Luxury-Car Vandal Gets Prison Term

An unemployed Glendale man, who in the past has been accused of distributing hate leaflets at Southland supermarkets, was sentenced to 32 months in state prison Friday for vandalizing more than two dozen luxury cars last December in an East Bluff neighborhood.

Allan Eric Carlson, 32, pleaded guilty in April to felony vandalism for shooting out the windows of 27 cars, mostly Mercedes and BMWs, and expected a sentence of a year in County Jail, Deputy Public Defender Arlene Speiser said.

But Superior Court Judge James K. Turner, after reading a lengthy written statement by Carlson included in a pre-sentencing report, questioned the defendant’s remorse for his crime, and handed down the stiffer sentence, Speiser said.

In the statement, Carlson said he would refuse to pay restitution to the “millionaires” whose cars he vandalized because he has no money.

The defendant faced a minimum sentence of probation to a maximum sentence of three years and eight months in prison.

“He’s obviously quite shocked and surprised,” about the sentence, Speiser said. “It’s my contention that the fact that he espouses radical, unpopular, political views and ideologies, are his right under the First Amendment and the Constitution, and should have no bearing in the conduct and action of this case and how he should be sentenced.”

Speiser said Carlson is remorseful and realizes there are appropriate, nonviolent means of expressing the political views he said motivated his behavior.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan Hess said he pushed for a prison sentence because Carlson is unsuitable for probation and that his actions are “escalating in violence.”

“He’s also expanding his hatred from Jews and blacks and Hispanics, to millionaires,” Hess said. “What social group is he going to target the next time?”

The sentence also was applauded by the Anti-Defamation League. The organization has been monitoring the case against Carlson, who was arrested in 1993 on suspicion of stamping racist messages on notebooks at a supermarket, and prohibited by a court last year from stuffing hate leaflets into store goods across the Southland.

“We are not surprised to see him step over the line from protected speech to violent criminal activity,” said Tzivia Schwartz, an attorney with the ADL. “We are glad that Carlson was caught before he could injure anyone.”

While prosecutors did not link the vandalism with his past activities, police said they found racist literature and a list of local Orange County supermarkets in the car Carlson was driving when he was arrested.

A pellet gun believed used in the vandalism also was found in his car, police said.