Plea Deals Led to Slayings, Stein Charges

City attorney candidate Ted Stein tried to give his underdog campaign a boost Wednesday by suggesting that his opponent, incumbent Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn, was partly responsible for the deaths of two people whose killers he failed to prosecute with sufficient vigor.

“His failure to act responsibly may have cost at least two innocent children their lives,” Stein alleged at a news conference.

Hahn declined to be interviewed Wednesday but issued a written statement blasting Stein for “sleaziness” in exploiting tragedies.

Stein began featuring the killings on a television commercial Wednesday, citing them as evidence that Hahn’s characterizations of himself as a tough prosecutor are simply rhetoric.

Stein’s commercial invited comparison to a controversial ad used by George Bush to tarnish former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis in their 1988 presidential contest. The Bush ad sought to assign Dukakis responsibility for a rape and assault committed by a convict named Willie Horton. The crimes occurred while Horton was on a lawful weekend furlough from a Massachusetts prison, where he had been serving a sentence of life without parole for murder.

“Stein is using a terrible and tragic situation mixed with Willie Horton tactics,” Hahn’s statement said. “It is despicable.”

Stein campaign consultant Harvey Englander dismissed the Willie Horton analogy as inappropriate. The Stein ad seeks to hold Hahn accountable only for actions his own office took, Englander said.

Accompanied by the mother of one of the slaying victims, Stein declared that 19-year-old Sara Weir “could well be alive” if Hahn’s office, which prosecutes misdemeanors, had gotten jail time for a domestic violence offender.

Weir was slain in 1993 by Douglas Oliver Kelly, a serial rapist now on death row. Kelly had been arrested by Los Angeles police on a domestic violence charge a week before he killed Weir.

But he had given police a false date of birth that threw off a police computer. His case was settled before police realized that he was the same Douglas Kelly who was wanted in Florida for rape.

Police apparently did not seek felony prosecution of Kelly on the domestic violence matter. A district attorney’s spokeswoman said the office has no records on the case. Instead, Kelly was charged by the city attorney’s office with misdemeanors for breaking down the apartment door of a another woman with whom he had been living, attacking her and choking her until she lost consciousness. He pleaded guilty at his first court appearance after two days in jail and was placed on probation and released by a judge, who also ordered him to undergo domestic violence counseling and spend 13 days on a Caltrans work crew.

“The city attorney didn’t even ask for jail time,” said the victim’s mother, Martha Farwell. She said that she has asked herself repeatedly how a prosecutor who knew only of Kelly’s attack on his girlfriend could have failed to realize that Kelly was dangerous.

Farwell attributed Kelly’s release to a lack of seriousness in prosecuting cases of domestic violence. “I’d like to ask Jim Hahn this question,” she said. “If Douglas Kelly kicked down the door of a man’s apartment, attacked him and strangled him to unconsciousness, would Hahn offer him a plea bargain and let him walk out of the courtroom? Or isn’t it more likely that Kelly would have faced some serious jail time?”

Hahn has portrayed himself as a vigorous prosecutor of domestic violence cases. A domestic violence prosecution unit he revived handles 21,000 cases a year with an 84% conviction rate, he said.

“The system is far from perfect,” Hahn added. “If I had one wish, it would be to be able to predict the future actions of all of those that come before the court. But I cannot. Our only alternative is to do the best job we can in every case . . . given the information provided to us at the time.”

Hahn said the deputy city attorney who prosecuted Kelly believed him to have been a first offender. He also said Kelly’s girlfriend had been contacted by the city attorney’s office and “did not express particular concern for her [own] safety.”

Stein also cited the 1993 death of 13-year-old Luis Pantoja Jr., who was slain by his father three months after the father was arrested and quickly freed for violating a domestic violence restraining order.

“This little boy might be alive today if it weren’t for Mr. Hahn’s failure to match real policy with his rhetoric,” Stein said.

Luis Pantoja Sr. had a long record of violence against family members, according to his wife, who has said she endured more than a decade of abuse before obtaining a restraining order that forced him to leave their house.

Even then, he stalked the couple’s pregnant 16-year-old daughter and was charged with misdemeanors for violating the order, exhibiting a deadly weapon and being willfully cruel to a child.

After serving two days in jail, he pleaded no contest to violating the restraining order, and the city attorney’s office dropped the other counts. He was then released on probation.

Three months later, he hacked to death his 13-year-old son as the boy attempted to intercede on behalf of his sister. Then the elder Pantoja set a fire and died of smoke inhalation.

In a 1993 article on the deaths, The Times said they involved “a hideous tale of abuse too long tolerated and of a justice system incapable of preventing the tragedy.”

The article quoted Deputy City Atty. Richard Schmidt as saying Luis Pantoja Sr.’s two days in jail were a “relatively standard” sentence for a first offender. “Any time you look at a case in hindsight, it’s always tempting to second-guess yourself or the system,” he said.