2 Killers of Student Get Multiple Life Terms

Two 20-year-old members of a West Valley gang called “Every Woman’s Fantasy,” were sentenced Tuesday to multiple life prison terms for spraying gunfire into a crowd at Fallbrook Mall, killing a Taft High School sophomore they believed had shown them disrespect.

The drive-by shooting of 16-year-old Ramtin Shaolian, which rattled nerves in the Valley’s placid western corner, was motivated by “a trivial dispute that lasted 30 seconds at most,” said Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Sandy R. Kriegler.

“When young people are running around the community with guns, out of control, this is what happens,” Kriegler said. “This was an absolutely senseless and needless murder. It very easily could have turned into a massacre. We’re lucky there weren’t more dead people out there.”

A jury in August returned first-degree murder verdicts against Tommy Lee Williams, also known as “Ace Capone” or “Lil Nogood,” and Eliot O’Neal Singletary, also known as “Big Chocolate.” Jurors rejected defense claims that two girls from upscale neighborhoods south of Ventura Boulevard lied when they implicated Williams and Singletary in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

Police say both belong to Every Woman’s Fantasy, or EWF, a West Valley gang that has been linked to other crimes, including the 1992 stabbing death of Taft High School football player LaMoun Thames. That case was never tried because police later were unable to locate several key witnesses.

Williams, the gunman, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and also received five other life sentences for attempted murder.

Singletary, who initiated the dispute, was sentenced to 26 years to life in state prison, followed by five other life terms. He won’t become eligible for parole for at least 32 years, according to his lawyer, Phil Nameth.

Williams maintained his silence, but Singletary apologized in court.

“I just want to say I’m sorry for what happened,” he told Kriegler. “I never had any intentions, you know, of anyone dying. I wish there was something I could do to take it back or change the situation, but I can’t.”

Still, the sentencing hearing brought no tears or emotional pleas for justice from the friends and family of the dead teen.

Fear kept them away, said Det. Jari Quinones of the LAPD’s West Valley station. Quinones added that he and some of the witnesses had received threats during the trial, and that witnesses had been intimidated at school.

Among the chief prosecution witnesses were the two girls, who had accompanied Williams and Singletary in the car on June 9, 1995, for a night of partying.

The two girls who testified had once faced murder charges as well, but instead were granted immunity from prosecution. Charges were dismissed against a third girl who cooperated with police.

But a fourth, the daughter of a prominent Valley developer, still faces a murder charge in Sylmar Juvenile Court, where hearings are set later this month, Quinones said.

The girls’ families also are being sued by Shaolian’s survivors and the family of a friend who was wounded, Mehdi Sina-Kadiz. The suit, filed in June and served on the girls when they testified in the criminal case, alleges that the girls helped Williams and Singletary carry out the shooting.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Laura Baird said Shaolian and two other people standing outside the mall’s movie theater were struck by nine shots fired by Williams from a .22-caliber semiautomatic handgun. “Because they disrespected Mr. Singletary, they were basically hunted down,” she added.

According to testimony, the dispute began at a phone booth, when Singletary asked a group of teens, including Shaolian, where they were from and whether they were gangbangers.

“Do you think we look like we’re gangbangers?” one of the teens responded, sarcastically.

Angered, Singletary ordered the driver to follow the teens, slowly and with the headlights off, to the darker side of the mall. Once there, Williams fired, and shouted: “You don’t gangbang? Well, you do now.”

Singletary continues to deny any gang involvement, But Williams admits his affiliation with EWF in a probation report. He also claims to have used marijuana and PCP daily since age 15.

Both are fathers of small children and have lengthy records for auto-theft and drug-related offenses. As they left court, Singletary’s mother called Quinones a “punk” and snapped: “You satisfied? You satisfied?”

The detective cooly responded, “Yes.”