‘Slick 50’s’ Teen Back in Jail in Misdemeanor Assault Case

A South County teenager accused of participating in last summer’s near-fatal stabbing of a 16-year-old was sent back to jail Tuesday for his alleged role in an unrelated assault last month.

Jesse Grist, 17, of Laguna Niguel was handcuffed and led away immediately after the hearing. His bail was raised to $250,000 by Orange County Superior Court Judge Kazuharu Makino, who also forbade the youth from socializing with three other defendants in the stabbing case should he manage to post the new bail amount.

“Mr. Grist doesn’t get the point,” Makino said during his ruling. “You stay away from this kind of stuff when a charge of attempted murder is pending against you.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. John Conley said Grist was involved in a March 20 misdemeanor assault and malicious mischief case in South County that left one youth injured and damaged the victim’s car. The fight occurred at an unsupervised party, which Conley said “is the same circumstance that got Mr. Grist into trouble in the first place.”

“Here he is at another party, involved in another fight,” Conley said. “And he’s already facing 15 years to life in prison.”

Grist’s attorney, Anthony Sessa, described the second incident as “a minor skirmish” among boys and said several witnesses told deputies that Grist wasn’t involved.

Grist and three other South County teens are scheduled to go to trial next month on attempted murder charges stemming from an Aug. 11 attack that occurred in a gated community in Aliso Viejo.

Sheriff’s officials said the suspects are members of a so-called bully gang called the Slick 50’s, who dress in cuffed pants and white T-shirts, have greased-back hair and target individual victims and assault them. The teens are accused of cracking a beer bottle over another boy’s head and stabbing him three times at the party last summer.

Some South County residents believe deputies overreacted, but others applaud a zero-tolerance approach to suspected gangs.

Grist and his friends are being tried as adults in that case. Makino ruled that the second arrest violated the conditions of Grist’s release pending trial in the first case.