Troubled politician jailed for run-in with neighbors

Bill Gang

Thursday, March 12, 1998 | 10:29 a.m.

A Las Vegas lawyer, who once was a San Diego City Councilman and has been a candidate for election three times in Nevada, was sent to jail Wednesday over the pepper spraying of one neighbor and the pushing of another.

Michael Schaefer had been convicted of two counts of misdemeanor battery by visiting Justice of the Peace Marley Robinson for the incidents between February and May 1997.

She had sentenced Schaefer to 30 days behind bars and 60 days of probation, with the requirement that he keep away from his victims.

That didn't happen so Robinson increased the jail time to 90 days and had Schaefer handcuffed and led away despite protests and pleas for leniency from his lawyer. She also refused to set a bail amount that would have let Schaefer get out of jail while appealing the case yet again.

Deputy District Attorney Bart Pace said that during the months that it took for his first appeal to be rejected by a district judge, Schaefer just couldn't stay away from the neighbors he had feuded with and then victimized.

Schaefer's attorney, Robert Kossack, asked Robinson to grant a new trial based on evidence that one of the victims, Raymond Sonnier, has now changed his story.

Pace snapped that the only reason Sonnier's story now differs from the original is that Schaefer had "manipulated" the man by suggesting it would end the possibility of his filing a lawsuit against the victim.

He said if there was a new trial, the result would be the same.

Robinson rejected the bid for a new trial and then turned her focus on Schaefer's sentencing.

Robinson recalled that she considered Schaefer's ongoing feud with his neighbors at the Wimbledon Tennis Club condominiums near UNLV a "volatile situation." She reminded Schaefer that she had clearly prohibited any further contact.

"He has showed a tendency for violence and a disregard for the court," Pace said, noting that Schaefer also has been convicted in San Diego for beating his wife on Christmas Day 1992. He was sentenced to 120 days on a work-furlough program but violated the provisions of the program and was jailed.

Records also show he did jail time for failing to make court ordered repairs on a Los Angeles apartment building he owned.

In sentencing Schaefer to jail immediately to serve his entire 90-day sentence behind bars, Robinson refused Kossack's request for a postponement until after the weekend when Schaefer was scheduled to take a portion of a bar exam for another law license.

Schaefer has been licensed in California and Nevada but California placed him on a two-year suspension after his domestic battery sentencing. He then voluntarily placed his license on inactive status and moved to Nevada.

Schaefer, 58, served two terms on the San Diego City Council from 1965 to 1971 but didn't run for a third term.

He had run unsuccessfully in 1994 for San Diego district attorney in one of a dozen bids for public office there.

In Nevada, he has run for Las Vegas city council, justice of the peace and secretary of state.