Razo Trial to Be Postponed

The January 12 trial date for Jose L. Razo '89, the Kirkland House resident accused of committing a string of armed robberies in the Los Angeles area, is likely to be postponed again, attorneys involved in the case said yesterday.

Razo's jury trial was scheduled to begin next Tuesday, but the trial is expected to be postponed for at least a month since one of Razo's attorneys, a public defender in Orange County, California, is involved in another case.

Meanwhile, Razo, who could face up to 19 years in prison if convicted for the 10 alleged robberies, remains in jail on $100,000 bail. A superior court judge last month denied a motion by Razo's attorneys to decrease the bail to $30,000, said Jim Eger, the public defender.

"The family is willing to put up all they have, including their house, but it doesn't amount to $100,000," Eger said. "We argued that 100 percent of $30,000 is the same as 100 percent of a million if that's all you have."

The judge denied the motion because of the severity of the alleged crimes and because the requested decrease was unusually large, said Ravi Mehta, a deputy district attorney in Orange County who will try the case.

The plight of Razo, a former varsity football player, has drawn national attention since he turned himself in to police last summer in connection with a string of armed robberies. Razo, who is from a California barrio, said at the time that he felt alienated at Harvard because of his ethnic identity.

Eger would not discuss what his strategy will be in the case. But he said that since the crimes did not start until Razo enrolled at Harvard, he will likely draw on the student's experiences here during the trial.

Razo's attorneys have also filed a motion to have the case dismissed because they allege there were mistakes made during the preliminary hearings. That motion has yet to be heard. The attorneys would not detail what mistakes they consider to have been made.

Mehta said he considers the case to be pretty straightforward. "We've got crimes. We've got victims and we've got a confession to these crimes," he said.