Man who burned his son sentenced in gun case
A man who burned his son two decades ago to prevent his estranged wife from getting custody was sentenced Wednesday to 25 years to life in prison by a judge who called him the “kind of individual for whom the three-strikes law was passed.”
Charley Charles, 66, was re-sentenced in San Francisco Superior Court for possessing a gun after an appeals court said the judge erred in not applying the so-called three-strikes law to a pair of convictions in the fire that severely injured Charles’ son.
In 1983, Charles, then known as Charles Rothenberg, took his son to a Buena Park motel room and gave him a sleeping pill. He doused the room with kerosene and lighted it before leaving.
The boy survived, and Charles served seven years for attempted murder and arson.
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