Par sat dumbfounded at the other end of the phone.
`Trust me,' the lawyer said.
The meticulous Richard Rosen had found a devastating weapon.
On 23 December 1991, Par pleaded guilty to two charges in Monterey County Juvenile Court. He admitted everything. The whole nine yards. Yes, I am The Parmaster. Yes, I broke into computers. Yes, I took thousands of credit card details from a Citibank machine. Yes, yes, yes.
In some way, the experience was cathartic, but only because Par knew
Rosen had a brilliant ace up his sleeve.
Rosen had rushed the case to be sure it would be heard in juvenile court, where Par would get a more lenient sentence. But just because Rosen was in a hurry didn't mean he was sloppy. When he went through Par's file with a fine-toothed comb he discovered the official papers declared Par's birthday to be 15 January 1971. In fact, Par's birthday was some days earlier, but the DA's office didn't know that.
Under California law, a juvenile court has jurisdiction over citizens under the age of 21. You can only be tried and sentenced in a juvenile court if you committed the crimes in question while under the age of eighteen and you are still under the age of 21 when you plead and are sentenced.
Par was due to be sentenced on 13 January but on 8 January Rosen applied for the case to be thrown out. When Deputy DA David Schott asked why, Rosen dropped his bomb.
Par had already turned 21 and the juvenile court had no authority to pass sentence over him. Further, in California, a case cannot be moved into an adult court if the defendant has already entered a plea in a juvenile one. Because Par had already done that, his case couldn't be moved. The matter was considered `dealt with' in the eyes of the law.
The Deputy DA was flabbergasted. He spluttered and spewed. The DA's office had dropped the original charges from a felony to a misdemeanour. They had come to the table. How could this happen? Par was a fugitive. He had been on the run for more than two years from the frigging Secret Service, for Christ's sake. There was no way—NO WAY—he was going to walk out of that courtroom scot-free.