Page One

A juvenile court judge today referred a 17-year-old Oakland girl who admitted stabbing a 75-year-old woman at the Berkeley Rose Garden in March to a California Youth Authority facility for evaluation. 

Alameda County Juvenile Court Referee Mark Kliszewski said the girl, who was dressed in light red jail clothes at her court appearance today, “won’t be in any danger’’ during the 90-day evaluation at the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility for Girls in Camarillo. 

Kliszewski said he also believes that sending her to the CYA “is the safest way’’ to get her to the Porterville Development Hospital, a state facility that prosecutor Walter Jackson and defense attorney Cliff Blakely agreed is the best institution for her so she can get treatment for her mental health problems. 

The girl is scheduled to return to court on Feb. 22 to be sentenced. 

Blakely objected to the girl being sent to the CYA, even for just an evaluation, calling such as placement “inappropriate and unlawful.’’ 

Blakely said that because of ongoing litigation against the agency, the CYA has an internal order dating back to 2003 requiring it to reject minors with mental health problems and a San Francisco Superior Court judge also has barred it from taking such youths. 

After the hearing, Blakely said, “I’m worried about my client and her stability’’ because she’ll be disrupted by being removed from the Alameda County Juvenile Hall in San Leandro, which he said has been a calming environment for her, and transferred to Camarillo. 

Blakely said he thinks it would be better for the girl to be evaluated by a regional center, while still housed at juvenile hall, and then sent to the Porterville Development Hospital. 

Placing the girl has been difficult because her most recent test showed she has an IQ of 55 and many mental health facilities won’t take people who have an IQ below 70. 

However, Blakely said he believes the girl’s results were skewed because she was “extremely psychotic’’ at the time of the test. He said she currently is on medication and is more stable now. 

On Sept. 6, the girl pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon for the March 16 stabbing incident, which shocked North Berkeley residents. 

The girl admitted to grabbing the elderly woman, who was walking with her husband in the 1200 block of Euclid Avenue in Berkeley about 6:30 p.m., and slashing the woman’s throat from behind with a kitchen knife. 

The victim was able to recover from her wounds. 

Several weeks after the stabbing incident, Hamaseh Kianfar, 30, an Alameda County Juvenile Hall guidance counselor who had worked with the girl in the past, was charged with being an accessory to attempted murder for allegedly being with the girl at the time of the attack, driving her from the scene and failing to report the incident to police. 

Kianfar, who resigned from her job shortly after she was charged, is scheduled to return to Alameda County Superior Court on Nov. 18 for a pretrial hearing. 

—Bay City News›