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The Sacramento Bee

November 23, 2008

Sacramento homicide spotlights gap in mental health care

By Andy Furillo

In Sacramento, he punched a 76-year-old woman in the face and kicked her in the head, twice. In Burlingame, he broke another woman's jaw and knocked out three of her teeth. In San Bruno, he smashed in the windows of a house with a shovel and threatened to kill everybody inside.

He also told staff at the Sacramento Mental Health Treatment Center "voices from the TV were telling him to kill."

Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and with a 20-year history of violence, Ofiu Edwards Foto still wound up living in a tiny, unlocked group home in Oak Park, where authorities say he exploded into violence again.

This time, on Sept. 5, investigators said, 6-foot-2, 300-pound Foto grabbed a wooden chair and beat Pausta Theresia Sibarani, 65, to death with it. He also is accused of gravely injuring her husband, Tumber Purba, 69. They both worked in the facility called Sandy's Guest Home.

At Foto's arraignment on Wednesday, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Savage delayed proceedings until Feb. 20 while the defendant's lawyer decides whether to file a motion on his client's mental competency.

The case spotlights the gap between California's criminal justice and the requirements of the mental health system.

"It's a danger that's out there a lot – it's a time bomb," said Robert J. Saria, a Sacramento defense lawyer and former prosecutor who specializes in mental health cases. "We all kind of hold our breath."

Such homicides are a rarity, but according to Saria, they shouldn't surprise anybody who knows the interplay between the mental health and justice systems.

"For some people, it is a foreseeable gamble when they get out," Saria said.

Foto convicted for 2005 beating

A probation report filed after Foto was convicted in 2006 for beating Lilia Solinap, 76, detailed his propensity for violence and his psychiatric treatment. The beating, in 2005, also took place in a group home for the mentally ill.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael P. Kenny sentenced Foto to a year in county jail and five years of probation for the Solinap beating. As a result of a plea bargain, he was placed in a mental health facility.

How Foto wound up in Sandy's group home on 44th Street remains a mystery. Records filed by the county public guardian appointed to oversee his case have been sealed – to protect his confidentiality. Kenny declined a request to open them, and county officials declined to discuss the case.

Christopher Purba would like to know what the records show. The son of the beating victims wants to know why authorities placed a man with a criminally psychotic past in the residential mental health facility where his parents had worked for 13 years. He also wants to know if the owner of the group home knew about Foto's violent past, and if he did, why did he agree to let him live there?

"These people (like Foto) are supposed to be far away," Purba said. "These clients are supposed to be locked, not like in regular houses."

The coroner's report stated that Sibarani, who stood less than 5 feet tall and weighed 116 pounds, died from blunt-force trauma. It showed she suffered multiple bone fractures in her face, four broken ribs, a fractured larynx, a broken arm, a broken hand and extensive cuts and bruises.

Her husband spent nearly two months in UC Davis Medical Center, but their son said his father still has not recovered from his brain injury or his broken soul.

"My dad is still sad," Christopher Purba said. "My family is still sad. It's kind of depressed us right now."

Deputy County Counsel Dennis Zilaff, who represents the public guardian, declined to comment about the Foto case. But he did say there are gaping holes in the interaction between the state's criminal and mental health systems, leaving "an absolute mess."

System 'needs to be revamped'

The problem, Zilaff said, is the 1967 Lanterman, Petris, Short Act. It requires that defendants such as Foto, who are remanded into custody on mental health conservatorships, be placed in the least-restrictive settings possible.

Zilaff said the system "needs to be revamped," to put more safeguards into a law that allows the dangerous and violent to be swept into a system that deemphasizes restriction.

"You can have a guy who looks like a million bucks and the doctors are saying he's not a serious threat to anyone," Zilaff said. "But if you take him out of the very secure situation, is he dangerous? A lot of people don't want to take their meds. And you need a secure setting for individuals who have a mental illness but could be dangerous if they're not taking their meds."

Foto's 2006 probation report said he was arrested and convicted in 1988 for an assault and battery and spent five months in the San Mateo County Jail. On June 21, 1991, police arrested him for the Burlingame beating, in which he punched one of the responding officers in the face, too.

Authorities found him "not competent" to stand trial in the Burlingame case. Court officials diverted him to Atascadero State Hospital, according to the report. Then he was transferred to Napa State Hospital, before he was returned to San Mateo County and placed on five years of probation.

On Jan. 10, 2004, San Bruno police found Foto "smashing out the windows of a house with a shovel because he was angry with one of the victims," the probation report said. "The house was occupied by several people who stated that the defendant made statements that he was going to kill them when he got into the house."

Foto told responding officers that he "suffers from schizophrenia and had not been taking his medications," the report said. He was convicted and sentenced to county jail, and five more years of probation.

Because he had family in Sacramento, Foto was placed in a group home in the Florin area. His probation report said Foto got mad at Solinap after he punched a kitchen door and she asked him if he was upset with her.

In response, Foto "turned and punched the victim in the face, knocking her to the ground," the probation report said. "The defendant kicked the victim in the head, turned and began walking away. He then stopped, turned around and walked back towards the victim, kicking her a second time in the head."

Pleaded not guilty, citing insanity

Sheriff's deputies arrested Foto and prosecutors filed a three-count felony complaint against him for elder abuse, assault with a deadly weapon likely to produce great bodily injury, and battery.

Foto pleaded not guilty to the charges by reason of insanity, and two doctors who examined him diagnosed him as a chronic paranoid schizophrenic with auditory and visual hallucinations, according to the probation report.

At the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office, prosecutors believed Foto would prevail on his insanity plea.

"Looking at all the alternatives available, probation with a lengthy supervision time to ensure compliance with his mental health directives appeared to be the best alternative," Assistant District Attorney Albert Locher said.

Saria thinks the DA's office erred. He said the state could have gained tighter control on Foto and kept him locked up longer – maybe even forever – if it would have accepted the insanity plea.

"I've had clients that would have had four- or five-year prison sentences, but they've been in the hospital for 16 or 17 years because they're still mentally ill," Saria said. "Prosecutors don't understand that you can get more control out of an 'NGI' plea than less."

Foto took the DA's deal and pleaded no contest to felony assault. He was sent to the Sacramento Mental Health Treatment Center on Stockton Boulevard, where social workers described him in his first month there as a "model client." But a Jan. 10, 2007, a public guardian's report in Foto's court case file noted some setbacks.

The report said that on Aug. 25, 2006, Foto began hitting another client "in the face apparently without provocation." According to the report, "Mr. Foto stated that the peer was making rude comments to him."

Staff members prevented attack

On Nov. 10, 2006, Foto "appeared disoriented and delusional" and "the voices from the TV were telling him to kill." It said he "wanted to attack" one of the other clients, "but was stopped by staff."

The public guardian discharged Foto Jan. 8, 2007, to a locked skilled nursing facility in Modesto, the report said. Court records show a transfer to the Green Pastures Guest Home in Sacramento on Oct. 24, 2007, an unlocked facility.

No records in Foto's open court file show how he wound up in Sandy's. Sandy's and the Green Pastures are operated by Gary Tateishi, who declined to comment.

Each of Foto's placements – from a locked hospital setting, to a locked community setting, to two unlocked and unsecure group homes – followed the prescriptions under the law that Zilaff, the county lawyer, said he would like to see changed.

Each step down in Foto's restrictions, he said, should require the examination of at least two psychiatrists, and they shouldn't take place at all, Zilaff said, unless the clients acknowledge their criminality and demonstrate they can stay on their medications.

Even then, he said, the system should be very careful.

"We have some mentally ill people," Zilaff said, "who should never get out of a locked setting."

Call Andy Furillo, (916) 321-1141.