Felon May Face Life in Prison

The man infamous for setting his son on fire in a Buena Park motel room 22 years ago was convicted Tuesday of weapons charges and could face imprisonment for life.

Charles Rothenberg, who has legally changed his name to Charley Charles, had admitted possessing a loaded .38-caliber revolver and dozens of rounds of ammunition, which are felonies for such a convicted offender.

Taking the stand in his own defense, Rothenberg, 64, claimed a rare “necessity defense,” saying that a constant threat of vigilante violence accompanied his pariah status and that he had no viable legal method of protecting himself.

But after deliberating a day, a Superior Court jury issued two guilty verdicts: for being a felon in possession of a handgun and in possession of ammunition.

Dist. Atty. Kamala Harris is seeking a sentence of 25 years to life under the state’s three-strikes law -- a course of action unusual in liberal San Francisco for a nonviolent third offense. But Rothenberg’s extensive criminal record warrants it, she said.

“He is one of the worst people we’ve seen in the criminal justice system as far as his track record ... and propensity for crime and violent crime” are concerned, Harris said earlier.

Rothenberg “is the poster boy for the three-strikes law,” Chief Assistant Dist. Atty. Russ Giuntini said after the court session. “He committed horrendous offenses in the past and got off with minimal punishment. He has continued to offend over the years and has been fortunate to escape justice.”

After reading its verdicts, the jury was asked to leave the courtroom while Deputy Public Defender Gabriel Bassan moved to have factors affecting Rothenberg’s sentencing decided by a jury and not a judge.

Judge Cynthia Lee denied the motion.

At issue in the trial was the loaded gun tucked in the T-shirt drawer of Rothenberg’s San Francisco apartment when he was arrested June 14, 2001, on suspicion of arson (for which he was never indicted).

Bassan argued that a stranger had recognized Rothenberg in 1997 and shot at him. The incident, the defender said, was an example of the threats that Rothenberg encountered daily.

But Rothenberg admitted on the stand that on the date of his arrest, about three years after he had gotten the gun, he faced no specific danger.

In 1983, Rothenberg took his 6-year-old son, David, to Southern California for a Disneyland vacation without the knowledge of his ex-wife, with whom he was in a custody dispute.

At the time, a warrant had been issued for his arrest in connection with arson and embezzlement at a restaurant where he worked.

In a motel room, Rothenberg poured kerosene on the sleeping David, lighted it and fled. David suffered third-degree burns over 90% of his body and was permanently disfigured. His father became one of the nation’s most reviled criminals.

Apprehended after the blaze, Rothenberg pleaded guilty to attempted murder and arson with great bodily injury, and received the maximum sentence: 13 years in prison. The Orange County Superior Court judge who sentenced him wept in his chambers that day, tormented by his inability to keep Rothenberg behind bars longer.

By 1990, less than seven years later, Rothenberg had been released from prison. Paroled to Alameda County in 1993, he was placed under 24-hour surveillance by a rotating parade of 50 agents. It was the strictest and costliest parole in California history to that point.

On the stand in his weapons trial, Rothenberg said he floated from waiter job to waiter job, changing residences often when his identity was learned. He wanted “closure,” he said, and to “live my life.”

Jurors learned of Rothenberg’s convictions for forgery and grand larceny in the 1970s, and the brutal details of his 1983 crimes, from his own defense attorney.

Judge Lee prohibited prosecutors from mentioning convictions before the 1970s, Rothenberg’s arrest in 1996 in Alameda County on suspicion of attempted murder (he was acquitted) and current charges against him for fraud and forgery.

Jurors were told not to consider sentencing implications, though Rothenberg’s criminal history might have suggested that this could prove to be a third-strike case.