Former Officer Who Accosted Woman Is Sentenced, Released

A former Torrance police officer who resigned shortly after his January arrest for accosting a woman in Lancaster was sentenced Tuesday to a year in County Jail but then ordered released because he had already spent five months in custody.

Lancaster Superior Court Judge Haig Kehiayan suspended the remaining jail sentence of Roland Sabara, 36, under the terms of an April 2 plea bargain in which Sabara pleaded no contest to a felony charge of false imprisonment and a misdemeanor count of battery.

The former officer also was placed on three years probation and ordered to attend an outpatient alcohol-abuse program.

Sabara previously admitted being an alcoholic and said he remembered little of his actions.

The charges stemmed from a Jan. 31 incident in which Sabara, after a morning of heavy drinking, tried to grab a 25-year-old Antelope Valley College student and pull her into his car outside a Lancaster automotive shop. The woman broke free and drove for help.

Sabara drove to his Lancaster home, where he was arrested by sheriff’s deputies who obtained his auto license-plate number from a witness. Sabara also allegedly harassed a group of four teen-age girls and one woman in Lancaster that day, but was not prosecuted for those incidents.

The six-year Torrance officer, who resigned shortly after his arrest, originally was free on bail. But he had been in custody since April 29, when Kehiayan ordered him to undergo a psychiatric evaluation prior to sentencing as part of the plea bargain.

Because the evaluation concluded that Sabara is not a threat to society, he was not required to serve more time. The judge sentenced him to one year on the false-imprisonment charge, but gave him credit for 153 days in custody, good-conduct credit for 72 days more and suspended the remaining 140 days.

The judge also agreed to reduce the false-imprisonment count from a felony to a misdemeanor. A felony charge of attempted kidnaping originally filed as part of the case also was dismissed.