Last Defendant Sentenced in ‘Wrong-Way’ Shooting

The last remaining defendant in the infamous 1995 “wrong-way” slaying of toddler Stephanie Kuhen pleaded no contest Friday to assault--a plea-bargain agreement that could mean he will be released from jail in just over a month.

Only weeks after his three co-defendants were sentenced to virtual life terms in prison, 18-year-old Augustin Lizama agreed to the plea on one count of assault with a deadly weapon. In exchange, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office dropped plans to retry the gang member on one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder in the Sept. 17, 1995, Cypress Park shooting.

Unlike the three co-defendants, Lizama was not accused of firing a gun at the Kuhen family’s car. With time already served since his arrest in the slaying, he could serve only another 42 days in jail.

“We gave it our best shot,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Eleanor Hunter, who co-prosecuted the earlier case that ended with three convictions but a deadlocked jury for Lizama.

“A jury of his peers had a hard time convicting him,” Hunter said.

To retry Lizama, she said, would have required the Kuhen family members to testify again and to relive the moments during which their late-night return from a birthday party led to tragedy.

“It would have been very, very difficult for them to go through [a trial] again,” Hunter said. “It was incredibly difficult for them the first time.”

On Aug. 1, Anthony Gabriel Rodriguez, 28, Manuel Rosales Jr., 22, and Hugo David Gomez, 18--were each sentenced to state prison terms of 54 years, 8 months to life. Those sentences followed their convictions on one count of murdering the little girl and five counts of attempted murder for firing into the Kuhen family car when it ventured down a dark, gang-plagued street just north of downtown.

Prosecutors said that although he fired no shots, Lizama helped stage the shootout by pushing a trash can onto the dead-end street to block the car’s exit.

That distinction set the stage for a potentially difficult retrial of Lizama, who would have faced a jury without his co-defendants and without testimony about their actions that night.

In addition, prosecutors reached a plea-bargain agreement with a fifth defendant who, like Lizama, was charged with blocking the car’s exit rather than firing at its occupants. Under that agreement, 24-year-old Marcos Antonio Luna pleaded guilty to one count of assault with a deadly weapon.

Like Lizama, Luna was sentenced to three years in prison, but with time served will be free in just over a month.

“We achieved what we wanted to achieve by getting guilty verdicts with the three shooters. That was our main objective,” Hunter said.

The prosecutor added that before the plea agreement was reached, the Kuhen family agreed to it.

“They were key in our decision,” Hunter said. “We made them absolutely part and parcel to this.”

Lizama’s attorney, Arnold Widner, said his client was prepared to go to trial, but “he wanted to get on with his life. That’s why we took the deal.”