Valleywide : Plea Bargain Sought in Paint-Ball Attacks

Lawyers for the quartet of San Fernando Valley youths accused of shooting pedestrians with paint-ball pellets say their clients are remorseful for the attacks and want a plea bargain.

“They’re not gang members, not involved with drugs, have good jobs, are going to school,” said Leonard Levine, attorney for Ruffy Flores, 18, of Chatsworth, a senior at Chatsworth High School. “My client has been in the midst of race riots at Pitchess.”

Flores and three other teens, who allegedly videotaped their own exploits, are charged with attacking pedestrians and bicyclists with a baseball bat and paint-gun pellets during a late-night vandalism spree across the Valley in November.

The videotape footage, which at least one defendant has admitted is genuine, has been shown on nationwide television.

Flores, Malcolm Boyd, 19, Anthony Skoblar, 18, and a 17-year-old juvenile all face multiple counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Skoblar was 17 at the time of the assault but was declared fit to stand trial as an adult by a juvenile court judge.

Skoblar and the 17-year-old attended Birmingham High School, and Boyd attended Valley College. All four youths remain in custody.

Levine said he expects to reach a plea agreement with the prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Cohen, noting: “You only take a case to trial that the evidence shows you have a chance you can be successful at.”

Levine said he thought a sentence of community service, such as cleaning graffiti, in addition to the jail time served would be appropriate.

Minutes earlier, Cohen told a throng of reporters that the youths’ “actions are indefensible.”

The tape shows the youths firing paint-gun pellets, which travel at more than 300 feet a second, at pedestrians and bicyclists, and swatting at least one bicyclist with a baseball bat. One person on the tape can be heard talking about “playing human-head baseball.”

“I hope these gentlemen will become good kids when they pay their price,” Cohen said.