Albert White, who allegedly bludgeoned his elderly father to death, presents a 'significant risk,' prosecutors said
A judge ruled Friday that a 1970’s Lithuanian hijacker who allegedly murdered his father in Santa Monica last month will remain in jail on $1.2 million bail.
Albert Victor White, who 32 years ago helped his father Pranas “Frank” Brazinskas hijack a Soviet commercial jetliner to escape cold war-era Lithuania, stands accused of beating to death his 77-year old father on Feb. 5 during a struggle at the pair’s 21st Street apartment.
Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Bernard J. Kamins denied a motion by White’s attorney, Jack Alex, to reduce bail or release White on his own recognizance.
The judge also granted a request by the district attorney to postpone the preliminary trial scheduled yesterday until Tuesday, March 26 when both sides will have had time to read the coroner’s report, which was released the day of the trial.
Alex said his client, also known as Algirdas Brazinskas, was acting in self-defense because his father had threatened him with a pistol. “(Brazinskas) was basically a terrorist,” Alex said, listing people killed by the father during the hijacking. “Albert is not a bad person. He doesn’t have a passport — he’s not going anywhere.”
No shots were fired during the argument. But Ann Rundle, the Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney handling the case, said White deliberately murdered his father with eight blows to the head with a “heavy, blunt object,” crushing his skull.
The first debilitating blow to the head may have been self-defense, but the other seven were not, prosecutors said.
They paint a picture of White as a violent man with a violent past, who resented his father and wanted him dead. White is charged with first degree murder.
“These claims of self-dense are baseless,” she said. “After hitting his father, (White) sat by and watched his father bleed to death.”
But White’s attorney described his client as a caring, nurturing son who stayed home to take care of his father instead of joining his wife — a US State Department attaché — when she was posted to the US embassy in Malaysia.
Brazinskas had many guns in the apartment and was paranoid that the KGB would eventually come after him for killing two of their agents, Alex said.
In Lithuania, Brazinskas was wanted for smuggling guns and running criminal rackets, Alex said. He fled his country not because of political discontent but because he faced a death sentence or life in a Siberian prison.
“He was a violent man, with a violent past,” Alex said. “His son knew first hand what he was capable of doing and he acted only to protect himself.”
However, Judge Kamins said in first degree murder trials bail was not usually set, so he would not waive the bail that had already been set.
“The fact that bail has already been set reflects considerations already made by this court,” he said.
In 1970, prosecutor’s say Brazinskas and his then 13-year old son, hijacked an Aeroflot jetliner and re-directed the flight to Turkey.
During the flight, Soviet guards on board opened fire. Caught in the crossfire, a female steward was killed and the pilot and co-pilot were wounded. After the soldiers were subdued, the flight crew was still able to successfully fly the hijackers to Turkey.
There, the father and son were arrested, convicted of murder and sentenced to prison, but in 1974 they were released, only to be placed under house arrest.
The pair managed to escape custody and fled to the closest American embassy in Ankara to plea for political asylum. Brazinskas said if he and his son had not taken control of the airplane, he would have been put to death for participating in a Lithuanian resistance movement.
Their request was denied, and the father and son were released back into Turkish custody, but the Soviet Union angrily argued the pair should be extradited. The Turkish government denied the request, causing much international tension.
With pressure mounting, the Turkish government released the pair two weeks later. The father and son fled to Venezuela, where they quickly flew to Canada. But when the plane made a stop over in New York, the pair vanished.
They were arrested a few weeks later by the Immigration and Nationalization Service, but under the newly enacted 1980 Refugee Act, the father and son were allowed to stay even though entrance visas would never be issued.
After a few short years living in Queens, NY the father and son moved to Santa Monica to live among the city’s large Lithuanian community. Ever since their dramatic escape from their home country, the pair had become heroes among Lithuanian expatriates living in America.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 16, 2002. Read the original PDF.