Carjacker, 14, Gets Nearly 9 Years : Juvenile court: An attorney says the Canoga Park boy is sorry he injured an elderly woman motorist.

By JULIO MORAN

April 14, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

A 14-year-old Canoga Park boy was sentenced Tuesday to nearly nine years in a California Youth Authority facility for pushing a 73-year-old woman out of her car during a carjacking.

The almost 6-foot, 220-pound teen-ager quietly sobbed during the sentencing. Then as he was being led out of the courtroom in San Fernando Valley Juvenile Court, he yelled, “I’m going to kill myself.”

Milton Kerlan Jr., the youth’s attorney, said his client has drug and psychological problems. Kerlan told Commissioner Victor Reichman that his client was remorseful and, in consideration of the teen-ager’s admission to the crime, asked Reichman to sentence him to a youth camp.

But Reichman, while acknowledging that the early admission spared the elderly victim from having to testify, called the crime a “vicious and cowardly act” with the “only logical alternative the California Youth Authority.”

“The minor needs some serious help in confinement,” Reichman said, noting that if the boy had been 16 years old he would probably have been tried as an adult. “He needs psychological help. He’s going to have to wrestle within himself for a long time.”

On March 11, Esther Keely of Chatsworth was sitting in the passenger side of a 1990 Mercury Sable parked in the lot of a Pic-N-Sav store on Sherman Way in Canoga Park. Keely’s two sisters had just stepped out of the car when the teen-ager jumped into the driver’s seat, grabbed the car keys from beside Keely and drove off.

The youth then pushed Keely out the open passenger door while the car was going about 20 m.p.h. Keely broke her hip and nose and suffered a dislocated elbow and numerous cuts and bruises.

Kerlan said his client was under the influence of drugs at the time of the incident.

The teen-ager pleaded guilty on March 30 to one count of robbery with a special allegation that he caused great bodily injury. He also pleaded guilty to one count of joy riding involving a previous, unrelated incident.

He was sentenced to the maximum eight years for the robbery and an additional eight months for the joy riding. He was also ordered to pay $2,450 in restitution.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Joseph Musso had asked for the maximum sentence, calling the incident a “brutal and gutless act.” Musso said the teen-ager has a history of drug use and several prior arrests for theft and possession of drugs.

“He punched the victim in the face, threw her out of the car and left her for dead,” Musso said. “She’ll be confined to a wheelchair or a walker for who knows how long.”

Reichman noted that Keely had sent a letter to the court asking for the maximum sentence and explaining her injuries and how her life was now devastated. Reichman suggested that the youth write a letter of apology to Keely so that “maybe she can take some degree of comfort that you did not intend to harm her.”