4 ‘Slick 50’s’ Teens Found Guilty

In a case that highlighted what authorities say is the emergence of a new breed of street gang in suburban communities, a jury Wednesday convicted four members of the “Slick 50’s,” --so-called for their 1950s hairstyles and clothing--and a 21-year-old associate of attempted murder charges.

The teenagers were tried as adults, and all five were convicted on additional counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

Jesse Grist, 17, of Laguna Niguel and Josh Carlsen, 21, of Dana Point face up to 17 years in prison because they are believed to have played the most active roles in the stabbing and assault on Galen Thorne, 17, outside an unsupervised high school party in Aliso Viejo last year. Thorne was stabbed three times and received a severe wound when someone broke a beer bottle on his face. Thorne survived but still has scars on his face.

Steven Crader of Aliso Viejo, Kurtis Pinedo of Laguna Hills, both 17, and Joshua Riazi, 16, of Dana Point each face up to 15 years in prison.

Grist and Riazi covered their faces with their hands, and family and friends of the defendants sobbed quietly as the multiple verdicts were read in a Santa Ana courtroom.

Except for Carlsen, the defendants had been out on bail during the six-month trial. After the verdicts were read, the teens were taken into custody.

“Of course it wasn’t fair,” Yolanda Redig, Crader’s mother, said of the verdict.

Emotions flared briefly outside the courtroom. One woman tried to block press photographers from taking pictures of the defendants’ families and friends.

Ken Crader, 34, who had been estranged from his son for years and reunited with him this year after reading a newspaper article about the case, confronted the prosecutor and a district attorney’s investigator in a courthouse elevator.

“You got lucky on this one,” Crader told Deputy Dist. Atty. Marc Kelley and investigator Alex Correa. “I am not going to let it go this easy. He is just a boy.”

Kelley said Crader’s reaction was normal for such an emotional case.

“We received a lot of criticism from the community and media for pursuing these charges,” Kelley said. “And the only way to respond to that was with a jury verdict.”

And the jury of six men and six women was unanimous in deciding that the Slick 50’s were a criminal street gang. Determining they were a gang meant the defendants could all be held responsible for the same charges.

“I thought they were gang members because of their history, their motive . . . their clothing,” said juror Christine Farris, 50, of Santa Ana. “The legal definition of gang doesn’t read ‘Someone who paints graffiti on walls and wears a certain type of clothing.’ We thought this fit it.”

But whether the group fit the traditional notion of a criminal street gang was a difficult issue that even the judge acknowledged Wednesday before dismissing the jury.

“I know these defendants don’t look like what we think of as a gang,” Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert Fitzgerald told the jurors. “So I understand you have delved into a difficult case here.”

According to authorities, the Slick 50’s is a group of two dozen or so teens in south Orange County with an affinity for all things 1950s. They wear Converse tennis shoes, cuffed jeans and T-shirts, and slick their hair back a la James Dean. They also look for trouble, the authorities say, often picking fights to assert their dominance.

Last summer, one of those fights went too far. The group attacked Thorne outside a party after what police said was an obscene gesture Thorne made toward some Slick 50’s members.

Witnesses gave conflicting accounts during the trial, but authorities said they believe Grist and Carlsen were the principal actors in the Aug. 11 assault. One witness testified he saw Grist cleaning a knife shortly after the incident.

Nonetheless, all five were charged with attempted murder on the theory that they acted as a group and were all responsible for the charges.

“How is Galen Thorne any different from somebody who gets stabbed in L.A. because he flipped some gang off?” asked Kelley during closing remarks last week. “It is not a crime to be a gang member in California, but if you go out and commit crimes, then the circumstances change. They made their choices, and now they have to suffer the consequences.”

But to the defendants’ parents and others, Kelley’s words are nothing more than overreaction by the Sheriff’s Department and prosecutors. The moniker “gang” did not apply to their boys, they insisted.

The Slick 50’s is nothing more than a group of young boys enjoying similar interests, according to Kim Evans, Pinedo’s mother, who testified in the trial for the defense.

“It was something that we could enjoy together,” said Evans, who added she welcomed the boys’ clean-cut looks. “I promoted it absolutely.”

Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 8 in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana.

Times staff writer Eleanor Yang contributed to this report.