Judge: Mother might have been able to foresee violence
A judge has decided to put the mother — but not the father — of the teenager who killed a Santa Monica High School sophomore on trial in connection with the murder.
The ruling came as Superior Court Judge Linda Lefkowitz also noted that the teenager, Katrina Sarkissian, had a history of violent behavior and had assaulted her mother on several occasions. But the father didn’t have custody of the girl and did-n’t know as much about her behavior, Lefkowitz indicated.
The judge ruled last week that a civil lawsuit against Angelique Bernstein, the mother of the 17-year-old Sarkissian, should go to trial before a jury Dec. 15.
Bernstein, along with her ex-husband, Sarkis Sarkissian, were sued by Santa Monica residents Harriet and Ilja Maran in May 2002 after their 15-year-old daughter, Deanna Maran, was fatally stabbed by Katrina Sarkissian at an unsupervised party in Westwood. The Marans claim the parents should have known Katrina Sarkissian was emotionally unstable and violent.
In the same ruling, Judge Lefkowitz tossed out the suit against Sarkis Sarkissian, saying he had no opportunity to control his daughter on Nov. 17, 2001. On that evening, Deanna Maran was attacked in front of dozens of teenagers.
Judge Lefkowitz pointed out that Sarkis Sarkissian didn’t have custody of Katrina Sarkissian on the night of the murder and didn’t have enough first-hand knowledge of his daughter’s violent tendencies.
But Bernstein may have had that knowledge, court documents suggest. Bernstein apparently had been assaulted by her daughter during monthly physical confrontations — episodes to which Judge Lefk-owitz referred. On at least one occasion, the police were called to Bernstein’s Brentwood home and Katrina Sarkissian was arrested for attacking her mother. Another time, Bernstein suffered a bruise during a fight with her daughter.
Bernstein had full custody of Katrina Sarkissian.
Under California law, the Marans will need to prove both that Katrina Sarkissian’s mother had prior knowledge of her violent propensities and had the opportunity to control her.
“There has to be a nexus between a specific trait and the conduct,” Judge Lefkowitz said during a court hearing last month. “The zone of notice has to have some relationship to the crime committed.”
In her ruling, Judge Lefkowitz said Bernstein had enough knowledge of her daughter’s problems that she might have been able to foresee the behavior getting more violent. It will be up to a jury to decide that question.
“While admittedly there is no instance of Katrina’s prior use of any weapon, including a knife, there is also no question that Ms. Bernstein had specific knowledge of her daughter’s assaultive tendencies and, in fact, had been a frequent victim of such assaults,” Lefkowitz wrote.
The suit also targets Sarkissian’s 15-year-old half-sister, whose name is being withheld because she’s a minor. She allegedly kicked Maran while Katrina Sarkissian stabbed her with a knife.
According to the lawsuit, Deanna Maran got into an altercation with the 15-year-old girl at the party. After friends broke up the initial fight between the two girls, the 15-year-old called Katrina Sarkissian, who came to the party and stabbed Deanna Maran.
Katrina Sarkissian died in police custody on Nov. 18 — the day after the murder. She overdosed on anti-depressants.
Bernstein and Sarkis Sarkissian sought to have the case dismissed. Their attorneys argued last month that Bernstein and Sarkis Sarkissian did not have prior knowledge that their daughter was going to commit murder.
Tony Glassman, the attorney representing the Marans, attempted to establish his case in front of Judge Lefkowitz last month, arguing that Bernstein and Sarkis Sarkissian knew their daughter had violent tendencies, but did nothing about it.
Lefkowitz agreed that, based on testimony and evidence presented, Katrina Sarkissian was a teenager who was “spinning out of control” and had a drug and alcohol abuse problem.
Glassman argued that Sarkis Sarkissian was just as responsible for Deanna Maran’s death as Bernstein because both ignored their daughter’s problems for years. Since the eighth grade, Katrina Sarkissian had been kicked out of at least one private school, had been placed in a therapeutic residential school in Utah and had been in numerous fights with other girls, according to court documents.
Lefkowitz wrote in her ruling that Bernstein and Sarkis Sarkissian must have been concerned enough about their daughter’s conduct and behavior that in January of 1999, they admitted her to the Utah facility. Bernstein had advised the admissions director that her daughter had been involved in altercations at school with female peers ranging from “taunting to, on occasion, being physical,” according to court documents.
While in Utah, Katrina Sarkissian attempted to flee the facility. The school considered a nine-month to one-year stay as necessary to achieve maximum results for adolescents. However, in June, Bernstein and Sarkis Sarkissian took their daughter home on a temporary pass, and contrary to medical advice, she didn’t return, according to court documents.
School officials also said that Katrina Sarkissian’s return to her former family setting was likely to cause her defiance and psycho-social stress to recur and degenerate, according to court documents.
School officials recommended that Katrina Sarkissian attend boarding school rather than return to the family dynamics, according to court papers. At the time of the murder, Katrina Sarkissian was being “home schooled” by Bernstein.
When it was apparent that Katrina Sarkissian’s drug and alcohol abuse had flared up again, a therapist suggested that Bernstein insist that her daughter attend and receive treatment at Alcoholic Anonymous meetings. Bernstein responded that she would not allow her child to “associate with all that ‘low life,’” according to court documents.
Bernstein had told the therapist that her daughter’s only problem was that she suffered from a sleep disorder and was on anti-depressants for it.
“The facts are obviously in dispute as to Katrina’s problems,” Judge Lefkowitz said at the court hearing. “But it appears that she is a deteriorating child spinning out of control … There is no question that she had an alcohol abuse problem, a drug abuse problem and she was engaged in acts that are inappropriate for a 17-year-old child.”
In her ruling, Judge Lefkowitz noted that Katrina Sarkissian had begun to sneak out of the house at night and engaged in indiscriminate sexual activity.
Testimony from officials at Harvard Westlake, a private school Katrina Sarkissian once attended, show that she harassed other girls there, made verbal threats and menacing gestures, and tried to intimidate them.
And even while she was being treated at the Utah facility, Katrina Sarkissian had physical altercations with other teenagers there, according to testimony from the facility’s therapist.
Both Bernstein and Sarkis Sarkissian were aware of those incidents, yet did little to help their daughter seek help, Glassman argued. Judge Lefkowitz said she was unsure whether Sarkis Sarkissian was privy to his daughter’s problems simply because he stayed out of her life.
“Maybe he didn’t want to know,” Lefkowitz said. “But he was absent some knowledge that his daughter was engaged in assaultive behavior. It does not put him on notice to have the forseeability of the crime.”
Paul Ash, Bernstein’s attorney, argued that there is no evidence that shows his client knew Katrina Sarkissian was going to commit murder.
“The bottom line is at the time of the incident, was it foreseeable?” he asked. “There is no evidence before the court to prove that and Angelique Bernstein could have foreseen this horrible tragedy.”
Lefkowitz also ruled last month that Katrina’s psychological records and doctor testimony can be used at trial, despite protests from her parents’ attorneys, who moved last month to have them quashed.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 10, 2003. Read the original PDF.