Diamond Bar woman gets 14 months for laundering drug money

A Diamond Bar woman, who with her husband owns an Industry-based toy wholesale business, was sentenced Monday to eight months in federal prison plus six months of home detention for participating in a scheme that laundered money for drug trafficking groups in Mexico and Colombia.

Dan “Daisy” Xin Li, 44, co-owner of Woody Toys, Inc., was remanded into custody, according to Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office.

The judge delayed the sentencing for Li’s husband, 44-year-old Jia “Gary” Hui Zhou, until January 6, 2014.

Read more in WOODY

Most valley cities have already snuffed out pot shops

A California Supreme Court ruling Monday that local governments in the state can ban storefront medical marijuana outlets won’t have much affect in some area cities such as La Puente, Duarte and Whittier.

Officials in those cities said they don’t have any storefront pot shops due to current laws, and that they likely will continue following the ruling.

Duarte has never had any pot shops, a spokesman for that city said Monday. Whittier has a moratorium on the shops and only had one shop in the past, which closed under pressure.

And La Puente, which once was considered the medical marijuana capital of the San Gabriel Valley, hasn’t had any pot shops for more than a year.

However, longtime opponent of medical marijuana dispensaries, La Puente City Councilman Dan Holloway, declined comment, saying he had not had time to read the ruling.

The ruling came in the case filed after Riverside city lawmakers used zoning powers to declare storefront pot shops as public nuisances and ban the operations in 2010. The Inland Empire Patient’s Health and Wellness Center, part of the explosion of retail medical marijuana outlets, sued to stop the city from shutting it down.

Read more in POT

Local Muslim leaders call on mosques to intervene in cases of possible radicalization

Mosque and Islamic community leaders should intervene at signs of problems or potential radicalization among their members rather than shunting troubled youth and others aside who might be susceptible to extremism, two prominent Southland-based Muslim leaders said Sunday.

Both deceased Boston Marathon suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and before him convert Adam Gadahn, who eventually became a spokesman for Al-Qaida, were kicked out of U.S. mosques after exhibiting worrisome behavior, Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said at a forum on Islamic radicalization at All Saints Church on Sunday.

While U.S. mosques want to be free of radical ideas and prevent scrutiny from the FBI, having productive conversations with such men about their feelings of anger and frustration could help prevent them from becoming radicalized or being swept up by those bearing a twisted religious ideology, Al-Marayati said. However, any threat of unlawful or violent behavior, he said, should be referred directly to law enforcement authorities.

For more, read MOSQUE

Diamond Ranch student arrested with unloaded gun

A 15-year-old Diamond Ranch High School student was arrested Friday afternoon for allegedly bringing an unloaded revolver to school. The teen’s name wasn’t released because he is a minor.

Sgt. Erick Kim of the sheriff’s Walnut/Diamond Bar station said deputies found the gun in the student’s backpack while the boy was in class. Deputies found out later that the gun was reported stolen in 2008 from San Bernardino County.

It’s not known yet why the Pomona teen brought the weapon to campus which is located at 100 Diamond Ranch Drive in Pomona. The incident began at 12:31 p.m.

“The school called us and said they had information a student has a gun,” Kim said.

According to deputies, three students who became aware of the gun in the teen’s possession alerted school officials. The 15-year-old was in class when deputies arrived. They detained him and searched the classroom. The teen’s backpack was on the floor next to his desk. Inside the bag was the gun.

The teen was arrested on suspicion of possessing a firearm on school grounds and was taken to Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey.

Rowland Heights Community Center breaks ground

Architect’s rendering of the new Rowland Heights Community Center

Los Angeles County officials will gather today at 4 p.m. to break ground for the $18 million Rowland Heights Community Center at Pathfinder Park.

“It’s been a long time coming and a lot of hard work by the entire community and the county,” said Beth Hojnacke, president of Rowland Heights Community Coordinating Council.

The project will finally give Rowland Heights the civic center that it has been lacking all these years. And what a center it will be, as designed by Gonzalez Goodale Architects in Pasadena.

The 19,500-square-foot one-story buildings will sit on the lower section of popular Pathfinder Park.

For more, se Rich Irwin’s story CENTER.