Gang-Sex Sentences Delayed Until Fall

Three young men convicted in March of the videotaped sexual assault in Corona del Mar of a passed-out 16-year-old girl might not be sentenced until fall.

During a brief hearing Friday, an Orange County Superior Court judge set July 22 to hear the defense’s motion for a new trial, with the sentencing date unscheduled.

Gregory Haidl, the 19-year-old son of former Assistant Sheriff Donald Haidl, along with Keith Spann and Kyle Nachreiner, both 20, were convicted in a high-profile retrial of assaulting the girl at a summer party in 2002. They will remain in custody until sentencing.

They were originally set to be sentenced May 20, but that date was postponed in April.

Haidl faces up to 18 years in prison, Spann up to 16 years and Nachreiner up to 14 years.

Their attorneys are expected to ask that the men be sentenced in Juvenile Court because they were minors at the time of the incident at Donald Haidl’s home.

Chief Assistant Dist. Atty. Chuck Middleton, who prosecuted the case, said outside court that he had not decided which sentence he would recommend for the defendants, but that it would probably be less than the maximum.

The sentencing would probably occur in the fall, Middleton said.

Jurors deadlocked in summer of 2004 on the original set of charges against the defendants, which included the since-dropped allegation that they slipped a date-rape drug into the girl’s drink. Jurors in the retrial credited their verdict at least partly to being able to replay the videotape of the assault in their deliberation room, an option not available to the first jury.

The tape has not been shown to the public.