That's El Segundo police Lt. Ray Garcia and Officer Scott O'Connor standing to the right of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at a ceremony today in Sacramento. Garcia, who is closest to the gov, and O'Connor were among six law enforcement officers awarded with with the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor.

From left to right: Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr., Officer Roger Smith, Sgt. Dave Peruzzaro, Officer Bryan Paul, Officer Joe Romeo, O'Connor, Garcia and Schwarzenegger.

Here's the latest report on the "Three's Company" star's criminal case.

Here's the complaint:

Rev. 900-1/99 DA Case 29826165 Page 1 Case No. 9WA12926

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, Plaintiff, v. 01 JOYCE ANNE DEWITT (04/23/1949) Defendant(s).

CASE NO. 9WA12926 MISDEMEANOR COMPLAINT

The undersigned is informed and believes that:

COUNT 1

On or about July 4, 2009, in the County of Los Angeles, the crime of DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF ALCOHOL OR DRUGS, in violation of VEHICLE CODE SECTION 23152(a), a Misdemeanor, was committed by JOYCE ANNE DEWITT, who did unlawfully, while under the influence of an alcoholic beverage and a drug and under their combined influence, drive a vehicle.

* * * * *

COUNT 2

On or about July 4, 2009, in the County of Los Angeles, the crime of DRIVING WHILE HAVING A 0.08% OR HIGHER BLOOD ALCOHOL, in violation of VEHICLE CODE SECTION 23152(b), a Misdemeanor, was committed by JOYCE ANNE DEWITT, who did unlawfully, while having 0.08 percent and more, by weight, of alcohol in the blood, drive a vehicle.


It is further alleged as to count(s) 1 and 2 that the defendant's concentration of blood alcohol was 0.15 percent by weight and more, within the meaning of Vehicle Code section 23578.

It is further alleged as to count(s) 1 and 2 that the defendant refused a peace officer's request to submit to, and willfully failed to complete, a chemical test within the meaning of Vehicle Code Sections 23577, 23578, and 23538(b)(2).
* * * * *

NOTICE: Conviction of this offense will require the defendant to provide DNA samples and print impressions pursuant to Penal Code sections 296 and 296.1. Willful refusal to provide the samples and impressions is a crime.

NOTICE: The People of the State of California intend to present evidence and seek jury findings regarding all applicable circumstances in aggravation, pursuant to Penal Code section 1170(b) and Cunningham v. California 2007 U.S. LEXIS 1324.

I DECLARE UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY THAT THE FOREGOING IS TRUE AND CORRECT AND THAT THIS COMPLAINT, CASE NUMBER 9WA12926, CONSISTS OF 2 COUNT(S).


Executed at LOS ANGELES, County of Los Angeles, on September 2, 2009.

_____________________________________
L. HARRINGTON
DECLARANT AND COMPLAINANT


STEVE COOLEY, DISTRICT ATTORNEY

BY:

KAREN MURCIA, DEPUTY

 

We just learned that Gerald Mason, who killed two El Segundo police officers in 1957, was denied parole and will not be eligible again to go before the board for the maximum span of 15 years.

Here's a good one:

Parking lots east of Sepulveda Boulevard in El Segundo were hit hard last month by catalytic converter thieves. About a dozen crimes occurred.

So an El Segundo PD patrol officer was watching Monday for a white Dodge truck spotted in a crime that occurred Sunday.

Sure enough, it pulled into a lot in the 2400 block of East El Segundo Boulevard about 11 a.m.

The passenger got out. He was carrying an electric saw and slid underneath a Toyota truck.

"It was one of those rare in-progress deals," El Segundo police Sgt. Dan Kim said. "The officer saw it happening right in front of him."

That guy ran when the officer moved in, but the officer caught the driver, Juan Carlos Calderon, 28, of Los Angeles.

This just in:

That El Segundo woman charged with stalking Lakers forward Luke Walton pleaded nocontest today at the Torrance courthouse and was ordered to stay away from him for three years.

Stacy Elizabeth Beshear, 35 of El Segundo, entered the plea to one count of misdemeanor stalking. Judge Hector Guzman sentenced her to three years probation, ordered her to attend weekly counseling sessions for one year and ordered her to stay away from Walton's Manhattan Beach home, and the Lakers practice facility in El Segundo. She also can't go to any games.

Beshear was arrested Sept. 18 after she pulled up to his car and pretended to fire gunshots at Walton with her hand, officials said.

Deputy District Attorney Ann Ambrose handled the case.

Michael and Susan Crabtree used fake bids and bogus contracts to bilk the defense contractor out of about $2.7 million. On Monday, they were each sentenced to 57 months in prison. We'll have a full story up later.

"A CNS story slugged Scientist Sentencing that was transmitted Monday incorrectly stated that the defendant, Abraham Lesnik, admitted during the sentencing hearing that he had a drinking problem when he took classified documents from Boeing's El Segundo plant to his Valley Village home.

In fact, Lesnik never referred to anything involving alcohol. Instead, he told the judge that he was a "workaholic."

A lawsuit that will seek class-action status was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming DirecTV hides contract term committments and wrongly charges a early termination fees of up to $480.

See the full Andrews Publications report here.

The courtroom was quiet and tense this morning. The day could've gone a number of ways. Defense attorney Andrew Flier was in the court's lock-up with Erwin Howard. The jury, expecting day three of Howard's trial, were waiting in the hallway. In court, nothing is ever a done deal until it's on the record - and Howard had had a whole weekend to mull the plea deal he seemed ready to accept last week.

"I don't know what's going to happen," Deputy District Attorney John Lewin told the courtroom crowded with Keller's friends and family. "It's like when the refs spend a lot of time in the replay booth."

Nearby rested a never-used poster board. On two sides, Flier wrote all the ways he planned to tell the jury Howard was innocent of Keller's slaying: no DNA, no physical evidence, no injuries to Howard.... The opening statement that went with the board was never delivered. Instead, in an 11th hour decision, Howard decided to admit he had killed Keller, but his attorney was going to try to convince the six men and six women on the Los Angeles Superior Court jury the killing was in the heat of passion and amounted to voluntary manslaughter.

Just moments before the jurors took their seats, Deputy District Attorney John Lewin came into the audience where many of Julia "Deede" Keller's friends and family were sitting. Hurriedly, he told them Erwin Howard's attorney just said he was changing the defense to killing in the heat of passion - meaning Howard now admits he killed Keller, but did not have the intent to murder her.

With only seconds to react, some of Keller's loved ones cried and embraced. The jury came in, and decorum was once again forced. It was a stunning admission for family and prosecutors who seemed to always know Howard's involvement in the death of his 54-year-old former wife. With the mountain of evidence against him laid out yesterday by Lewin, it seemed like a smart move for the defense to go to what Lewin semi-jokingly referred to as their "Plan B."

If the jury believes Howard, who is expected to testify, it could mean the difference between a half dozen or so years in prison and the rest of his life.

To summarize, here is how Flier laid out Keller's death to the jury: Howard went over late on the night of July 8, 2004, to discuss their troubled relationship. He knocked, she let him in. The conversation turned "heated," she slapped him and he freaked.

Howard grabbed her in a bear hug, squeezed hard and she passed out. He panicked, believing her dead and thinking no one would believe him, so he wrapped her up in the blankets and the tape.

After court yesterday, Flier made an ominous statement to me about the prosecution being wrong about what happened that night because nobody really knows beside the deceased. Now, we all do.

Michael Keller, the victim's son, is on the stand. He is testifying about Keller and Howard's relationship, as well as their normal habits and practices in daily life to help establish the prosecution's theory that Howard followed Keller in the days before her death. Flier said that wasn't true.

 

 

Deputy District John Lewin pretty much only does long, complex cases - many of them having gone cold for years, if not decades. They include the murder cases against a former TRW engineer who killed his wife in Torrance over child support payments, a man who killed a prostitute in his Redondo Beach apartment and whose body was never found and a former fast food restaurant worker convicted last year for the decades-old murder of a colleague at the KFC where they worked in Torrance.

It's been more than four years since Julia "Deede" Keller's body was discovered in the trunk of her car in San Diego. Today, her former husband will go on trial for allegedly killing the popular El Segundo resident and Manhattan Beach real estate agent. Prosecutors believe the motive is simple: "If I can't have her, no one else can."

But the largely circumstantial evidence case against Howard, 54, will be anything but simple. Deputy District Attorney John Lewin will take weeks to try and show how a calendar notation here, some wicked words there and some apparently sneaky activity around the days of 55-year-old Keller's death point the finger of blame dirctly at the former American Airlines baggage handler.

Opening statements are scheduled for 10 a.m. in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom.

Members of the El Segundo Youth Football and Cheer organization have raised $6,000 to present to the foundations of two South Bay youth sports icons.

Boys and girls raised the money during a jog-a-thon last month at El Segundo High School.

They will present $3,000 checks to charities supported by the families of Randall Simmons and Craig Burris. The families of both men will take part in a pep rally Friday at 6 p.m. at Recreation Park.

A bonfire will follow at 7:30 p.m.

Burris was a Lawndale school trustee who died in April. He was commissioner of the Pacific Coast Youth Football Conference, which he founded in 1987, at the time of his death.

Simmons, a Rancho Palos Verdes resident, was a Los Angeles police officer killed in a gunbattle in the San Fernando Valley in February.

He was active with his children in the El Segundo program.

The Boeing Company is accused of inflating its prices for a contract on a missile decoy system for the B-1 Bomber. The aerospace giant, which has facilities in El Segundo, allegedly bilked the U.S. government out of $7.5 million by outsourcing production of some components, according to the lawsuit filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office.

We'll have a full report in tomorrow's Daily Breeze.

I received an e-mail yesterday from a reader whose wife and sons were in the El Segundo theater lobby in April when a gang member pulled a gun and shot at two police officers, wounding both. The officers killed him.

The reader, grateful that the officers prevented his family from being hurt, wondered how Lt. Ray Garcia, left, and Officer Scott O'Connor are doing in their recoveries. Just by chance, I was already working on a story about Garcia, who I talked with extensively Thursday morning. I turned the story in earlier today.

It is scheduled to run Monday, unless something in the world requires a change in the news planning. So look for it.
(And I'll check up on O'Connor and the other victim, Devan Jackson, soon.)

Trial is expected to start real soon for Erwin Howard, who is accused of killing his former wife, Julia "Deede" Keller. Howard, a 54-year-old former baggage handler, allegedly murdered the popular El Segundo resident and Manhattan Beach real estate

agent in July 2004 because he was jealous she moved on with his life.

The trial will be at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles.

The attorneys will get together next week to formulate juror questionnaires and take care of pretrial motions. On Sept. 2, jury questioning will begin.

A Los Angeles jury has awarded an Iranian-American man about $14.9 million for asbestos exposure that caused a terminal case of malignant mesotheliomoa. He worked at the Chevron refinery in El Segundo in the 1980s, but his exposure to the asbestos occurred prior to that in Tehran, Iran. Amanaollah Shahabi was too ill to hear the verdict himself, and is hospitalized.

Read the press release about the verdict here.

El Segundo police reported this morning that a 14-year-old is in custody for allegedly sparking a fire in a vacant building last night.

Employees at three El Segundo businesses sold alcohol to minors during a recent police undercover operation, officers said.

Police and agents from the state Alcoholic Beverage Control visited 23 businesses in the city on July 22, sending in an underage decoy to try to buy alcohol.

Here's the ones who need to check for IDs next time:

• 7-Eleven, 100 W. Imperial Ave.
• Rite Aid, 220 E. Grand Ave.
• La Sirena Grill, 710 Allied Way

Three workers at those business were given citations. The business owners could face sanctions later.

These businesses did not sell alcohol to the minors:

• Chevron Gas Station, 601 Vista del Mar
• Hollymain Liquor, 404 Main St.
• Su Casa, 403 Main St.
• Tavern on Main, 123 Main St.
• Richmond Bar & Grill, 145 Richmond St.
• Purple Orchid, 221 Richmond St.
• Old Town Patio, 115 Richmond St.
• Cooke's Market, 121 West Grand Ave.
• Office Downtown, 206 East Grand Ave.
• Embassy Suites, 1440 East Imperial Ave.
• Village Liquor, 506 Center St.
• Hacienda Hotel, 525 N. Sepulveda Blvd.
• Chile Verde, 630 N. Sepulveda Blvd.
• Leonard's Liquor Store, 630 N. Sepulveda Blvd.
• Sizzler Restaurant, 600 N. Sepulveda Blvd.
• Stick & Stein, 707 N. Sepulveda Blvd.
• Teresa's Mosaic Cafe, 150 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
• Cozymel's Mexican Grill, 2171 Rosecrans Ave.
• Daily Grill, 2121 Rosecrans Ave.
• Marmalade Café, 2014 Park Place

Those businesses will receive a letter from the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control commending them for being successful in preventing the sale of alcohol to minors.

Stephen Anthony Frlekin, who has a CPA practice in Brea, is accused of pilfering the money from Veterinary Pet Insurance and transferring to offshore accounts. He's due in court tomorrow, according to an Orange County District Attorney press release.