Plea Deal Reached in Slayings

One of two men convicted of killing a Chatsworth couple in a home-invasion robbery will avoid a life sentence in a deal reached Tuesday with the district attorney’s office.

Antwan Marque Allison, 19, pleaded guilty to special circumstances of murder in the commission of robbery and burglary in the shooting deaths of Richard and Donna Laundau in exchange for a sentence of 54 years to life.

Superior Court Judge Judith M. Ashmann scheduled sentencing for next month. Allison will not be eligible for parole before age 64, prosecutors said.

Trial was scheduled to begin Tuesday on the special circumstances. Had the jury found him guilty, Allison would have faced a life sentence without parole. It also would have been the third trial in the two-year legal battle over a crime even Allison’s defense attorney described Tuesday as “everybody’s worst nightmare.”

The Landaus were roused from their sleep late on the night of Jan. 2, 1996, by Allison and his cousin, Ricky Smith Jr., who was a former friend of the couple’s teenage son. Jonathan Landau, then 15, had let Smith and Allison into the house after his old friend had called, saying he wanted to come by for a visit.

Smith and Allison then pulled out a blue-steel revolver and gagged and bound Jonathan and his parents with duct tape and tried to put plastic bags over their heads to suffocate them.

When Richard Landau broke free, the attackers shot the couple and their son, then ran off with jewelry, money, credit cards and personal checks.

Richard and Donna Landau were fatally wounded; Jonathan was shot in the thigh. He survived by playing dead, then climbing out a window to the roof after the attackers left. He hid there until his older brother returned home from a visit to his girlfriend, then they called police.

Smith was convicted last May of murder and attempted murder, plus the special circumstances. He was sentenced to life in prison.

A jury deliberating Allison’s fate was disbanded days before Smith’s conviction, when Ashmann determined some jurors engaged in misconduct by refusing to follow her legal instructions.

In September, a second jury found Allison guilty of first-degree murder, but could not reach a verdict on the question of special circumstances.

Explaining at the time why she would press for another trial on the special circumstances, Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman said it was unjust for Allison to receive a lighter sentence than Smith, because it was unclear who fired the fatal shots.

On Tuesday, she said the district attorney’s office made the offer to save taxpayers the cost of another trial.

“And the reality is that with two first-degree murder convictions, he’s not ever getting out. He might come up for parole, but he’s never getting paroled,” Silverman said.