Progressive DA ousted for soft-on-crime policies spends last days in office helping 'Bob's Big Boy' killer
FIRST ON FOX — Los Angeles voters are done with George Gascon, but the outgoing district attorney isn't done with its push to release violent killers from prison.
A former public defender who Gascon brought in as his "special counsel" is pushing for a reduced sentence for a convicted mass shooter on death row who, along with an accomplice, forced 11 people into a walk-in freezer at a Bob's Big Boy restaurant days before Christmas in 1980, robbed them and shot at them from behind, killing four and wounding four more.
Ricardo "Ricky" Sanders, now 69, and an accomplice, Franklin Freeman Jr., were both convicted for taking part in the massacre at the restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard.
Freeman was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Sanders got the death penalty but has not been executed amid appeals and California placing a moratorium on capital punishment.
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Sanders, having run out of appeals, is fighting for a resentencing. Shelan Joseph, a former public defender who is now Gascon's special counsel, is handling the request.
Joseph's support for sentence reductions in the past prompted outcry from victims' relatives, including the family of Fred Rose, who was kidnapped, robbed and killed in 1992.
She successfully oversaw a sentence reduction for his killer, Scott Forrest Collins, who was removed from death row in 2022 but died in prison soon after.
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A spokesperson for Gascon's office said the request for Sanders' resentencing originated with his defense. Sanders' public defender did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
His crime is among the worst murder cases Los Angeles has seen.
"Sanders’ vicious and horrific crimes make him undeserving of any resentencing consideration," said Kathleen Cady, a prominent Los Angeles victims' advocate who filed a brief with the court this week. "The victims whose lives he stole and their families should never be forgotten."
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The details of the mass murder were well-documented at trial and through the appeals process.
Sanders and Freeman forced their way inside around 2 a.m. on Dec. 14, 1980, as employees were closing shop. They pushed through the door with guns after employees unlocked it to let two customers leave.
"We are going to the back," Sanders said, according to court documents. "You're going to get hurt."
Freeman clubbed someone in the head with the butt of a shotgun hard enough to knock him out, and the rest of the group went to the back of the restaurant. Sanders had the night manager empty $1,300 from the safe and then forced the group into the freezer.
The crooks demanded their wallets, watches and jewelry. The victims put their valuables in a bucket and handed them over as some of them "pleaded for the robbers not to hurt them," according to court documents.
Sanders and Freeman told everyone to turn around, face the wall and kneel. Then they opened fire with a pistol and a shotgun, shooting the group from behind until they ran out of ammunition.
Three of the victims died instantly. A fourth died after months in the hospital. Four others were wounded, including one who lost an eye and another who suffered a spinal injury and had trouble walking for the rest of her life.
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Sanders had no alibi and instead argued at trial that four witnesses and two informants incorrectly identified him as one of the gunmen, according to court documents. Neither of the suspects wore masks on the night of the crime.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his death sentence in 2017. Due to a moratorium on the death penalty in California, he has been on death row for decades but is unlikely to face execution.
Freeman received a separate sentence of life without parole, state prison records show. Another suspect involved in planning the robbery, Carletha Stewart, received a life sentence, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Stewart, who is no longer in state custody and was dating Sanders at the time of the robbery, is a cousin of Freeman and had previously worked at the restaurant, according to court documents. She was central to planning the robbery and warned one of her friends who was working there at the time to not to be in the restaurant on the night of the crime.
The murdered victims were diner David Burrell and employees Dita Agtane, Ahmad Mushuk and Cesario Luna. Luna's son also worked at the restaurant, witnessed his father's murder and survived the massacre.
"Sanders got death, and all his appeals are exhausted," a source with knowledge of the case told Fox News Digital. "Now Gascon is trying to make him eligible for parole after 25 years of litigation exhausting his appeals."
However, the source added, if the sentence winds up being reduced to life without parole, Sanders would lose some privileges, including a private cell and access to elite attorneys.
The resentencing hearing is scheduled for Nov. 22.
Sanders' defense team at trial included famed Los Angeles defense attorney Leslie Abramson, who also played a role in the Menendez brothers' case.
Gascon, who has long opposed the death penalty, filed another resentencing petition for those two convicted killers as well, although their hearing is scheduled after he leaves office.
Joseph Menendez, who goes by his middle name, Lyle, and younger brother Erik Menendez have been in California prisons since 1996, serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole for their parents' 1989 slayings.
That could soon change if any of their new pushes for release are granted: a habeas corpus petition requesting their murder convictions be downgraded to manslaughter; a petition for clemency from Gov. Gavin Newsom; or their pending resentencing requests.
Newsom said this week he would reserve judgment on the Menendez brothers' case until Gascon's replacement, Nathan Hochman, has a chance to review it.