Jeez, I'm going to be more careful with what I post, now that I know the coppers are snooping around on things like this....
From the LA Times.

For a generation, LAPD homicide investigators kept alive the case of 28-year-old Japanese tourist Kazumi Miura, shot in the head on a featureless side street in the shadow of a Los Angeles urban icon: downtown's four-level freeway interchange.

Since 2005, police had been monitoring postings by Miura, who had become an outsized Japanese personality because of media coverage of his alleged crimes.

Here's the whole deal.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sorry, court fans-- we've been a little distracted as of late at the office. I've still got two posts I need to write, I have no idea when I'll get to them, but my apologies for the delays and we'll be back in action (at least, very temporarily) soon.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The half-billion bills appeared to be Federal Reserve notes printed in 1934 and bearing the picture of Pres. William McKinley. The only problem is, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing didn't make notes of that denomination, not even close. The bills, used for transaction between Fed banks, only went up to $100,000 and weren't publicly circulated. Johnson and his confederates allegedly tried to trick investors into taking the notes by weathering them to make them appear older.

“You would think the half billion dollar denomination would be a dead give away that these notes are fake, but people are nevertheless taken in,” said Deputy Special Agent in Charge Jennifer Silliman, in an unusally funny press release. “For investors, the bottom line needs to be, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

ICE says it caught Johnson with close to 500 phony notes, both at home and at his Wilshire Boulevard office. It also grabbed his associates, Renato Gaza, a 60-year-old from San Diego and Dallas resident Victoria Hoffman, 48. Johnson appeared in federal court on Friday, when a judge set his bond at 100 grand (no word on whether he attempted to post it with a really old looking $100,000 bill).

Agents are still looking for anyone who got caught up in the scheme and would like 'em to call 1-866-DHS-2ICE with any info.

Oh yeah, the best part of this? Johnson's job: attorney-at-law. So, if he's guilty of his alleged crime (and, as always, he's innocent until proven otherwise), he really shoulda known better.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I called Deputy DA Richard Quinones last week to check in on the People vs. Chorny, which was supposed to be getting underway soon. Here's a little refresher from our January 2005 archives before we get going.

LOS ANGELES Three men were charged Thursday with felony charges involving 50 pounds of unstable dynamite found at a San Fernando Valley warehouse.

Authorities burned down part of the warehouse in the Van Nuys area after concluding that it was too dangerous to move the old, deteriorated dynamite. A portion of Interstate 405 was closed and train service in the area was suspended while the fire burned. About 50 people in the area also were evacuated.

In May 2006, Wurth pleaded out and the other two proceeded onward in the legal system.

VAN NUYS -- A Los Angeles man was sentenced Wednesday to three years in state prison and two other men were ordered to stand trial in connection with the discovery of unstable dynamite in a Van Nuys industrial building.

The judge found sufficient evidence to allow the case against Wurth's co-defendants, Arthur Chorny, 36, of Marina del Rey, and Guy Fostersmith, 44, of Los Angeles, to proceed to trial.

Just when it looked like things were going to get underway for Chorny at the Van Nuys courthouse, he done r-u-n-n-o-f-t (that's ran off, for those of you who aren't fans of "O Brother Where Art Thou?"). Quinones called me this morning to share the news and the LA Superior Court press office confirmed that the judge issued a bench warrant to track down Mr. Chorny.

Now I'm being a little light here, I realized. He may have a perfectly legitimate reason for not showing up. But it'll be interesting to hear what he tells the judge when they find him and get him back into court, that's for sure. We'll keep you posted.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's an odd twist in the People vs. Alvarez. As he's scheduled to come to trial in the next month for allegedly intentionally derailing the Metrolink 100 as it made its way downtown on Jan. 26, 2005, Juan Manuel Alvarez isn't doing so well.

The Glendale News-Press broke the story on Friday. Rather than showing up for the hearing, Alvarez camped out in his cell and refused to show up.

We don’t know why he’s not here,” attorney Michael Belter told the paper. “He reports to us that he has had some problems upon his return. His cell has been tossed, sometimes his blankets have been soaked. In his mind, he feels it’s better for him to stay in his cell.”

I've got an e-mail into Tom Kielty, Belter's co-counsel, asking for some more details, so we'll see if he cares to chat. According to the story, Belter says Alvarez has been on suicide watch and spent additional time in the jail's mental clinic. Given the circumstances of his arrest, an alleged suicide attempt that killed 11 innocent people in the process, I suppose it's not surprising that he's still got some issues, but this one still caught me off guard. Stay tuned for more... .

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another dailynews.com wire service special....

A Northridge businessman pleaded guilty today to funneling tens of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions to Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer.

The contributions went to Clinton's political action committee and Boxer's 2004 re-election campaign.

Here's the whole thing.

Whenever this kind of thing happens, it's tempting to point fingers and call whomever received the tainted cash a bum. But whether it's Obama and Rezko or McCain and Keating, or Clinton and Norman Hsu, it comes up so often that it's difficult to find an unsullied candidate. In general, it seems like it's the campaign finance system that's the bum, but don't expect that to get thrown out anytime soon, unfortunately.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When Doug Dutton closes the doors of his bookstore on April 30, the city will lose an absolute treasure. This doesn't have that much to do with court stuff, I know, but I wanted to offer thoughts from my little pulpit while I had the chance while I'm on my lunch break.

Dutton's was the first bookstore I visited where I felt like a real adult. I went there in college with a very cultured older friend and immediately fell in love with the place. Its weird layout, its cafe, its boundlessly knowledgeable staff. There was seemingly nothing they couldn't find or didn't know. On that first trip, I bought my first book by a man who'd become one of my heroes, Richard Halliburton. When I got "The Royal Road to Romance" home, I knew I'd be back to Dutton's again and again.

And indeed, I did. Whether I needed Raymond Chandler or Michael Chabon, Dutton's never let me down. After his brother, Dave, shuttered his North Hollywood shop of the same name a few years back, I became an even more frequent patron. I didn't care if Barnes and Noble or Borders had cheaper rates, I kept going back for the pleasure of walking through the aisles. Plenty of times, I ran in five minutes before closing, not only to find the one book I wanted, but several others I didn't even know I couldn't live without. In my geekier moments, I dreamed what it would be like to do a book signing there.

Dammit, I even went there for my reporters' notebooks.

Last summer, Dutton's gave me one of my fondest literary memories when the latest Harry Potter book came out. My wife and I reserved a copy and showed up for the midnight release party, arriving fifteen minutes after they started handing out the highly-coveted books. And, man, what a scene.

Kids were walking down the street with their parents, dressed in costume. Adults were wandering back to their cars, so hungry for the first chapter that they read as they walked. Teenagers wore witch garb, twenty-somethings toted Gryffindor scarves and a man in a wizard hat sat, absolutely wrapped up in his book, out front, completely unaware of anything except for the text.

We got our copy and drove a few miles to Cafe 50's, where we found several other tables full of similarly dorky groups, all chewing through the pages. Over milkshakes and fries, Rebecca and I sat side-by-side and took in the first chapter. It was one of those moments that just made you feel good to be alive.

Dutton's wasn't the only one to have such an event-- there were gazillions of 'em across the world. But there, you always felt at home, whether you were reading Harry Potter or James Bond. I never felt embarrassed to ask for anything, because they'd know what I wanted and, often times, had read the book themselves. Stores like that are getting rarer by the week and each time one of them closes up, they're gone forever.

So thank you, Mr. Dutton, and to all the people who made that place what it was. You will be sorely, sorely missed and the literary world, the city and poor little me (in descending order of importance) will be far poorer as a result.

(Thanks to Kevin at LA Observed for sharing the sad news and ruining my day)

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From dailynews.com, we've got this story about two local gents who swindled investors out of $2.5 million. That's a lot of money, even in the hedge fund world.

The founder of an investment company and an ex- securities broker are set to be sentenced today for their roles in a hedge fund fraud that bilked at least $2.5 million from investors.

From September 2000 to January 2005, Gilabert collected millions of dollars from more than 40 clients, concealing he lost most of the money and misappropriated much of the rest.

Courtesy of a wire service, here's the rest.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This will probably be the last time you'll ever see me posting off a TMZ story, but a colleague passed this along and it's pretty funny.

Madonna, it seems, has jury duty. The gossip site tells us that she showed up for court wearing a Juicy Couture track suit (locally designed in Pacoima, baby) and sipping some Starbucks. I don't know if that passes for the business attire that the Los Angeles Superior Court requires, but, given her other choices of attire, I suppose that's a good choice.

Something tells me the attorneys will challenge her off any jury, but who knows, she may treat her fellow citizens to a little rendition of "Love Makes the World Go Round" as they prepare to render their verdict....

Don't judge a man 'til you've been standin' in his shoes
You know that we're all so quick to look away
'Cause it's the easy thing to do
You know that what I say is true

(Thanks to Val Kuklenski for the tip on this one)

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Man, this reads like something out of a detective novel, but no, dear readers, it's very true.

Kazuyoshi Miura, 60, was planning a relaxing vacation in Saipan last Thursday. When he stepped off the plane, he didn't enjoy some mangoes, Levi's jeans or a bad Tom Clancy novel, all of which are connected to the US Commonwealth. Instead, authorities greeted Mr. Miura with an arrest warrant.

More than a quarter century after he allegedly murdered his wife, Kazumi, in downtown Los Angeles, the LAPD's cold case unit caught up with Miura. They've been waiting for him to leave his native Japan and set foot on American soil since 1981, and, acting on a tip, caught him in Saipan. They're discussing his arrest in a press conference right now. He faces murder and conspiracy charges.

The Times did a good story on this on Saturday, but, alas, their Web site is clunky and the only mention of the story now is a correction of the spelling of Kazumi Miura's name. So, instead, check out the Yomiuri Shimbun version instead.

Looks like even after all this time, Mr. Miura is in some pretty hot water. A court denied him bail and Japan is considering handing him over, even though he's already been acquitted on the charges there.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I got a call today from Christopher Simons' aunt, who was quite upset about yesterday's story about the Wheeler sentence. She didn't like that I referred to the fact that her nephew was working in an adult gift store and referred to him as "a sex shop clerk," which she felt was insulting.

I hate situations like this, because I can't deny anything she said. On one hand, the term is true. That's how the DA's office initially described the killing and Santa Clarita Gifts indeed sells sex toys. From the earlier material I read, it sounds like the products played into Mr. Wheeler's tragic choice of targets, so I felt like it was relevant to the story.

But let me say this, to the entire Simons family: I apologize for any stain on Christopher's memory. He was brutally killed by a disturbed man and he should not be remembered solely based on his job. I know you've suffered terribly in the past three years and regret any role in prolonging your heartache. If you, or anyone else who knew Mr. Simons, would like to leave remembrances about who he was, I'd like to share his legacy beyond just the senseless way he died.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 4:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Man, there's no let-up in stories today...
Robert Joel Wheeler's crazy shooting spree landed him in prison for a very long, long time.

SAN FERNANDO - Robert Joel Wheeler's shooting spree that left a sex shop clerk dead and two men seriously wounded got him two life sentences in prison, plus an additional 100 years, when a judge sentenced him today.

After hearing from Simons' parents and Stearns, Judge Ronald S. Coen gave Wheeler close to the maximum sentence. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty and Wheeler did not plead guilty to special circumstances that would have made him eligible for life without possiblity of parole.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 6:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Michael Griffin didn't care for my Omar Sharif story. He emailed this kindly missive to share his displeasure.

You gotta be kidding........ you dug up a 3 year old case just to get printed?

Get a life.... get a real job.

The illegal alien valet would probably have made more money in euros had he been smart enough to count.

Normally, I try to respond kindly and civilly to all our readers, no matter how much I disagree with their sentiment. Today, however, I don't feel like it. I'm sick of people's rude comments and how they use every story to bash immigrants, legal or otherwise. So, in my lame little "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore" moment, I wrote back.

Dear Mr. Griffin,

Cheers,
Brent

This is bad form, I know. My mom would be appalled, because if you respond to a bully, then you only give them strength, right? Well, then I fell into the trap and shame on me.

No, better yet, shame on Mr. Griffin.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 6:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Physician, heal thy temper. Omar Sharif, famed for his work as "Doctor Zhivago" and skills at the bridge table, now finds himself on the hook for a $318,190 legal bill after punching valet Juan Anderson and calling him a "dumb Mexican."

Well, Mr. Anderson's not Mexican, nor is he dumb. Mr. Sharif may be feeling like it, however, when it comes time to pay. Here's the story I just posted on dailynews.com:

Omar Sharif's attempt to duck out on his valet parking bill cost him more than $318,000.

"I used to wait tables - people in the service industry try their best to help people," Carpenter said. "When they're treated like garbage, it's very hurtful. We don't know if this will ever be paid, but at least the judgment gives him some comfort."

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I dropped the ball on this, so we had to take wire in this awful case. A jury found Jeanne Ma guilty of second degree murder today after she left her newborn baby in an alley behind her home in 2004.
A 21-year-old Pacoima woman was convicted today of murder and assault for suffocating her newborn daughter after giving birth at home in November 2004.

She was arrested after going to Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank to seek medical treatment following the baby's birth. The infant was found dead in a trash can behind her home.

Man, how awful for everyone. My heart goes out to the family

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And the award for best press release of the week goes to FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller, who sent out this gem. ... We get pitches by the dozen daily and they're normally very, very boring-- especially those relating to law enforcement and the legal system. But in this case, Ms. Eimiller outdid herself:

FBI Los Angeles' very own Supervisory Special Agent Carlos Narro will be representing the FBI tonight in a boxing match to be held in Long Beach, California. Carlos "Chupacabra" Narro, aka "The FBI Kid," will be boxing a deputy from the Orange County Sheriff's Department in the 130 lbs. category. There are two additional bouts as follows:

The match will be held from 5:00pm to 7:00pm at the Long Beach Convention Center - "Hall C" and Carlos will fighting in the main event.

Long Beach Convention Center is located at 300 East Ocean Boulevard, Long Beach, California 90802
HALL C - Enter off Shoreline Drive on the Arena Side

Carlos, a veteran FBI agent who supervises a squad in the Los Angeles Field Office, is a back-up spokesman for the FBI, primarily for Spanish-language media outlets. Originally from New York City, Carlos's lifelong dream will be fulfilled tonight when he boxes in front of a crowd of his fans, FBI friends and his family, cheering him on.

I'm not a boxing fan, this has absolutely no connection to the Valley and is only tangentially related to this blog's focus, but I thought this was hilarious.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh, if only I had a ruble for every time I heard someone tell me that they prefer the Daily News to the Times, because the latter is "a communist paper." After I get over the shudders, I have to laugh and wonder if they're on the lookout for visionaries, ne’er do wells, parlor pinks, reds, hyphenates, soft handed agriculturalists and working men who have never seen a shovel (to borrow a wonderful phrase from the Wall Street Journal), as well.

And after all that snickering on my part, it turns out they're right. Thanks to the always timely, always interesting Mr. Harnisch, the Daily Mirror republishes this awesome article, courtesy of Times freelancer Fidel Castro. Under his byline, where you might expect to see something like "staff writer" or "correspondent," he's listed as "Premier of Cuba."

Mr. Castro promises "I am not a dictator and I do not think I will become one. I will not maintain power with a machine gun."

He's not a bad writer, in terms of rhetoric, but he seems to have a bit of a disconnect with reality.

"And when the people decide they do not want me, I will step down," he says in his closing.

Well, I guess that now, nearly 50 years later, he thinks the people have spoken. And, whattya know, the Times is all over it. Commies.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When Ron Berman called me with this story, it sounded too far-fetched to be true. How could a woman get stabbed nearly to death a year ago, with seemingly no notice at all. He'd seen our piece on the Santos killing and saw some similarities to Marie Sabe's story.

But there was one big difference -- when Sharon Santos disappeared there was a huge outcry. We wrote many stories, her company offered a reward and there was general uproar. When Marie Sabe got stabbed 12 times at First Assembly Church of God, there was nothing. No LAPD press release, no word from the district attorney. We didn't even write a brief.

And who knows why? Perhaps the North Hollywood station was particularly busy that day and didn't give priority to spreading the word. They did their main job just fine, catching and arresting Bobby Miranda and finding enough evidence to bring him to trial. Maybe since it was just attempted murder at the time, the DA's press office didn't think it was high profile enough to highlight its prosecution. On our end, we were probably running after other stories, missed the scanner chatter and didn't get anything when we did our daily cop checks.

Whatever the case, after Sabe died of complications of her wounds in November, her loved ones vowed not to give up. They didn't want her death to go unnoticed, so they sued the church for allowing a known felon to live there without notice to the people who worked and prayed there. And that leads us to today's story. Here's the top for you:

NORTH HOLLYWOOD - Even in a house of God, Marie Sabe wasn't safe.

It's been a year since the savage attack. Sabe is now dead, Miranda is in prison and Sabe's family has filed a civil suit for negligence against the church and its pastors for failing to notify her that there was a killer living on the grounds.

As we've explored before, this is a tricky legal situation. As Hans and I were discussing the other day, churches are usually a place where the downtrodden can go to seek refuge. Miranda, a two-time felon and sex offender, was certainly downtrodden.

But, as family attorney Bill McCord points out, that doesn't mean he should be absolved of his past sins.

"There's a conflict of laudable objectives," McCord said. "You can't fault the folks at the church for wanting to rehabilitate and save a soul. On the other hand, they have a responsibility to innocents in the zone of harm: they have to make sure they're not injured."

It's a fascinating problem, one for which I certainly don't have the solution. You can't just stick all the ex-cons on an island out in the middle of the ocean and leave them to their own devices. With our justice system, they've got to be allowed a shot at re-entering society and starting anew. Tragically, Mr. Miranda repeatedly proved he wasn't up to the task, but how could the church have known that at the time?

Berman's argument makes sense: that the church shouldn't be barred from helping people, but that it should disclose with whom it's working to the other folks who'll be impacted. But, as we've seen in the past, especially with sex offenders, people get rightfully uncomfortable with having ex-cons in their midst.

I'm very curious to see how this will play out, because of the precedent it could set for other churches and places of rehabilitation. In Miranda's case, he failed to take responsibility for getting himself straight, but I'm sure there are plenty of felons who sincerely want to put their past crimes behind them and move on with their lives. When they can't turn to a church or an aid group because people don't want it in their community, those ex-cons will be further marginalized and stand a greater chance of returning to their lives of crime.

But that's an issue for the scholars and the courts to fight about and resolve. In the meantime, I'm just glad to be able to share Sabe's story with you. It's been too long in coming, but at least people finally know what happened.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

He grew up in Canoga Park, went off to UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of law and just won the American Bar Association's National Outstanding Young Lawyer Award. In looking over his resume and talking to him, I can see why the ABA was so wowed by his work. Reyes gave me a holler on Friday and we crammed his career into 30 minutes that seemed to just scratch the top of his accomplishments.

It all started with his dad, he said, an independent filmmaker from the Philippines who fiercely insisted on making movies on his own terms. That didn't always go so smoothly.

"He got sued so much, I thought, 'I would love to represent him one day. I want to help defend him,'" Reyes said.

After graduating from Canoga Park High in 1989, he went off to BYU before taking a two-year Mormon mission. While his friends went all over the world, he ended up in Chicago before returning to finish his degree. Then it was off to Boalt.

Reyes ended up at Parsons Behle & Latimer, a large corporate law firm where he's now a partner.

"I had a lot of friends from Berkeley making fun of me: 'What the heck! No one's out there, what are you going to do in Utah?'" he said. "Then a lot of them followed me out."

I think we all went to high school with someone like him, the kind who was the ASB president, yearbook editor, captain of the football team, valedictorian and homecoming king, all at the same time. In addition to his regular law practice, he served on Utah's Third District Judicial Nominating Commission, as committee chair, officer and member of the executive council for the Young Lawyers Division of the Utah bar and as liaison to the Utah Supreme Court's Committee on Standards & Professionalism. He also became a Mormon bishop at 31.

And on top of all that, he played an active role in the Utah Minority Bar Association, helping organize a tribute to the first 50 Minority Attorneys in Utah. That helped raise money for scholarships and allowing the organization to mentor and place students with law firms, molding the next generation of Sean Reyeses.

"My biggest thing is giving them lots of confidence. They can do it. They've got people to support them," he said. "But they've got to work their butts off and perform, too."

All in all, an interesting character -- and he's only 36. I wish I'd had more time to chat with him, but he agreed to answer my pestersome questions about the law in the future, so we probably haven't seen the last of Mr. Reyes. Stay tuned for more to come...

"I'm a Cali boy, but as an adopted son of Utah, I'm part of the new Utah," he said. "It's a lot more diverse than it used to be. To represent Utah, the LDS community, my family, my law firm, and everything else, it's gratifying to portray something different than what people have in mind."

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rick has got a great one today about SWATting, where pranksters use cybertrickery to send out SWAT teams to scare the beejeezus out of unsuspecting homeowners. Here, I'll let him lead it off...

He told the 911 dispatcher he had killed someone in the house and more bloodshed would follow.

Randal Ellis, 19, who lived 1,200 miles away in Washington state, used a computer to trick the 911 dispatcher into believing the "emergency" was inside a home in Orange County, prosecutors allege.

It's all fun and games until someone gets blown away by an AR-15, right? And I don't suppose it's real cheap to wake up the D-team and send them charging across town in hot pursuit of your dumb joke, either.

Further down, I noticed an interesting legal argument... .

In the Orange County case, Ellis is facing five felony counts and one misdemeanor for the March incident, including computer fraud, assault with a machine gun and false imprisonment by violence, Emami said.

"It's our legal opinion that the law does not support that kind of assault by proxy or that vicarious liability," Brower said.

Now the proxy angle's pretty interesting. It's like the prosecutors are saying Ellis is the puppetmaster here, directing the cops to show up with their rifles against their will. And that makes sense on one hand, but how far does this hold up?

This ended safely enough, with no one getting hurt. But suppose this was a different homeowner, freaked out that there's all these guys running around in black jumpsuits with rifles in his front yard, grabs a gun. Maybe he's a gun enthusiast and he thinks this is Ruby Ridge all over again. The cops, who've been warned that there's a crazy man inside, see someone running around with a strap. One side sees the other, someone gets antsy, a trigger gets pulled and pretty soon, someone's fun little prank turns into an epic gun battle. Cops die, the homeowner gets shot up, the neighbors' houses catch on fire-- it's not that hard to imagine.

So when it's all sorted out, how far can they extend this proxy charge? Is the caller then guilty of murder, by causing the cops to show up, instilling legitimate fear in the homeowner and setting off a blow-up that didn't have to happen? I guess that would be up to a jury, but could they even be charged with it? It looks like they could. I wonder if this works for lo-tech means, as well. If you trick someone into committing a crime for what they thought were legitimate reasons (self-defense, for example), can they avoid the charges and you end up the defendant. It seems you would _ and should.

This is weird stuff, friends, very weird, something you'd expect in a Morgan Freeman/Ashley Judd thriller, rather than here in the Daily News. Nice work, Rick, glad you brought it to light.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our downtown rivals had an interesting piece over the weekend about disarray in the way the state prison system releases people who've served their time.

SACRAMENTO -- The counselor at Salinas Valley State Prison paid a surprise visit to Nicholas Shearin's cell with good news: He would go home in two days, after a decade behind bars.

But "they did what they wanted to do at the Department of Corrections," said Shearin, who learned from a reporter that he had stayed in prison too long. "They just told me no."

For more, read the whole thing. This is serious stuff, too-- in addition to being completely unfair, it's not cheap to keep those folks locked up. The Times says it'll cost the state $44 million through the end of the fiscal year. And, if those prisoners start figuring out that they were walking the yard weeks after they would be supposed to be on their way, you think some might ring up their local attorneys at law?

Nice work by Mr. Rothfield on that one-- we'll keep an eye out to see if any reform follows.

And, as I was tripping around the Times not-very-search-friendly Web site (I found a 1990 article on Scientology and an abstract about porn star Savannah's suicide, but not that piece until I found an AP rewrite on our site that gave me the relevant terms I could search over at their site), I ran across another thought-provoking piece.

SACRAMENTO -- Three years after state officials promised to fix California's troubled juvenile prisons, advocates for incarcerated youths are urging a judge to appoint a receiver to take over a system they say remains tragically broken.

"Youth on suicide watch are isolated and deprived of programming and human contact. Youth in restricted programs spend 20 hours or more a day in their filthy, dimly lit cells, released only for one hour of school a day or to exercise in a cage."

Read on here if you'd like. Now I realize that kids in prison aren't as popular as kids in pre-calculus, but let's think about this a bit. If the juvie system's that bad, are we really helping stave off future violence? Or are we just incubating people who will graduate to real, grown-up prison once they're out and re-offending?

Alright, that's enough question marks for one post. If any of you, dear readers, have answers to those or any other questions, please share.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was looking at the number of posts in the last few days and I was downright embarrassed. The constraints of the court-animal-baby-Hollywood street folks (more to come on that later) have kept me sadly ensnared. But today, ironically when the courthouse is closed, I'm hoping to get back on track. Stay tuned.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rather than hanging around the criminal court, I went next door yesterday to check out the married and soon-to-be unmarried lives. We were hoping to find someone actually filing for divorce, to see if it was joyous ("He was cheating on me and I'm out of here!") or jerky ("I wanted her to always remember this day!"). But, since the five filers (it's not a big divorce day, that comes later) did so when I was elsewhere, the angle had to change. So we got this:

VAN NUYS - For Valentine's Day, Edgar J. Gutierrez buttoned up a black dress shirt, took the hand of Jessica Sanchez and got himself married.

On the same day the county brought in extra clerks to handle the rush of new nuptials, five sad souls filed for divorce only yards away at Los Angeles Superior Court.

If you're into this kind of thing (and judging by the hits and the one comment, not many of you are), click here. It was a good idea, but, alas, I couldn't pull it off.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 9:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back in my It's a Crime days, I had the pleasure of working with Hans Gutknecht on a series on LAPD Officers Kristina Ripatti and Tim Pearce. She was shot and paralyzed stopping an armed robber in South LA back in June of 2006 and we watched them rebuild their lives together.

We found ourselves back out with them on Wednesday for a very different, very joyous reason. Here's the beginning:

TORRANCE - The doctors and nurses gathered around Kristina Ripatti, waiting and hoping for a miracle.

At 4:37 p.m. today, the paralyzed ex-cop gave birth to a blue-eyed, black-haired, 5-pound-8-ounce, 19-inch, healthy baby. Nurses swabbed and swaddled him and the family went back up to her private room at the Little Company of Mary Hospital.

Check out the rest here. I wish I could go into more detail, but deadline's got me caught up right now. I can tell you, however, that there's never been work I've been prouder to do in my career than this series. It may not be my best work, it may be too long, I might have been able to tell it better if I had more (or less), but I can truly say that this was a story that mattered. I hope you'll enjoy it, as well.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey folks-- I've been out of the office on stories the last few days and have neglected the blog. My apologies and I'll get some more stuff up soon.

In the meantime, divert yourselves with David Simon's take on the news business. As we were discussing just the other day, industry conditionsare lousy, and that ain't a good thing for the legal system.

Simon says:
Yet here were the veterans -- the labor reporter, the courthouse maven, the poverty-beat specialist, the second medical beat guy and the prisons and corrections aficionado -- damned if they weren't walking out the door forever. There would be fresh hires, and some serious players would remain, of course. But no longer would it be practical to argue that newspapers were going to become more comprehensive, and better written -- the product of experienced and committed people for whom print journalism was a life's calling.
.

Yeah, this isn't an upbeat day for news. Stay tuned, I'll be back with more posts soon.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dear readers, I have let you down once again. Yesterday, it was the cows, now it's the inconvenient fact that today's Lincoln's birthday. As such, the courthouse is closed, no one's around and my calls are going unreturned. So, tragically, no law stories for the blog today.

By way of diversion, however, check out our 16th president in the Lawyer Hall of Fame. Rather than bringing with him a degree from a fancy law school, he had a mere year of formal schooling. Had he not taken that inconvenient detour of becoming the president, Great Emancipator, martyr and face of the penny, sounds like he would have been a pretty famous lawyer.

And, if you're into Lincoln law (as opposed to Lincoln lunches), here's more than you could ever ask for at AbrahamLincolnOnline.org. Happy reading.

As a final, random thought, I met a Lincoln impersonator once at a funeral, of all places. He was out of uniform, but the 19th century beard was a bit of a giveaway, so he started chatting about how he was really into Lincoln and had been goaded into dressing up like him by friends. After several years of appearing at parties and school events, he'd even looked into his family tree to see if his resemblance to the president turned out to be familial.

And, of course, who did his ancestor turn out to be? That's right, friends, John Wilkes Booth.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You know how the USMC says "every Marine is a rifleman?" Well, we joke that every reporter is a GA around here. So, while I'm the courts guy at the moment, I got pressed into service to write this:

"That used to happen quite often," chuckled Rev. Zedar Broadous, a long-time Northeast San Fernando Valley resident, who works nearby. "I remember driving down Glenoaks one time, talking to someone. I told them, 'I swear I'm not drunk, but there's a horse running down the street.' I grew up around here, so I'm used to it."

So no more courts news for you today, dear readers, but I'll be back in Van Nuys tomorrow morning. Stay tuned, same bat time, same bat blog.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 5:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Beloved character actor John Ritter died while taping "8 Simple Rules," but his family feels he didn't have to. They're suing two of the doctors who treated him for 67 million bucks, giving us the story below.

GLENDALE - Opening statements are scheduled today in the trial of a $67 million wrongful death suit by the family of comic actor John Ritter against two doctors.

Ritter was taping ABC's "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter" when he fell ill on Sept. 11, 2003. The 54-year-old actor was taken to Providence Saint Joseph's -- across the street from the Burbank studio -- at about 6:10 p.m. that day, complaining of "chest pain and tightness, nausea, vomiting and dizziness," the suit states.

For the rest of the story about the late Jack Tripper, click here.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 5:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After a quick hit on the Amor Hilton story a few weeks ago, we came back with a somewhat more in-depth piece on MySpace hacking today. I'll admit it's not my best work, but, hopefully, it's a good reminder that this isn't just harmless kids' stuff.

It starts off innocently enough.

"The hackers are getting very sophisticated. They seem to think that the norms we expect for people's privacy don't apply to them. It's sort of like electronic voyeurism."

The rest is here.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 3:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mon Dieu! Almost two million bucks in unreported income? That's a bunch of steamed calamari...

The owner of Barsac Brasserie, a North Hollywood restaurant, pleaded guilty today to two counts of tax evasion for the years 2003 and 2004.

Saliba also admitted that he overstated expenses by writing corporate checks from Barsac to his wife, Lisa Long, and then deducting these payments as expenses on the returns for the restaurant. Saliba also admitted that he overstated Barsac's expenses by writing checks to "Cash", and expensing the payments as tips, paying a small potion of these negotiated checks to employees and skimming the balance for himself.

And for more, click ici.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 3:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since this is a literate blog and all, let's begin this entry with some poetry:

"Walkin' out the courthouse spittin' on the camera guy/
I bang Thug Life, but this ain't Death Row."
"On Bail" -Xzibit, feat. The Game

That, dear readers, is a line from Mr. Jayceon Taylor, rapper, entrepreneur, feuder and proud Glendale resident. Mr. Taylor, known to his close associates and record buyers as "The Game," was in court today, taking a plea deal to keep him out of the pokey on three felony charges.

According to the folks over at the DA's office, Mr. Taylor, or better yet, Mr. The Game, was shooting some hoops down by the Rita Walters Educational Learning Complex in South Los Angeles a year ago. He got into an argument with another player, harsh words were exchanged, a punch was thrown and a firearm produced.

Unfortunately for Mr. The Game, he flashed his strap in the presence of a peace officer and made a criminal threat, which got him arrested. As part of his plea deal, those two counts went away, but he did offer a no contest plea for possession of a firearm in a school zone, which got him three years formal probation, 58 days in the county jail and 150 hours of community service.

Deputy District Attorney Tien Pham of Central Trials handled things for the prosecution, while Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Fred Wapner handed down the sentence. Mr. The Game's supposed to surrender himself next week.

Now normally, going to jail can be deleterious to one's career, unless your name's Sutherland, Richie or Michelle Rodriguez. But given Mr. The Game's line of work, this could be a big advantage in terms of creating future material for his raps. He's probably celebrating as we speak, though there's no word whether he did indeed spit on a cameraman as he left the court, as he foresaw in the lines quoted above.

THIS JUST IN!

Dear readers, I'm glad to share with you some instant feedback. As I was preparing this post, a man named Michael called in. He sounded like he'd had a bit to drink and wanted to offer some comments about the WInnetka shooting. And, by lucky happenstance, he had some relevant thoughts:
"If I were the governor, I could fix things right off the bat. Schwarzenegger's too much of a (unprintable vulgarity) to handle it, but I could," Michael said. "Now first things first, I'd get rid of that rap crap. The getting high and all that? That's no good. That music comes straight from hell."

You read it here first, friends. Now he didn't specifically blame Mr. The Game, but boy was Michael's timing great.

Alright, now back to more serious news.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 3:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the midst of the 600 things happening on Friday, I didn't have much of a chance to expand on the Rojas post, but now in what passes for calm around here, I thought I'd come back and say some more.

Though the story here is Mr. Rojas and his alleged misdeeds, Cooley's quote about Fox 11 got me thinking.

"The public needs to be vigilant to guard against scam artists who target the weakest and most susceptible," said District Attorney Steve Cooley, in a statement. "That is why the investigative reporting of Fox 11 News on this case should be commended. A free press needs to keep the public informed of vital issues such as the possible loss of a home to real estate foreclosure fraud. It is a public service that they should not take lightly."

It's rare that you hear public officials praising the press, particularly ex-cops and prosecutors. Cooley's a little different, as the newspaper business has noted, but he makes a good point.

Normally, I'm not a big fan of TV news, but in this case, Fox really did do a great job and a public service. On a fraud charge like this, it's hard to tell the scope of the alleged crime unless there's widespread notice of the purported scam. Fox 11 wasn't just re-reporting a press release that the DA put out, either (which, I'll admit, is exactly what I did in this case), it actually went out and found supposed victims and spread the word. And, luckily, that helped cops and prosecutors track down additional people to help the case.

Tim Gallager, ex-publisher of the Ventura County Star, wrote a good piece on this today in the Los Angeles Business Journal (thanks to LA Observed for noticing the link).

Gallagher makes a very compelling case for why the recent cuts at the Times matter. As a reporter at a paper that has gone through several waves of layoffs and a long campaign of attrition, I will admit that I'm biased in favor of his argument, but I'll let him tell it, rather than me:

But when you keep cutting, the good journalists leave. The reporting suffers.
The readers suffer. The scalawags get away with more.

So if you want to get away with something, keep rooting for newsroom cuts. Aside from overburdened criminal investigators, the reporters are the only ones checking up on things. And there are fewer and fewer of them these days.

Unfortunately, that's all too true. It's not the job of newspapers or TV stations to do the cops or DA's dirty work, but we are supposed to all be here to serve the public. Whether it's spreading the word on alleged misdeeds like Rojas, exposing corruption and injustice of politicians and the powerful, or even just giving a human face to a tragedy, the press serves an important role in our democracy. Every time it gets squeezed, by budget cuts and the bottom line, more and more of those important stories slip away.

I'm glad Cooley recognizes this and hope the folks who mind the dollars at Fox, the Times and my own newspaper do, as well. It's not just a matter of jobs-- it matters to everyone whose stories go untold because the people telling them aren't there anymore.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

These are two completely unrelated stories, aside from the fact that they're both extremely well-written and interesting. I thought I'd put 'em both up before staggering off for bed on a long, long weekend.

First up, the Times has a great profile on U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien, an ex-fighter jock turned lawyer. As noted in the previous post, I rarely get enough chances to tackle federal stuff, but this is a fun read. Before he was going after gangs and allegedly crooked O.C. Sheriff Mike Carona, O'Brien was a RIO in an F-14, like my childhood hero, Goose. It's always a pleasure to see what Mr. Glover's up to.

And second, this isn't a courts story, but my deskmate and former co-blogger Rick Coca's got a great one on Hector Cazar, one of the paramedics involved in the Winnetka shootout.

CANOGA PARK - Just two days after helping to rescue police Officer James Veenstra, severely wounded in a Winnetka shootout that left a fellow officer and four other people dead, firefighter/paramedic Hector Cazar was experiencing deja vu.

And as in the harrowing minutes when gunman Edwin Rivera, 20 - who had killed his father and two brothers - opened fire on police early Thursday morning, Cazar, who has an aversion to firearms, found himself trying to safely remove a gun to help an injured officer.

The rest is here. I enjoyed it, not just 'cause Rick's a great writer, but because you rarely hear about the paramedics in crisis situations. We talk to cops all the time, but this is a nice reminder that the LAFD plays a vital role in the heroics, as well.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I asked in an earlier post if William Shaoul Benjamin was the James Bond of Canoga Park, the local version of Carlos the Jackal or just some dude whom the government was unfairly targeting? Well, it turns out that a jury thought it was the latter, for the most part.

Courtesy of our investigative ace, Ms. Barrett:

West Hills resident William Shaoul Benjamin, 65, was acquitted Friday on two federal counts of spying for the Iraqi government, as tearful family members celebrated outside a downtown federal courthouse.

"These were the heart of the government's case, and he was acquitted of those charges. The defense is extremely pleased," Blatt said. "It's been an incredibly painful process for him and his family."

The rest is here. I wish I could have covered the trial, but there's so much going on in Superior Court, it's hard to get involved with the federal stuff. Whatever the case, I'm glad we were able to get you some news on Mr. Benjamin. The case sounded pretty wild from the start and I guess jurors agreed. It'll be interesting to see if the lesser charge hangs him up much, or if he'll get on with his life.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Readers of It's a Crime will remember James Anthony Rojas. He's back in the news again, with the scope of his alleged crimes considerably enlarged.

SAN FERNANDO - James Anthony Rojas pled not guilty to 79 felony counts today, after prosecutors went after him for his alleged role in a massive real estate and investment fraud scam.

Here's the original link (which we had some trouble with, but seems to be working fine now). And, if you click the It's a Crime link, is it just me, or does that dude look just like the late Luciano Pavarotti? Sounds like he isn't as willing to sing, however.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 6:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Again, Mr. Anderson's on the scene...

In what was described as the largest child-care fraud case in the country, 55 people were charged Thursday with playing roles in a fraud ring partially run on the license of a convict serving time in federal prison for narcotics trafficking.

"I have gone to fraud conferences, and there is nothing even close to this. Miami had a couple of hundred-thousand-dollar ones. This is a national problem."

Man, 3 million smackers for fake care for fake kids. That's a lot of dough. Check here for the rest.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A quick one from dailynews.com

Three Long Beach police officers who reported that colleagues went lobster hunting during work hours instead of guarding the port were punished rather than praised, their attorneys told a jury today.

"This case is not really about lobster diving," he told jurors. "What it's about is leaving the port unsecured."

For more, click here.

And, as a final, quick thought, this reminds me of one of my great journalistic irritations. Why do we add "-gate" onto everything to make it into a scandal? Nixon didn't get nailed for covering up a break-in at the Water hotel, it was the Watergate.

And yet, when things get that tainted twist, they become Travel-gate, Camilla-gate and Plame-gate. I could go on, but if you're really into it, just check out the Wikipedia list. The media's over-reliance on this term is, of course, Gate-gate.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 2:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is a cross post from my old-stomping grounds at It's a Crime. In case you're not a regular reader, check out what they've got over there-- there's some really amazing coverage that Jason and Rick put up in recent days.

In all the craziness at the scene yesterday, I ran into Councilman Dennis Zine, who was getting reports from the commanders and talking to his old colleagues. Often times at police events, politicians will gratuitously show up to get in on the limelight, but that was not the case here. Zine, whom we often note is an ex-LAPD motor cop, was truly shaken up and genuinely concerned.

He grabbed me and took me past the yellow tape, remembering officers Randal Simmons and James Veenstra along the way. He held nothing back.

We bumped into Capt. David Baca, commanding officer of the LAPD's emergency operations division. The two exchanged a hug, stepped back and took deep breaths.

"God, we had dinner just last week," Zine said, referring to S.W.A.T.'s annual get-together. "Now, he's dead.

Baca's friendship with Simmons, shot in the neck by the suspect and pronounced dead at the hospital, went back more than 20 years. They'd both worked undercover in the Southend and survived similar officer-involved-shootings as young cops. Simmons was a hero, Baca said, one the LAPD should remember as one of the greats.

"To lose the best of the best, God!" he exclaimed. "He was a real role model. The tragedy is the loss, but the value is the life he lived. That's what shone through. ...
"You hear gunfire, your normal person's instinct is to run the other way. Our SWAT officers run to the gunfire. They run toward the sound of the cannons."

He'd served in the Metropolitan Division that oversees S.W.A.T. years ago and said he was never prouder in his career than to get the assignment. He figured his old friend, a former college football player, chose S.W.A.T. for the same reason.

"You look up to them as the ultimate," Baca said. "That's why he did it, I'm sure. That's the kind of guy he was. ...
"S.W.A.T. officers will be grieving all over this nation. In the City of Angels, one of its finest angels has been shot down."

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I got pressed into service to work on the SWAT standoff, so this'll probably be a light day, courtwise. I'll be back soon.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Ms. Maeshiro, our AV watcher, comes this:

A judge today denied a request by a twice-convicted child molester from Santa Barbara to allow him to reside in Los Angeles County, possibly in the Antelope Valley.

"For this type of individual to come in the back door of the valley, it's not going to happen in our valley," Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford said after the hearing.

As we've seen in the Rodriguez case and the apartment post the other day, this is an ongoing, troubling issue. What's the answer? I really don't know. If I had kids, I wouldn't be thrilled to have this guy take up in the apartment next door, but on the other hand, until he gets life in prison, you can't really justify tossing away the key. And while it's easy to say "he's served his time, let him go," what if he re-offends? Try telling the parents that justice was served by letting him into your neighborhood.

I hate to end these posts by just throwing up my hands and saying "law is hard!" Sheesh, I feel like Lawyer Barbie (or, at the very least, Attorney Ken), but I don't have the answers. Hopefully, Judge Landin does.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another catchup item that I missed in yesterday's craziness...

Our old friend Will Beall turned up again with an article in the Times. This time, the cop/author/Evel Knievel enthusiast (whom you may recall from an earlier profile on It's a Crime) reviews fellow novelist 's .

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And, after a very long night, we're back in business.... I'm going to do a little catch up in the next few posts before I get back into the swing of things.

One thing I missed was Ms. Leovy's Column One, "Unlimited space for untold sorrow," which chronicles a year of The Homicide Report. Now, I've made no secret of my great respect for what she's done as a journalist and the effort she's put into that blog, so it's no surprise that I liked the column. I won't embarrass myself with further flattery, but I did notice some very noteworthy bits...

The coroner provided a basic list of victims. But much of the information about the killings had to be wrung from police agencies spread across 400 square miles, or from crime scenes or victims' families. I worked mostly out of my car, fanning to the south and east of my office.

When I first presented a list of victims to the state Department of Motor Vehicles for photos, the clerks were baffled. Twenty young people every week? "What is this?" one asked. "Did a plane crash?"

That's a pretty sad commentary on how disconnected we are from the realities of murder and violence in our society. I suppose it's not a surprise that the DMV would wonder about this (reporters ask them for pictures for all sorts of reasons, so they probably don't keep track of how many come from homicide), but you'd think that the cops' media relations folks would be screaming for attention on this, not surprised that they can give the details.

Sweeping characterizations about homicides, so prevalent in media coverage and public discourse, fell apart. A term such as "gang-related" had a dozen meanings.

Once, three police officers, all working in the same division and all claiming personal knowledge, gave me three assessments of the same young man. One described him as a violent gang member; the second said he was a gang member who had committed no serious crimes; the third said he wasn't a gang member at all.

Rick and I have discussed this many times, how elusive the notion of truth is. We in the media tend to treat things as fact if they come from an official source, but I'm always surprised at how flexible those facts can be-- not because anyone's lying, just because they're going on different information or have different impressions. Then we further compound it by printing it as the truth, even if it's just "police said he was a gang member." While that's true, police did say it, as Ms. Leovy points out, not all officers, or attorneys, or even family members agree on this.

I interviewed a kid trying to get out of the Rollin' 60s once and he told me all his brothers were gangsters. He'd joined because he'd watched one get murdered and wanted revenge. When I called his dad, the father told me all his sons had bad friends, but they weren't gang members. The truth, whatever that is, lies somewhere in between.

The more the killings stacked up on the blog, the more absurd the old media criteria for selecting one homicide over another seemed. Thirteen-year-old boys nearly always made the headlines of The Times' print edition, but 14-year-olds were a tossup. Sixteen- and 17-year-olds were more likely to make the cut if they were girls.

One of those happened in May. Two Latino men, each 23, were working on a gutter across the street from Elizabeth Street Elementary School in Cudahy while classes were in session.

And that's one of the most horrible realities of the media today. We're so thinly spread and understaffed, even at a huge place like the Times, lives met with tragic, violent ends don't even make the paper. There's just too many of them to go around, even in a relatively safe year like '07. I'm glad that Ms. Leovy and Mr. Vives, as well as our own team, are there to try to tell those stories. I'd just as soon never write about another murder trial or rotten crime, but while they're still here-- and they always will be-- we've got to keep reminding people why they matter.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Greetings, dear readers. Just wanted to offer a quick note that I'll be away from the blog today (I know, I know, it will be hard to get by without your usual dose of OITC, but I have faith in you), covering the elections from 3 'til god knows when. But when I return, y'all can expect a return to the usual stream of judicial oddities. Stay tuned...

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I ran across this story on dailynews.com earlier.

In an effort to balance the rights of convicted sex offenders with the need to protect children from harm, a City Council committee today approved a proposal to urge landlords and tenants to report suspicious behavior, using the non-emergency 311 line.
The Public Safety Committee's plan came about after city lawyers said it would be unlawful to require landlords to check the Megan's Law database, which lists designated registered sex offenders, before renting an apartment to a prospective tenant.
Instead of drafting a new ordinance, committee members endorsed a plan that would allow anyone to dial 311 to report what they consider to be odd or suspicious activities around apartment buildings. Operators will forward complaints to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Information on the program will be posted on the city's Web site and television station, Channel 35. Should funding become available, city officials also plan to print a poster that landlords could place around apartment buildings to advertise the program.
"What we are doing here is something that everybody is thoroughly excited about because it is a partnership between our associations and landlords and government to solve a problem that, to say the least, is a huge problem," said Tara Bannister with the California Apartment Association. "I have personally been involved in hundreds of (cases with) landlords who have had to pay off sex offenders to move out to protect the other tenants. This will solve that problem."

It definitely reminded me of the Rodriguez case. Definitely a thorny issue.... I'm working on another one looking at the issue, so stay tuned.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After sitting on it all weekend, jurors offered up their verdict on Williamson and Williamson this morning: dad's a murderer, son just gets assault.

SAN FERNANDO - Alvaro Williamson showed no emotion at all as jurors found him guilty of murder - and spared his son.

"Al anticipated this," said Geni Clark, Alvaro Williamson's cousin. "He's got to pay for the crime. ... It's such a sad situation. Sad for their family, sad for our family. Al's basically a good person, but he just snapped, I guess."

And she's very right on that. Because Mr. Williamson couldn't keep his temper in check on his final night of freedom, one man ended up dead and another got shot. He had to sell his house to pay for his defense, his son turned 18 in jail and he missed his daughter's 21st birthday.

His attorney, Milton C. Grimes, put up a hell of a fight and the other attorneys gave him serious kudos. Deputy DA Paula Gonzales even gave him props in her closing argument, calling him a gifted and talented speaker.

"He's a master in the courtroom," said Mark S. Shapiro, who successfully defended the younger Williamson. "I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd been found not guilty."

But the jury didn't go for it, so I'd expect to see Williamson serving some serious time when we reconvene March 7 for sentencing. Though his son should get out much sooner, he and everyone else connected to that horrible night won't be able to let it go for a long, long time.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 5:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I can't imagine how frustrating this weekend must have been for all the families in the Williamson trial. It's been an emotional month for both sides, bringing up dark memories of a night that they'll never be able to put aside. Then, on Friday, after they got word that the jurors had made up their minds, they're told to wait until Monday. Let's hope everything goes as planned-- I'll pass the word what happens as soon as I get the chance today.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 7:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I used to cover business in my earlier days and always enjoyed finding angles to cover at the Farmers Market, both because it's interesting and, well, it allowed me to eat at The Gumbo Pot and Bob's Donuts while I was reporting. Every now and then, stories will still float my way, courtesy of the always pleasant Sydney Weisman and David Hamlin.

A few weeks back, Sydney suggested I check out Shine Gallery, the new memorabilia store near Mr. Marcel's and The Banana Leaf. I gave my usual line about needing a Valley connection and she told me that Bernie Shine used to work in Encino. He was a lawyer. Gosh, that's all I needed.

So Mr. Baker and I headed down and gave it a look. Lots of neat stuff and Mr. Shine is quite a character, so I banged out this story, which ran in today's paper. I also asked him for a remembrance of his favorite case, to post here, and he sent me this:

When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, Arnolds Park was a thriving summer amusement center on the shores of Lake Okoboji, Iowa. I spent a great deal of time there and worked in one of the souvenir shops as well as in a local haberdashery. Several Gypsy families operated a wide variety of carnival concessions and games at the park. All of these people were very nice to me when I was a kid, and I have fond memories of each of them. Whenever I passed one gypsy fortune teller’s stand, she would usually call me over and gratuitously read my palm. She was exotically beautiful, extraordinarily kind, and highly intuitive. I was even invited to celebrations at the local Gypsy camp, which I eagerly attended. They were gracious, hospitable, and joyful. It was there, mid-century in mid-America that I was first exposed Gypsy culture, and there I learned the falsehood of stereotyping.

By 1974 I was a young attorney in Los Angeles, and in 1978 I had my own practice. I was surprised when I started receiving calls from Gypsy families in enclaves from Texas to California who had either known me as a kid or had relatives who had known me, and found me again in another time, place and venue. One would refer another and over my years of active practice I had the privilege of representing several Gypsy clients in civil cases. I liked them and they trusted me. I can say without reservation, they were among the best clients I ever had. Most were loyal, highly responsive and good natured, listened to my advice and consul, and did not fabricate or exaggerate testimony. I have had a wide variety of clients over the years of practice . . . doctors, lawyers, and a multitude of other professionals . . . but I must admit a special fondness for the Gypsy clients who remembered me as the kid they once knew in Iowa.

I'd already learned a lot about him, but that was another interesting twist. You meet all kinds of interesting cats on this beat, that's for sure. It's nice to write about one who hasn't shot, stabbed or defrauded someone, every now and then.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 1:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I was juggling the Redd story, a weekend about cyber crime (stay tuned for that one) and a forthcoming piece on a woman stabbed in North Hollywood with some tricky legal issues involved, my cell phone buzzed. The verdict was in on Williamson and Williamson case. I wrapped up and ran to the courthouse.

And then, after all the excitement, I found a courtroom empty of jurors, defendants or lawyers. Just Judge Coen, out of his robe, the bailiffs, clerk and recorder. They were shooting the breeze and watching the clock.

The phone rang.

“Hello, Mr. Grimes,” the clerk said. “Traffic, huh? How bad? The San Bernardino Freeway? Ewww….”

And the grimaces went ‘round the courtroom. Mark S. Shapiro was stuck in Compton, as well, so Coen called back the jurors and reluctantly asked them to seal the verdict. They’d be back yet again, 9 a.m., Monday morning.

“But,” he said, with a wry smile. “I guarantee you will be paid for the entire day.”

They groaned, thanked him and agreed to return once more.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 4:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As promised, here's the verdict, sort-of, on the Redd case.

"I think it's a victory for the defense," said Ronald D. Hedding, the Encino attorney who represented the Compton teen. "She wasn't trying to kill Shayla Phillips. She wanted to talk to her because they had a relationship."

Keep reading, if you're so inclined, at dailynews.com.

It's tempting to focus on the tabloidish details, but, talking with Phillips' family, it reminded me that, at heart, this is a story about a family that lost a loved one, and quite a few other folks who got banged up, too. Definitely a shame, all around.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I remember an old Bloom County cartoon where Milo and Opus were waxing philosophical about the importance of a good name. Would John F. Kennedy have been John F. Kennedy had be been named Biff Turnbuckle? Or something like that. The idea was that a great sounding name will give its bearer a certain gravitas and influence their destiny.

The Freakonomics guys explored this and found that, in general, your name actually doesn't mean anything. Their best example was two brothers named Winner and Loser (I bet Fathers' Day was always an interesting affair in that home). If I recall, Winner became a criminal, Loser became a cop, proving their theory.

There is one notable exception, I would argue, and that's the name Jesse James. Aside from the chopper maestro, it seems that name just keeps popping up in connection with less than savory pursuits. For example, the bit below, courtesy of the FBI press office.

Jesse James Salinas, a man from Santa Maria, California, was charged
in the attached criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Los
Angeles this week. Salinas is scheduled for an initial appearance in
federal court today. Salinas was turned over to federal custody by
deputies with the Ventura County Sheriff's Department who arrested
Salinas after a bank robbery in Ventura County, followed by a vehicle
pursuit which ended without any injuries due to the skill of the
deputies. Salinas is also suspected in additional robberies in
Ventura and San Luis Obispo County; those robberies are currently
under investigation. Please contact the Ventura County Sheriff's
Department with questions about the arrest scenario/pursuit.

The Ventura County Star has a little somethin' on it, as well.

My, that's a nice coincidence. You name your son after a notorious bank robber and he ends up going into the same line of work. Or he becomes an accused murderer, like Jesse James Hollywood. Or a convicted killer like Jesse James Caston (thanks to Rick for the find on that one).

I mean no disrespect to all the nice, kind, law-abiding Jesse Jameses out there. I'm sure you're all swell dudes. But to the prospective moms and dads of the world, let me recommend a name with a little less notoriety. If Jesse James Caston had been born Elliot Ness Caston or Joe DiMaggio Caston, he'd probably agree with me.

Posted by Brent Hopkins at 1:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)