Life Terms

Three men were sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for the 1990 murder of a Fullerton police detective who tried to sell them cocaine in an undercover operation. The sentences handed down by Superior Court Judge Kimball Walker ruled out the possibility of parole. Walker also rejected requests for new trials. The prosecution said Jesus Araclio, Raul Meza and Omar Yuriar ambushed Officer Tommy De La Rosa after he arranged to sell them 400 pounds of cocaine.

A Superior Court judge has sentenced a former security guard to two terms of life in prison without possibility of parole for murdering two men in front of his Inglewood apartment complex. In August, a jury convicted Ahmad Grigsby, 29, of two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances in the March 17, 1989, shooting deaths of Terry Goring and Raymond Rodriguez at Grigsby's apartment building on Firmona Avenue.

A 38-year-old Pacoima man who kidnaped a paraplegic and the disabled man's girlfriend, then robbed them of more than $26,000, was sentenced Tuesday to two consecutive life terms, plus 12 years, in state prison. Harold Elliott Hayes, who committed the crimes only two months after he had been paroled on a 1968 murder conviction, will be ineligible for release for at least 20 years, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Linda B. Greenberg.

A man convicted of ordering the deaths of two witnesses against him was sentenced to two life sentences without parole. Kenneth Leighton, 39, of Valencia was convicted March 12 in the execution-style shootings of Jamie Navaroli, 36, and his girlfriend, April Mahoney, 25. The couple, who were to testify against Leighton in a burglary case, were shot outside their West Hills home Nov. 4, 1998. Navaroli died at the scene, and Mahoney died later of her injuries.

An Anaheim man who used his car as a rolling torture chamber was sentenced to three life terms plus 145 years in prison for sexual attacks on four women. His voice quavering, 31-year-old David Lopez apologized for the attacks and pleaded for a chance to be a free man some day. "I know what I did was horrible. . . . I have a little girl and I hope she never happens to run into somebody like me," Lopez said at his sentencing in Orange County Superior Court.

With five of his victims and seven of the jurors who convicted him looking on, David Keith Lewis, dubbed the Automatic Teller Rapist, was sentenced Monday to 136 years and two life terms in prison for sex crimes and other offenses involving a dozen women. Lewis, 28, of North Hollywood will not be eligible for parole until he is 107 years old, Deputy Dist. Atty. Margaret Barreto-Morehouse said outside the courtroom.

A Costa Mesa man who sent a package bomb to a transsexual, killing her roommate instead, was sentenced in Los Angeles federal court Friday to two consecutive life terms. Prosecutors said Darryl Anthony Carr, 35, sent the explosive device in an act of revenge against Martha Galindo, a preoperative transsexual who had refused to become his girlfriend. Instead, the blast fatally injured Peter Marshall, 36, who shared an apartment with Galindo in Santa Ana.

A man convicted of murdering two brothers he had helped cheat out of most of a $380,000 inheritance was sentenced Thursday to three consecutive terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Timothy Mack was convicted of posing as a letter carrier to approach Howard Byrdsong, 20, and his 18-year-old brother, Jontrae, in 2001 at their Inglewood home. Each was fatally shot.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday limited the use of life terms in prison for murderers under 18, ruling that judges must consider the defendant's youth and the nature of the crime before putting him behind bars with no hope for parole. In a 5-4 decision, the high court struck down as cruel and unusual punishment the laws in about 28 states that mandated a life term for murderers, including those under age 18. The justices ruled in the cases of two 14-year-olds who were given life terms for their role in a homicide, but their decision goes further.

A court has convicted an organized crime boss from southern Italy of 11 murders and sentenced him to 11 successive life terms in prison. The court in Palmi heard testimony that Giuseppe Piromalli, 64, was a chief in the N'Drangheta, a Mafia-like crime ring in Calabria, southern Italy. Prosecutors had asked the court to sentence Piromalli to three life terms for the murders, which occurred between 1978 and 1982, but the court delivered the harsher verdict last week.