Judge says he struggled to find balance on 311 Boyz sentences

Monday, Aug. 9, 2004 | 9:23 a.m.

District Judge Michael Cherry walked a high wire on Friday when he handed out sentences to the five young men charged in the July 2003 rock attack on 18-year-old Stephen Tanner Hansen, attorneys on both sides said.

On one hand, Cherry had five teenage boys, one of them still in high school, who were all first-time offenders.

All of the alleged 311 Boyz members had also stayed out of trouble since their arrests, abiding by all of the judge's orders and taking strides to turn their lives around, their lawyers said while arguing for probation. They got jobs, finished their educations or at least improved their grades, and most even went to counseling.

On the other hand, Cherry believed all five were culpable in the attack that crushed the left side of Hansen's face and shattered his arm. In an upcoming surgery, all of the bones in Hansen's face will have to be broken to try to fix the remaining damage, Hansen said, and the emotional scars of the attack will stay with him forever.

In the end, Cherry sentenced all five to probation and sent the eldest four -- Steven Gazlay, 19, Christopher Farley, 19, Jeff Hart, 18, and Matthew Costello, 18, to the county jail for one year. When they get out, they'll serve another year on house arrest and three more on probation.

Cherry sentenced the youngest, Brandon Gallion, 17, to one year of house arrest and four years of regular probation.

The five, along with 17-year-old Ernest Aguilar, did not admit guilt to the charges of attempted murder, battery and coercion, but agreed prosecutors could prove their case at trial. Aguilar had already been sentenced to probation.

If any of the teens break their probation, they can get thrown in prison for two to 15 years.

"I've got a hammer over your head like you won't believe," Cherry warned them Friday.

Although parents for the defendants erupted in angry tears as their sons were handcuffed, lawyers on both sides said they believed Cherry was fair.

"This was a tough case, and one of the toughest sentences I've seen in 15 years," Gabriel L. Grasso, Gallion's attorney, said after the sentencing.

"I thought all of them were fair," Grasso said. "The victim wants them to go to prison for life, the defendants want probation. I think Cherry struck a good balance."

Hart's defense attorney, Sean Sullivan, agreed, noting that Cherry could have sent all of the teenagers to state prison.

"I felt the judge had to send a message," Sullivan said. "I just felt that he was trying to say that violent acts really aren't going to be put up with.

"I think he felt that based on the injuries, he had to give them time to give some payback to Tanner Hansen. He's a fair judge, but I think he had to lay down some punishments."

Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Laurent and Jerome Bowen, Hansen's attorney, made similar statements as they left the courthouse.

"We couldn't be happier," Laurent said. "We knew the judge would do justice and he did."

Bowen said the Hansen family had wanted the maximum jail time for all of the defendants, but he agreed that the judge had "looked closely at the issues."

"The sentences show our system works, that justice can prevail." Bowen said. "It's not a happy time, but it's a time of relief."

Despite his attempts at balance, the sentence still left several people unhappy, particularly the parents of Gazlay and Costello, who had expected their sons to get probation.

Parents for both teens left the courtroom immediately after their sons were handcuffed.

Gazlay's lawyer, Louis Palazzo, said his client was just at the "wrong place at the wrong time," and that Gazlay had been unfairly placed in the media spotlight as the leader of a gang he says he was never involved in.

"He's basically being sent to jail for a year for sitting on someone's tailgate," Palazzo said.

Lawyers for Costello and Farley were not immediately available for comment.

In court, Cherry said he had struggled over the sentences but said he was most convinced that Gazlay deserved to spend a year in jail. He told the 19-year-old that he was the ringleader and that it was his fault his friends were facing jail time. Cherry also said he saw no remorse in Gazlay.

For the others, Cherry expressed uncertainty. He told Farley that he could "suspend the sentence and let you walk out of the courthouse, but I'll be a damn fool if I do."

Cherry also said the severity of Hansen's injuries cried out for Hansen's attackers to be punished.

He said Gallion, the youngest of the group and a student at Shadow Ridge High School, was the hardest to sentence and that it came down to a "judgment call" in giving him house arrest and probation rather than jail time.

"I'm going to let you go to school and let you play football because football builds character and if anyone needs character building it's you," Cherry told the teenager.