Teenager Avoids Jail Time in Mall Slaying

The daughter of a San Fernando Valley developer was sentenced Tuesday to community service for her role in a notorious drive-by slaying at the Fallbrook Mall, the same shooting for which two gang members are serving multiple life prison terms.

Yael Oved, 19, was ordered to perform 300 hours of community service and receive psychiatric counseling in the slaying of 16-year-old Taft High School sophomore Ramtin Shaolian on June 9, 1995.

Sylmar Juvenile Court Judge Morton Rochman imposed the sentence after hearing the recommendation from prosecutors and a probation report that Oved be kept in custody, sources close to the case said.

“This young lady got the break of a lifetime,” said Phil Nameth, lawyer for Eliot O’Neal Singletary, who last year was sentenced to six life terms with an accomplice, Tommy Lee Williams of Van Nuys.

“Based on the information I had, she had full knowledge that [Shaolian and his companions] were going to be shot outside the theater.”

But Oved’s defense attorney and even prosecutors denied that the Woodland Hills teenager had such knowledge.

“All of the witnesses indicated she didn’t know there was a weapon in the car and didn’t know the intentions [of the two adult gang members],” said James Blatt, lawyer for Oved.

“The district attorney’s office acted with the highest standard of fairness in this case. They went after the shooter and the gang member who had knowledge of what was going to occur,” Blatt said.

According to testimony at last year’s criminal trial, Oved and three other teenage girls had gone out with the two men, who police said were gang members with criminal records. At one point, Singletary asked a group of teenagers where they were from and whether they were gangbangers.

When one of the teens responded, ‘Do we look like gangbangers?’ Singletary ordered Oved, who was driving, to follow them to the dark side of the West Hills mall with the car’s headlights off.

Soon after, the group in the car came upon Shaolian. After firing nine shots at the youths, killing Shaolian and wounding two of his companions, Williams shouted: “You don’t gangbang? Well, you do now!”

“There was no way we could prove she knew there was a gun in the car,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Stewart Powell. “So our offer was made to hold her responsible for her actions, as well as her knowledge of what was going on.”

None of the four teenage girls riding in the car during the drive-by served time in jail, although they were at first booked for murder. Police said none had criminal records. Two were given immunity in return for their testimony against Williams and Singletary, and a third was not prosecuted.

The case alarmed parents in the upscale West Valley area where the shooting took place, putting a spotlight on the allure of gangster culture, and shocked patrons of the popular mall.

Police said the girls, all from comfortable, affluent homes south of Ventura Boulevard, went along with the gang members for thrills. Oved’s father is Ovadia Oved, a building contractor, according to the family’s lawyer.

Oved’s sentencing brought the case to a close, but not the debate.

“There could be a lot of reasons [for the sentence],” Nameth said. “But I assume they would include her socioeconomic background, her age, lack of a prior criminal record, the fact she retained private counsel, and race.”

Oved is white and the two men who were sent to jail are black.

Blatt sharply disagreed with Nameth’s view.

“It’s absolutely untrue. She had no prior criminal record or contact, was a good student, had no gang affiliation.

“This, frankly, was a situation where she was at the wrong place at the wrong time and didn’t have the experience to exercise proper judgment,” he said.