STUDIO CITY : Residents Want Man Barred From Area

More than six months before a 48-year-old transient is scheduled to be released from state prison, Studio City residents are asking that his freedom be tied to a requirement that bars him from the community.

Residents and police say Steven Collins poses a threat to the community where he lived for more than two years before he was jailed last October. Collins was convicted of threatening the manager of a McDonald’s restaurant and of pushing another employee--both while on parole for burglary.

“He’s a huge problem,� said Jim O’Riley, the Los Angeles police officer who leads the Neighborhood Watch program in Studio City. O’Riley said he has received more than 200 complaints about Collins.

Collins received two six-month sentences--one for battery and one for misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon--as well as a one-year sentence for violating the terms of his parole. Because he is serving the sentences concurrently, he will be behind bars at least until Oct. 26, according to his parole officer, Frank Loeffen.

Loeffen said Collins may have to do additional time for misconduct while in prison.

The parole officer added that the state Department of Corrections is agreeable to the requests of Studio City residents to order Collins kept away from his old haunts, but that the conditions would most likely involve certain blocks, not the entire community.

Any conditions would remain in effect until the end of Collins’ parole in late 1996.

But Michael Gottlieb, a Los Angeles County public defender who represented Collins at a preliminary hearing, said he does not believe his client is violent, though he may be mentally ill.

“I know people who run businesses on Ventura Boulevard think he was a real pain, that he was asking customers for their money,� Gottlieb said. “But I don’t have any personal knowledge of him harassing or hurting any of those people.�

In Collins’ last trial, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office charged him with felony assault with a deadly weapon--hoping that with two prior felony convictions, Collins would face sentencing under the so-called “three strikes� law.

But two Van Nuys Municipal Court judges in separate court hearings found that Collins’ actions did not constitute a felony. Gottlieb said that on cross-examination, the McDonald’s manager admitted she could not recall with what object the transient had threatened her, although she had said earlier it was a sharp knife.

Gottlieb added that because Steven Collins is a common name, the prior felony convictions the district attorney’s office found under his name--a 1981 robbery and a 1990 attempted burglary--may have been committed by someone else.

Rohini De Silva, a member of the Studio City Residents Assn. who has been tracking the Collins case, said the judges’ decisions made her feel powerless.

“I feel we don’t have any rights,� she said.

The residents’ group has attempted to crack down on panhandlers in the past. In 1993, it began a program encouraging people to give information pamphlets to beggars instead of money.