Recently in Jails/Prisons Category

SAN DIEGO -- Authorities say a woman who escaped from a Detroit prison 32 years ago has been arrested in San Diego, where she was a wife and mother living under a false name. U.S. Marshals say 53-year-old Susan Lefevre was taken into custody Thursday in the Carmel Valley area.

An inter-agency police auto theft task force uncovered a cache of machine guns, stolen cars and motorcycles and a hunting dog breeding operation run out of a home in Sylmar and didn't publicize it when the story broke in 2006.

Here's the story in a nutshell, given to me by the good folks from the Task Force for Regional Auto Theft Prevention (TRAP) - West Team. TRAP is a team of cops which investigates commercial vehicle theft and fraud countywide.

The case began July 27, 2006, at 9 p.m. when LAPD Mission Division patrol officers found a stolen Nissan Altima parked in front of a home in the 13000 block of Parkland Circle in Sylmar. The thief had stolen the car by stealing someone's identity from a lost wallet. And the suspects used his information to purchase vehicles.

The next day, at 8 a.m., TRAP detectives saw the suspect, identified as Don Park, leave his residence, get into a Nissan Maxima - which turned out to be stolen - remove the sun shade and back out of the driveway.

Detectives confronted Park and later determined that five other vehicles at the residence were also stolen.

Park faces auto theft, making a false financial statement and identity theft charges at a court hearing set for next month.

A search of Park's residence turned up 45 firearms, large amounts of ammunition, ballistic vests, police scanners, and 11 automatic assault weapons/machine guns in an upstairs bedroom that had been converted into a storage room.

Police found an additional cache of ammunition in the living room cabinet. Additional weapons charges were also filed against Park.

In the garage of the home, detectives discovered three stolen motorcycles, taken from a locked motorcycle dealership on Hollywood Way in Burbank. The suspects had cut the chain to a locked gate in August 2004 afterhours.

Police also found that Park had been allegedly illegally breeding hunting dogs at his residence and had previously been cited by Animal Regulation officers for the activity.

Eleven dogs were confiscated and held pending the investigation.

Park has a prior felony conviction for robbery with a gun and was sentenced to 92 months in the state prison. Park had previously been deported to Korea after completing his sentence. Park entered the country and illegally set-up residence, police said.

Wonder what this guy's nickname's going to be in prison ...

A Long Beach man has been convicted of federal smuggling charges for bringing into the United States several extremely rare iguanas after stealing them from a nature preserve in the Republic of the Fiji Islands.

Jereme James, 34, was found guilty yesterday of one count of smuggling and one count of possessing the endangered animals. The evidence presented during a three-day trial showed that James stole three hatchling Fiji Island banded iguanas (Brachylophus fasciatus) and brought them to the United States in violation of federal and international law.

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Here's a few headlines from the Daily News crime pages ...

• I'm chasing down some more details on a homicide from Sunday night in North Hollywood. Here's what we have so far. A man was fatally shot as he sat in the passenger seat of a car parked outside a liquor store, authorities said Monday. The shooting occurred about 9:30 p.m. Sunday at Sherman Way and Lankershim Boulevard, said Officer Sara Faden of the Los Angeles Police Department's Media Relations Section. North Hollywood has seen more than five homicides so far this year, appears to be the the highest number in the Valley. dailynews.com

• In case you missed it, I wanted to throw some props to my colleague Troy Anderson who wrote about court security problems as threats against judges and other officials has skyrocketed.

  Even as Los Angeles County's sprawling court system seeks to mete out justice, security is becoming a growing concern as the number of threats against its 600 judges, commissioners and referees has more than doubled in the past two years. Threats against court personnel surged from 99 in 2006 to 267 last year, according to court records. And as violence and threats have risen, security costs have soared from $132 million three years ago to $169 million.

  dailynews.com

• And a promotion at the LAPD ... Terry S. Hara became the highest ranking Asian- American in Los Angeles Police Department history as he was promoted to the rank of deputy chief during a ceremony at the Police Academy.

From the NYTimes:

For the first time in the nation’s history, more than one in 100 American adults is behind bars, according to a new report.

Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.

Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 black adults is, too, as is one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34.

The report, from the Pew Center on the States, also found that only one in 355 white women between the ages of 35 and 39 are behind bars but that one in 100 black women are.

Also, here's the link to the Pew Center for the States.

I got this story late Friday and expect to be checking with the District Attorney's Office today to see whether or not charges are being filed. Stay tuned.

NORTH HILLS - A former employee with the Penny Lane Family Center in North Hills has been arrested in connection with having unlawful sex with a 16-year-old girl, police said this evening.

Eugene Portis Jr., 37, of Victorville, was arrested Jan. 15 at the North Hollywood Division police station in the 11600 block of Burbank Boulevard, according to the arrest blotter. Details about the arrest were not immediately available.

Portis was booked into the Los Angeles County Jail on suspicion of having unlawful sex with a minor and has since bailed out of jail after posting $20,000 bond. No charges have yet been filed, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. But they could come before his sheduled court appearance on Feb. 5, Gibbons said. Since he has bailed out of jail, she said, police have more time to file their case with the D.A.

In a press release released Friday night, police said that Portis was previously employed by Penny Lane's Foster Care/Foster Family Agency. A 16-year-old Latina reported to police that while seeking drug counseling, Portis engaged in a sexual relationship with her, said Los Angeles Police Detective Karen Crawford. No other details were immediately available.

No one answered calls to Penny Lane late Friday.

It appeared Portis had been working at Penny Lane for about three years, according to a spring 2005 Penny Lane online newletter.

Police are asking that anyone who has information about Portis to call LAPD detectives Makarenko or Kimrey at (818) 623-4090.

dailynews.com

I got this story about the conviction of a man for a botched kidnap for ransom case that has been dragging out over the last six years. It was prosecuted out of the organized crime section and was handled by Glendale cops. I posted the story onto dailynews.com late last night. But here it is in full, in case you missed it. I'll try to tease out a few more details when I get settled in again tonight as I'm covering for a colleague.

GLENDALE - A 40-year-old ex-con has been found guilty of orchestrating a botched kidnapping for ransom conspiracy that backfired when both the intended target and the would-be kidnapper engaged in a gun battle and were wounded on the streets of Glendale six years ago.

In a downtown Los Angeles Superior courtroom, Arutyun "Gordo" Khrayan was found guilty Tuesday of three counts, including conspiracy to commit kidnap for ransom, attempted kidnap for ransom and assault with a semi-automatic firearm, said Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Marcia Daniel. Khrayan, who has been in jail since his June 2003 arrest, faces life in prison with the possibility of parole when he is sentenced March 28.

It was an unusual scheme concocted in the most unlikely of places by two men who were recovering drug users at the Tarzana Treatment Center in January 2002.

It began when an associate of Khrayan asked a parolee and admitted heroin user if he would kidnap an Armenian businessman in exchange for a new car.

It ended when the would-be kidnapper, James Patlan, and his intended target, Armen Mkrtumyan, were injured in a gunbattle on Los Feliz Boulevard in Glendale, court records show.

In an odd twist, after the shootout, both victim and assailant were taken to the same hospital for treatment of gunshot wounds. Oddly, Mkrtumyan happened to see Patlan being wheeled by his room and identified him as his assailant to police, Daniel said.

Mkrtumyan, who was in the bread distribution business, was legally carrying a gun the night he was attacked, Daniel said. He had a permit to carry a gun between his business and his car because he was the victim of a previous kidnap attempt a few months earlier, Daniel said.

Khrayan's associate Karapet "Gary" Davtyan was at the Tarzana Treatment Center as part of a court-ordered visit when he met and befriended Patlan, Daniel said.

Patlan admitted in court testimony that he was voluntarily at the center and the only reason he checked out was to join Davtyan in a criminal enterprise, Daniel said.

Phone records linked Davtyan with Khrayan. Davtyan has been convicted previously in the conspiracy and is serving a state prison sentence, Daniel said.

Khrayan was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 1992 and joyriding in 1994, officials said.

"It was a difficult case in that my star witness had been a state prison inmate who was an admitted heroin addict and then to connect the defendant to the crime itself absent the identification by James Patlan was all primarily circumstantial evidence," Daniel said. "Yet the jury followed my request to reject the unreasonable and accept the reasonable in their findings that Arutyun Khrayan was indeed the man known only to Patlan as "Gordo" who had directed him on the night of the kidnapping to get the victim into the car using the gun."

Here's the latest on that bar fight that left a man dead at the Red Square bar from November:

WOODLAND HILLS - Two Hoover High School friends were charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of a man who suffered fatal head wounds in a fracas that was sparked when someone accidentally broke a man's necklace while dancing at a Woodland Hills nightclub, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said today.

Sidney S. Singleton, 19, and Dimitri Hermozshamoun, 19-year-old friends from Hoover High School, pleaded not guilty to the charge in a Van Nuys courtroom yesterday, officials said. Hermozshamoun posted $50,000 bail and was freed from jail. Singleton remains in jail. The men are expected in court again on Jan. 24.

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Daily News photographer John McCoy and I took a trip to Men's Central Jail a couple weeks ago for a story about jailhouse brew and the searches that deputies perform to find the stuff. Although we did not find any contraband that day, I'll take the deputies' word that the stuff is pretty nasty. But to give the story a little more authority, I probably should have tried it, yeah? Above is a file photo provided by the Sheriff's Department. Below is a photo of Deputy Robert Staggs and his dog Toby searching a 50-man dorm.

Here's the story, if you missed it yesterday.

California is second behind Pennsylvania for having the second highest number of juveniles sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole, the Los Angeles Times reports.

California currently has 227 inmates serving such sentences for crimes committed before they turned 18; Pennsylvania has 433, according to a new study by the University of San Francisco's Center for Law and Global Justice.

latimes.com

Our colleague Ms. Maeshiro has a wild tale out of Lancaster which I'll excerpt below. What really got me was the headline: "Salsa-slayer gets 11 years behind bars."

LANCASTER - A 19-year-old Lancaster man has been ordered to serve 11 years in prison for throwing a bottle of salsa that fatally injured a volunteer collecting donations for the homeless.

Peterson pleaded no contest Wednesday to voluntary manslaughter after prosecutors agreed to dismiss a charge of murder. He was sentenced to 11 years.

The whole story's here.

It just reminds you how fragile life can be, where an innocent guy tries to do the right thing and gets killed over some candy and a bottle of sauce. That's a true tragedy.

Two gang members have been charged in a January driveby killing that left a 17-year-old rival dead. Edilberto Olivares, 19, of North Hollywood and Mardoqueo Guevara, 23, were being held at the Los Angeles County Jail on murder charges in connection with the Jan. 31 slaying of Daniel Martinez.

The second suspect wanted in the stabbing death of Daniel Edward Koch has been arrested. On a tip, cops found him camping on Isla Vista near the University of California, Santa Barbara. A cop was passing out fliers and apparently someone said they saw him camping on the beach. L.A. police went up late last night, early this morning to bring Justin Thalheimer into Los Angeles County custody. Here's the latest scoop. dailynews.com

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Click below for the surreal, the grim, the wacky crime news of the day.

Click below for all the crime news in the area ...

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The San Francisco Chronicle has this hilarious piece today about jailhouse grub, timely in that it says Paris Hilton is only eating cereal and bread when she could be having a vegan meal, perhaps. Steve Whitmore, the spokesman for Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, finds the bologna sandwich at Twin Towers quite nice. Menu anyone?

The Chronicle writes:

The Los Angeles County jail is no Ritz-Carlton, to be sure. It's not even the Hilton. But contrary to popular belief, food fare in the slammer these days is far from gruel and water. In fact, a whole set of regulations requires meals not only be nourishing but also look good on the plate.

Many California jails, including those in San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties, have gone so far as to serve vegan dishes to please their socially conscious inmates. Other jails have a plethora of plans to satisfy diets restricted by religion or health issues.

Some serve fresh, roasted turkey on Thanksgiving, Danish for breakfast and even dessert. One Bay Area county, so desperate to get one of its prisoners to eat, broke down and bought him a Big Mac.

Steve Whitmore, a Los Angeles County sheriff's spokesman who has been working double-time handling the press covering the Hilton case, says he's been eating a lot of meals from the socialite's new home -- the downtown Twin Towers jail.

"I think they're really good," said Whitmore, who particularly savors the bologna sandwiches. As far as Hilton: "I'm not going to comment on what individuals in the jail eat or don't eat," he said.

The Sacramento Bee today says part of the blame for the early release of Paris Hilton from Los Angeles County Jail could be attributed to an overcrowded California prison system.

The Bee reports:

As of May 30, Los Angeles County was housing between 1,200 and 1,400 state prison inmates in its overcrowded facilities in which the 26-year-old Hilton is now residing. Tens of thousands of inmates, meanwhile, are getting early releases from the Los Angeles jails that are accommodating those state-sentenced inmates, whom the California prison system otherwise can't house.

sacramentobee.com

Rev. Al Sharpton speaking to media in front of Sherman Block Sheriff's Headquarters Building in Monterey Park Monday, June 11. Rev. Al Sharpton met with Sheriff Lee Baca, to discuss alleged preferential jail treatment for Paris Hilton. (SGVN/Photo by Walt Mancini/LANG)

So reading all this hoopla over the Paris Hilton roller coaster ride through Los Angeles County's overcrowded jail system has sparked an idea. Could the legacy of the 26-year-old blond celebrity be that her case becomes the one that prompts the powers that be to fix overcrowded conditions at the nation's largest jail system? Unlikely? The Rev. Al Sharpton, who met with Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca on Monday, thinks this case points up a serious bias in the justice system.

dailynews.com

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, meanwhile are expected today to ask for a report on why Hilton was sent home from jail last week. Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke will ask the Sheriff’s Department to provide a report next week on Hilton’s early release from her 45-day sentence from the Century Regional Detention Center in Lynwood. Sheriff Lee Baca has denied accusations of favoritism. In fact, he says, Hilton is being treated more harshly than a member of the general public. Not true, say experts. A judge has ordered her back in jail.

UPDATE at 3:11 p.m.: My colleague Troy Anderson writes that the supervisors have called for an investigation into whether Baca's decision to release Paris Hilton from jail early was justified. Also, civil rights leaders are calling on the celebrity heiress to become the spokeswoman for improving medical and mental health care provided to female inmates.

From the Board of Supervisor's Agenda Highlights:

Supervisors Yvonne B. Burke and Michael D. Antonovich request that Board ask sheriff to report on 6/19 on reasons for the premature release of Paris Hilton from jail, including why she was not placed in an appropriate medical facility. APPROVED 4-0

dailynews.com

Earlier officer.com argued that keeping Hilton in custody was a waste of time and money.

Officer.com

Tim Dees, the editor-in-chief of Officer.com, argues that Paris Hilton should be let out of jail. The place is overcrowded with mostly violent felons and this is not the best way to use precious resources, the author argues. While the author does not believe in slacking off on penalties for crimes such as those that Hilton was convicted of -- drunk driving and driving on a suspended license, he does believe in maximizing resources to go "where they'll do the most good." So, he says, let her out, and get her on one of those toilet cleaning crews. Dees writes:

UPDATE: The average cost per day for a female inmate in Los Angeles County is $99.64, but it costs about 10 times as much -- $1,109.78 -- to keep Hilton locked up, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore told the celebrity-news Web site TMZ.com. The cost for Hilton include medical treatment and staff associated with her needs.

... Paris Hilton’s jail sentence is a waste of time and resources, no matter how much she might deserve to be there.

(snip)

Try to imagine the drama that would ensue if Paris was to get stabbed or beaten while in custody, or if she was to contract an illness caused by mold or staph infection. Then imagine the costs of the ensuing civil actions brought by Paris against the sheriff’s department, who would be happy to correct all of the health and safety problems if they had the money and space to do so.

Here are a couple of national stories that could bode well for death-penalty proponents.

One reports that there's scientific evidence that says executing convicted murderers deters other homicides:

The studies' conclusions drew a philosophical response from a well-known liberal law professor, University of Chicago's Cass Sunstein. A critic of the death penalty, in 2005 he co-authored a paper titled "Is capital punishment morally required?"

"If it's the case that executing murderers prevents the execution of innocents by murderers, then the moral evaluation is not simple," he told The Associated Press. "Abolitionists or others, like me, who are skeptical about the death penalty haven't given adequate consideration to the possibility that innocent life is saved by the death penalty."

Read full text here.

The story makes no mention of the scores of convicted defendants who are later found innocent.

Crime riddle of the day: Is it possible to deter innocent people from killing innocent people they never intended to kill?

A New York Times story says that last week's Supreme Court ruling allowing prosecutors to dismiss jurors who are opposed to the death penalty in capitol punishment cases will increase the number of white, conviction-prone jurors on such cases.
Prosecutors argue that they need jurors who are going to follow the letter of the law and not their own interpretations.

Good point ... They might want to pass that thought along to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, considering all the heat he has been under from both sides of the aisle for dismissing prosecutors, apparently for political reasons.

Rest assured, you are not alone.

Nearly 20,000 Angelenos call jail home everyday. The ACLU launched a website for inmates, families, and advocates.
The site provides quick links to services for inmates and their families, including:
• How to locate and visit an inmate
• How to file a complaint about jail conditions
• Information on inmates’ rights, including basic living standards and the right to vote
• A glossary of basic jail terms
• Press releases on recent jail news
• Further resources, such as links to information on public defenders, parole, and
probation
• How to volunteer to help our work

Click below for the full plate of headlines about crime and cops ...

You've got to check all these crime stories. Click below.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and LAPD Chief William Bratton were up in D.C. pleading with Congress to approve a bill that would toughen federal penalties for gang-related violence and provide more than $1 billion for anti-gang programs over five years.

Since 2001 more than 4,000 have been killed in gang violence in California, Villaraigosa told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"That's more lives than we lost in Iraq," a statement Villaraigosa's office released said.

Since launching an anti-gang initiative nearly six months ago, gang-related crimes in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley have dropped as much as 30 percent in the first five months of the year.

But critics have said despite the efforts, Villaraigosa has not developed enough intervention programs. The federal legislation would provide some of that needed money but would also federalize some gang street crimes.

Two weeks ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced a $48 million anti-gang initiative to treat convicted gang leaders like sex offenders by using satellite tracking devices.

The FBI and Glendale detectives are interviewing a man suspected of being the "Irreconcilable Differences" bandit at the Glendale Jail in connection with at least 16 bank robberies that have gone down through Los Angeles County and at least one in Westlake Village since December. Police caught him after noon today after being alerted to a bank robbery by silent alarm at a Wells Fargo Bank on Brand Boulevard. He was caught in a MacDonald's parking structure nearby about 12:30 p.m., said Glendale Police spokesman John Balian. His identity was not immediately released. FBI agents believe he is the Irreconcilable Differences Bandit, a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair who told a teller during a heist in Beverly Hills that he was going through a divorce and needed help wiring the money.

UPDATE at 3:49 p.m.: The FBI identified the suspect as Alan Freibaum, age 55.

Read the latest story here.

If you haven't yet, you've got to pick up a copy of the book "Into the Kill Zone, A Cop's Eye View of Deadly Force" by former Los Angeles Police Officer David Klinger, now a criminology professor at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. In his words, Klinger began the journey of his book years ago when as a young officer in L.A., he killed a man to save his partner's life. His gripping book is told from interviews with unnamed officers who've had to use their weapons in the line of duty and who explain how they feel about what they did.

Click below for a full plate of crime news and assorted mayhem ...

• The alligator hunt ends. Reggie is captured.
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• The View From a Loft blog writes about the swearing in of Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz, who was promoted after the May 1 melee in MacArthur Park, and other officers.
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• Joel John Roberts, the chief executive officer of People Assisting The Homeless and publisher of L.A.'s Homeless blog writes an op-ed in the Daily News about frustrations over the cat-and-mouse saga of lawsuits between the police and civil-liberties advocades over homelessness.
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• Police identified the woman accused of running a red light yesterday and killing a 70-year-old pedestrian as Julia Elena O'Connor of Canyon Country.
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• In case you missed it, if you've committed a low-level felony, you can book a room for about $3,000 for a weekend stay at club Glendale Jail.
  

You get three meals, including a choice between meatloaf and chicken ala king for dinner.

Soap, toothpaste and towels are provided.

All you need to bring is comfortable clothing and shoes, one additional clean T-shirt and one additional clean pair of socks.

Sound like a nice weekend getaway?

It's the Glendale Police Department's state-of-the-art pay-to-stay weekender jail, one of several across the state popping up as an alternative to doing hard time in the traditional sense of the phrase. Most are open only to lower-level offenders. Huntington Beach, Torrance, Fullerton and Santa Ana are among the jails with pay-to-stay facilities. A former Orange County Sheriff's assistant chief was recently sentenced to serve time in a pay-and-stay in Montebello. Wonder if he'll raise birds.

Glendale Police spokesman John Balian makes sure there are no false impressions about his department's slammer.

"It's not a Club Med. Even though it's a pay-to-stay program, you're not going to be coming here and sitting on the bench. You're going to be working. Mopping, sweeping, the day-to-day cleaning necessities in the jail."

The menu features one cold meal a day and two hot meals. Breakfast is two pieces of whole wheat bread, orange juice, 2 percent reduced fat milk -- "We don't want 'em to get obese here" -- cereal, a packet of jelly and butter. For lunch you got Oreo cookies, punch, milk, carrots, corn and a country fried steak patty. You get a choice for dinner -- meatloaf or chicken ala king.

A Glendale resident recently paid $3,060 for several weekends to stay in the Glendale facility on a DUI conviction.

How's the chicken ala king?

"You might want to ask him" Balian said.