Neighbors Cheer as ‘Bully’ Gets Busted

Perry Laborde of Placentia, dubbed by the city’s mayor as the “neighborhood bully,” was found guilty by a jury Tuesday of terrorizing his neighbors with violent threats.

The trial judge immediately placed him in jail, telling him that the verdict is likely to make him angry at his neighbors. “This is a dangerous time for you to be out of custody,” the judge said.

But Superior Court Judge Robert H. Keefe lamented that he has limited powers to protect the Sunset Avenue neighbors of Laborde, 40, who faces a maximum sentence of two years in jail.

“I can only jail you for a certain period of time,” the judge told Laborde.

The judge then told gathering neighbors: “I wish there was something I could do to guarantee peace in your neighborhood. But some behavior is so ingrained in people they can’t change.”

Even so, the neighbors and their supporters, more than a dozen, were ecstatic as they left the courtroom in Fullerton.

“It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood,” sang one of them, Kathy Gomez.

Laborde, who told jurors his neighbors were lying, declined to talk about the verdict after the court proceeding.

The neighbors began having disputes with Laborde almost from the time he moved into his father’s house on Sunset 15 months ago. Their complaints--violent threats, harassment of their children, annoying late-night telephone calls, damage to their cars--led to the filing of numerous restraining orders against Laborde.

Residents finally took their complaints to the Placentia City Council last August, where they found a receptive audience. Placentia Mayor Norman Z. Eckenrode said Laborde had been harassing him and his family for years. The mayor asked the police to look into the problem, and Laborde was eventually arrested.

Eckenrode wound up as a prosecution witness at Laborde’s trial last week. The judge cited Laborde’s harassment of the mayor as more damaging evidence that Laborde was a danger.

Laborde was charged with two counts of violating restraining orders by making violent threats against two Sunset neighbors and one count of making late-night harassing telephone calls. A jury convicted him on all three misdemeanor charges after less than a full day of deliberation.

Though Laborde had been free on $50,000 bail, Deputy Dist. Atty. Barrie Pink asked the judge to order Laborde into custody immediately to protect the neighbors from retaliation.

The judge agreed.

“Mr. Laborde, it seems to me these neighbors have gotten along in apparent harmony for some 30-plus years until you came along,” Keefe said. “You’ve totally disrupted these people’s lives.”

The judge offered him a chance to respond, but Laborde declined to make a statement.

Laborde’s father, Peter, did address the court, but only to disagree with the judge’s assessment of the evidence that Perry Laborde had a history of trouble in a previous neighborhood. Laborde did not defend his son against the current charges, saying that he had not heard all the testimony.

Though the judge set formal sentencing for May 3, he allowed several neighbors to make victim statements that normally are reserved for a sentencing hearing.

“I am terrified of him,” Cathy Escarcega said in court. She said she gets off work late at night and fears making it to her door safely because of Laborde.

Billy Zavala, who had won one of the restraining orders, told the court, “We have been hostages in our own neighborhood for over a year.”

One of the counts against Laborde involved a threat against Zavala’s life.

Tim Guerrero, who has lived on the street since childhood, said his daughter cannot skate on the sidewalk the way he did there as a child because of threats from Laborde.

But Guerrero warned that if Laborde returns to the neighborhood and the threats continue, “I will not be as calm about it as I am right now.”

The judge praised all the neighbors for what he saw as “remarkable restraint” on their part. Instead of becoming “nasty,” Keefe said, the case was handled through the system, like it should have been.

The judge acknowledged that “the law is ill-equipped to handle these difficult situations.”

“I’m not sure what the ultimate solution is,” he said.

Pink said the judge will not likely sentence Laborde to the maximum term because the court then would not be able to add the standard three years’ probation. Probation, she said, would allow county authorities to oversee Laborde’s behavior for a longer period.

Outside the courtroom, the neighbors told a probation official who had attended the hearing that the only solution to their problem was for Laborde to leave the neighborhood when he finally gets out of jail.

“But then,” the probation official told them, “he becomes somebody else’s problem.”