Suspect Recants Confession in Ski Mask Bandit Robberies

By BILL BILLITER

May 23, 1989 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Jose Razo, who emerged from a modest La Habra neighborhood to win an academic scholarship at Harvard University, denied Monday that he was the Ski Mask Bandit and testified that he was high on drugs and thought he was God when he confessed to a string of holdups.

Razo, 22, told Orange County Superior Court jurors in Santa Ana that the confessions he gave to both police and reporters in 1987 were based on the exploits of a real armed robber who had been a friend.

He also testified that his Harvard studies intensified his interest in crime, but he refused to divulge the alleged real robber’s name.

Police said a young armed man wearing a ski mask held up about a dozen stores at gunpoint in Orange and Los Angeles counties from about 1985 to 1987.

Razo confessed to police that he committed those robberies while on vacations from Harvard, but on the witness stand Monday, Razo said he had used the mind-altering drug PCP for about a month before he made his confessions.

He said his mind was so distorted when he went to police in June, 1987, that he believed that he was divine.

“I felt I was Christ,” he testified. “I felt I had the ability to ask for anything I wanted.”

Razo testified that he had encountered the real Ski Mask Bandit more than a year before he confessed to the man’s crimes.

Under cross-examination by the prosecution, Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Ravinder Mehta three times asked, “Who is the robber, Mr. Razo?”

Razo’s only response was: “I can’t answer that. I’ve already involved myself. I fear if I involve someone else . . .” He did not complete the sentence.

At the request of defense attorney John Barnett, Judge Jean M. Rheinheimer recessed the court late Monday afternoon before Mehta could continue to press Razo about “the robber.”

But Mehta said outside the courtroom that he will continue the same questioning this morning when court resumes. “If he knows, he should tell,” the deputy district attorney said, but he added: “I personally think Razo was the robber. Why else would I be prosecuting him?”

Razo is accused of holding up the stores and escaping with thousands of dollars. In his confessions and interviews with reporters after his arrest in 1987, Razo said he used the money to help his family and friends. He also said he used some of the money for drugs.

Barnett, Razo’s court-appointed attorney, told the jury that PCP (phencyclidine, also known as “angel dust”) caused Razo to confess to crimes he did not commit.

And Barnett, in his opening statement, said he would also prove that Razo became enmeshed in learning about the crimes he confessed to because of his Harvard studies. One of Razo’s sophomore courses in 1986-87--the academic year just before he was arrested--was entitled “Crime and Human Nature.”

Barnett told the jury: “Once Mr. Razo went to Harvard, he was interested in (studying) why a disproportionate number of Chicano youth wound up in prison.”

Barnett said Razo thus was academically interested when he met the real robber.

Razo was the first defense witness. As the defendant, he had the constitutional right not to be required to testify. But Razo waived that right by taking the stand--and thus left himself open to cross-examination.

The trial began May 5. Barnett said Monday that he expects the defense phase to last 2 more weeks before the case goes to the jury.

Dressed in a businesslike, charcoal-gray suit, gray-patterned tie and white shirt, Razo looked like the Ivy League scholar he had been before his 1987 arrest. Razo won the academic scholarship to Harvard after being a star football player and scholar at Servite High, a Catholic boys’ school in Anaheim. During his high school years, Razo had also been very active in an affiliate of the Boys’ Club of La Habra.

As a virtual model youth of the community, Razo’s arrest 2 years ago shocked teachers and adults who had worked with him.

Used Marijuana Extensively

But on the witness stand Monday, Razo, in response to prosecution questions, conceded that he had used marijuana throughout his junior high and high school years.

Razo, however, said he had not used any “hard” drugs, such as cocaine, and said he experimented with PCP only beginning in May, 1987, when he returned to La Habra from his sophomore year at Harvard.

Barnett asked Razo why he started using PCP. Razo looked down at his hands and quietly responded: “I think there were a whole lot of factors. It was easily the most regrettable decision of my life.”

In response to other questions from his attorney, Razo said he had some painful adjustment problems because of shifting between La Habra and the heady academic world of Harvard in Cambridge, Mass.

Razo said: “I was feeling very guilty about being a student at Harvard and the direction my life was heading, compared to my friends at home. . . . I felt I had to come back and find my roots, so to speak.”

Feelings of Estrangement

Razo also said he confessed to the robberies, in part, because of his feeling of estrangement from his Latino friends. “In hindsight, I felt that that by confessing I would be part of their misery,” he said.

But Razo indicated that his mind had been essentially altered by PCP use when he made his police confessions. As jurors watched, Barnett played a videotape of Razo’s June 6, 1987, talk with police, shortly before he was arrested. During that tape, Razo made bizarre statements to the officers, including: “God has sent me to change the world. . . . I have seen the Lord and spoken to Him.”

During cross-examination, Razo said he had met the real robber “by chance” shortly after the man had committed the first of the string of robberies--a holdup of a dairy near Razo’s home in La Habra.

Razo said “the robber” was a friend from his elementary school days in La Habra. Razo said he was “fascinated” by the man’s discussion of his holdups.

But Razo said he did not help the man commit the robberies.

Mehta, the prosecutor, asked Razo a string of questions about “the robber.”

Calls to Harvard?

“Was he a good friend of yours?” Mehta asked.

Razo answered, “Yes.”

Mehta also asked, “How many times did he call you” at Harvard?

Razo responded, “Perhaps once a month.”

Razo said he learned virtually all of the details of the crimes he confessed to from talking to “the robber” about the actual holdups.

Mehta said that in this morning’s continuation of his cross-examination of Razo, the prosecution will try to uncover more about “the robber.”

But Mehta, in comments outside of court, said he believes that Razo has simply invented “the robber” as a fictitious scapegoat for his own crimes.