OXNARD : Man on Probation Held on New Charge

An 18-year-old Oxnard man on probation for killing his stepfather last year was ordered to stand trial on four misdemeanor weapons charges.

John Joseph Lewis, who fatally shot Walter Bell in November after mistakenly concluding that Bell was responsible for his mother’s death, was arrested Wednesday when he and another man were found along Pacific Coast Highway with two guns and two clubs, officials said.

Lewis and Gregory Wells, 20, also of Oxnard, were arrested by Ventura County sheriff’s deputies who stopped to investigate their illegally parked car a half-mile south of Sycamore Canyon.

The deputies recovered two guns in the car and two ski masks and two billy clubs a short distance away from Lewis and Wells, and arrested them in the belief they had intended to rob a couple sleeping on the beach nearby, officials said.

But prosecutors did not file a charge of attempted robbery, saying it would be difficult to prove. At his arraignment in Ventura County Municipal Court Friday, Lewis pleaded not guilty to the weapons charges.

Judge Edward F. Brodie scheduled a July 30 jury trial and set bail at $5,000.

Lewis was placed on probation for the manslaughter charge. Conviction on the weapons charges would be a violation of probation, prosecutors said.