put to death.

During a brief hearing in Downtown Los Angeles, Horan said he “shed no tears” for two of the victims, Andre Armstrong and James Brown, a hit man for the so-called “Bryant Family” gang and his drug-dealing partner, who were gunned down at a crack house in Lake View Terrace.