FIRST ON FOX – Los Angeles voters are done with George Gascon, but the outgoing district attorney isn’t done with efforts to free violent killers from prison.

A former public defender brought in by Gascon as a “special counsel” is seeking a reduced sentence for a convicted mass shooter on death row who, along with an accomplice, forced 11 people into a restaurant freezer Bob’s Big Boy. days before Christmas 1980, he robbed them and shot them in the back, killing four and injuring four more.

Ricardo “Ricky” Sanders, now 69, and an accomplice, Franklin Freeman Jr., were both convicted of participating in the massacre at the La Cienega Boulevard restaurant.

Freeman was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Sanders received the death penalty, but it was not carried out amid appeals and California imposed a moratorium on capital punishment.

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A Big Boy statue is seen outside a Bob’s Big Boy restaurant in Santa Paula, California. (Patricia Marroquin/Getty Images/File)

Sanders, having run out of recourse, is fighting for a grudge. Shelan Joseph, a former public defender who is now Gascon’s special counsel, is handling the request.

Joseph’s support for a reduced sentence in the past has sparked protests from relatives of victims, including the family of Fred Rose, who was kidnapped, robbed and killed in 1992.

She successfully oversaw the commutation of his killer’s sentence, Scott Forrest Collinswho was taken off death row in 2022 but died in prison shortly after.

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A spokesman for Gascon’s office said Sanders’ request for a conviction stemmed from his defense. Sanders’ public defender did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

His murder is among the worst murder cases Los Angeles has seen.

“Sanders’ vicious and horrific crimes make him unworthy of any consideration of resentment,” said Kathleen Cady, a prominent Los Angeles victim advocate who filed a court case this week. “The victims whose lives he stole and their families should never be forgotten.”

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon (AP Photo/Eric Thayer/File)

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A brutal crime

The details of the mass murder were well documented at trial and on appeal.

Sanders and Freeman forced their way in around 2 a.m. on December 14, 1980, while employees were closing up the store. They pushed open the door at gunpoint after employees unlocked it to let two customers out.

“We’re going backwards,” Sanders said, according to court documents. “You’re going to get hurt.”

Freeman hit 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.

This Dec. 15, 1980 photo shows Bob’s Big Boy restaurant at 1845 S. La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles, where the multiple murders took place. This structure has since been demolished. (Rob Brown/Herald Examiner Collection)

The scammers asked for their wallets, watches and jewelry. The victims put their valuables in a bucket and handed them over as some of them pleaded robbery not to hurt them,” according to court documents.

Sanders and Freeman told everyone to turn around, face the wall and kneel. They then opened fire with a pistol and a rifle, shooting the group behind until they ran out of ammunition.

Three of the victims died on the spot. A fourth died after months in hospital. Four others were injured, including one who lost an eye and another who suffered a spinal injury and had trouble walking for the rest of his life.

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Sanders had no alibi and instead claimed at trial that four witnesses and two informants incorrectly identified him as one of the gunmen, according to court documents. None of the suspects were wearing masks the night of crime.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his death sentence in 2017. Because of a moratorium on the death penalty in California, he has been on death row for decades, but is unlikely to be executed.

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 Freeman’s cousin and had previously worked at the restaurant, according to court documents. She was instrumental in planning the robbery and warned one of her friends who was working there at the time not to be in the restaurant on the night of the murder.

From left, former Gascon aide Alisa Blair, special counsel Shelan Joseph, who is handling Sanders’ resentencing petition, U.S. Attorney George Gascon and his chief of staff, Tiffiny Blacknell. (Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office)

The victims killed 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 is dead and all his calls 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 that has exhausted his appeals.”

However, the source added, if the sentence is reduced to life without parole, Sanders would lose some privileges, including a private cell and access to elite lawyers.

The resentencing hearing is scheduled for November 22.

Sanders’ defense team at trial included renowned Los Angeles defense attorney Leslie Abramson, who also played a role in the Menendez brothers’ case.

From left: Erik Menendez, his attorney, Leslie Abramson, and his brother, Lyle, are shown in court in Los Angeles on March 9, 1994. (Ted Soqui/Sygma via Getty Images)

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Gascon, who has long opposed the death penalty, has filed another sentencing petition for the two convicted killers as well, although their hearings are scheduled after he leaves office.

Joseph Menendez, who goes by the middle name Lyle, and younger brother Erik Menendez have been in California prisons since 1996, serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for them. the murders of the parents in 1989.

That could soon change if any of their new requests for release are granted: a habeas corpus petition to have their murder convictions downgraded to manslaughter; a clemency petition from Governor Gavin Newsom; or their pending grievance claims.

Newsom said this week will reserve judgment on the Menendez brothers’ case until Gascon’s replacement, Nathan Hochman, has a chance to review it.