San Diego

The half-brother of Sagon Penn was sentenced Thursday to one year in county jail for stealing a stereo.

Sean Arkward, 18, also was ordered to pay $1,026 in restitution to the victim, a licensed street vendor who sold equipment from his van.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Herbert Exarhos also fined Arkward $100 and placed him on five years’ probation. He gave him credit for 69 days already spent in jail.

As part of his condition for probation, Arkward was ordered not to possess or own guns.

He pleaded guilty March 22 to grand theft in the Dec. 29, 1987, incident, which Exarhos described as a robbery. Robbery and assault charges were later dismissed.

The judge called the case “a marginally probation case,” citing Arkward’s “significant prior record.”

Arkward’s father, Thomas Penn, watched the sentencing from the audience.

Arkward was a passenger in his brother’s truck on March 31, 1985, when Penn, now 26, came into contact with a white police officer, Donovan Jacobs, who Penn and others claimed beat him and hurled racial slurs at him. Penn is black.

After two controversial trials, Penn was found not guilty of murder, manslaughter and attempted murder charges in the fatal shooting of officer Thomas Riggs, and the wounding of Jacobs and civilian ride-along Sarah Pina-Ruiz.