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DOT Announces Full Investigation of Inappropriate Behavior

 

Los Angeles, (May 1,  2011) - The City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) launched a full investigation on Thursday, April 28, 2011, allegedly involving two on-duty traffic officers, for inappropriate behavior following a television station providing a video of two uniformed officers appearing in an adult video.  Amir Sedadi, LADOT Interim General Manager, issued the following statement today:

 "Photos of what appeared to be LADOT officers engaged in misconduct were provided anonymously to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and forwarded to our offices earlier this year.  The still photos contained blurred faces and did not contain any identifiable information regarding the individuals, or the source of the photos. In fact, the photos contained faces and vehicle numbers that were all completely blurred beyond recognition and therefore prior to viewing a video from KNBC-TV, we were not aware of the fact that a video existed. 

After the assessment of the still photos was conducted, while we were unable to positively identify any individual employee, we reminded all of our traffic officers in writing about their obligation to conduct themselves in a manner that earns and maintains the trust, respect and confidence of those with whom we serve.  We expect our employees to conduct themselves in a manner which will bring credit to themselves and to the Department.  Because LADOT Traffic Officers are one of the most conspicuous representatives of City government, we expect our employees to avoid becoming engaged in conduct which is not only inappropriate, but also puts them in a position of compromise.

A full investigation was launched after the video of the incident was provided by KNBC-TV this past week.  After we were provided the names of the individuals allegedly involved in the misconduct, both employees were immediately placed on administrative leave.   Because we take the incident so seriously, and in order to ensure that the investigation is done thoroughly, a request was made and granted for the Los Angeles Police Department, City Attorney, and Personnel Department to assist in the investigation and provide recommendations. The investigation is designed to seek the truth and establish all the circumstances involved in this very serious incident. 

I want to make it clear; LADOT does not condone or tolerate unacceptable or inappropriate behavior from any of our employees.  The allegations involving two individuals in no way should be taken as representative of the nearly 600 professional Traffic Officers in the Department. 

While I am not able to release the names of the individuals involved due to personnel rules and legal statutes, I can assure everyone that once the investigation is completed, and if the allegations of inappropriate behavior are sustained, swift and appropriate disciplinary action will occur.  Finally, I want to thank KNBC-TV for providing us the information that is allowing this investigation to proceed and I pledge that we will complete the detailed review of this incident in a timely manner."

LOS ANGELES - Lonnie David Franklin Jr., the alleged "Grim Sleeper" serial killer accused of murdering 10 victims over a more than 20-year span, was arraigned today on an indictment charging him with the killings.

"The indictment in the 'Grim Sleeper' case that was unsealed today in the Superior Court was necessitated by a desire to move this significant murder case forward to trial," said District Attorney Steve Cooley in a written statement.

"The families of the victims should be accorded timely resolution of the allegations of the murders of their loved ones," the District Attorney added.

Franklin, 58, was charged in July of last year with 10 counts of murder with the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders. He also was charged with one count of attempted "willful, deliberate and premeditated murder" in the case of an 11th victim who survived. The indictment contains the same charges.

Although the case was filed nearly a year ago, there never was a date scheduled for a preliminary hearing of the evidence, which would have been the next stage of the proceedings. At a preliminary hearing, a judge determines if there is sufficient evidence for a felony defendant to stand trial.

The indictment returned Wednesday afternoon by the Los Angeles County Grand Jury following a little more than six-day hearing supersedes the criminal complaint and moves the case directly to trial.

Franklin is accused of killing his victims - girls and women ranging in age from 14 to 36 - between August 1985 and January 2007. Most of the victims were discovered dumped in alleys and covered with debris. They were shot to death and/or strangled.

The charges make Franklin eligible for the death penalty, but the District Attorney's office has not made a final decision on whether death or life without parole will be sought against the defendant.

Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman of the Major Crimes Division and Deputy District Attorney Marguerite Rizzo of the Family Violence Division are prosecuting the case.

Franklin was arrested by Los Angeles Police Department Robbery-Homicide detectives after a lengthy task force investigation.

LENNOX -- Female remains found Saturday at an alleged drug house in Lennox may be those of the wife of a man whose body was found buried there earlier this week.

The woman's body was found around 3:45 p.m. at the home on 112th Street near Inglewood Avenue, Sgt. Edmundo Hummel of the Sheriff's Headquarters Bureau reportedly said.

Coroner's officials would only say the remains were female.

The body of the owner of the home, James Daniel Stein, 53, was unearthed Tuesday in the backyard of the residence.

His wife, Gabriela, went missing about a month after Stein's mother reported him missing Dec. 17.

Marcos Lomeli, 26, became a suspect in the couple's death after his former girlfriend told authorities at least one body was buried at the reputed drug house.

He was arrested Wednesday at a motel in the 4300 block of Rosemead Boulevard.

LOS ANGELES - A man whose body was found buried in the backyard of an alleged "drug house" in Lennox was identified today by the coroner's office, while the man's wife remained missing and a suspect in the case was in custody.

The body of James Daniel Stein, 53, was unearthed Tuesday in the backyard of the home he owned on 112th Street near Inglewood Avenue, according to the coroner's office.

Marcos Lomeli, 26, was taken into custody about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Lancer Motel in the 4300 block of Rosemead Boulevard, said sheriff's Capt. Mike Parker.

Investigators began digging up the yard after the suspect's former girlfriend told detectives at least one body was buried at the reputed "drug house," said sheriff's Lt. Don Slawson.

Stein's mother reported him missing Dec. 17, and his wife, Gabriela, went missing the next month. Investigators suspect she also could be buried on the property.

The search for her body was suspended early yesterday because of the rainy weather, said sheriff's Sgt. Michael Thomas.

In addition to being a suspect in Stein's apparent murder, "the suspect was ... also wanted for the alleged false imprisonment, robbery, carjacking and assault with a deadly weapon of an adult victim on Saturday in Lennox," Parker said.

Lomeli called 911, falsely claiming to be held hostage at the Pico Rivera motel, and "over the ensuing 10 or so minutes, deputies worked to convince the suspect to surrender," said Parker.

The former girlfriend, Jenny Salazar, was reportedly also arrested on suspicion of false imprisonment.

Slawson told a newspaper he was told that several people who had lived at the house suddenly disappeared from the home about a week ago.

He said Salazar and Lomeli went to the house on Jan. 12 and asked another resident if they could borrow a truck, and when the truck owner asked why, Lomeli said he needed to move a couple of bodies.

He said that when the truck owner said no, they tied him up, but that the man escaped and told authorities what happened.

A neighbor told a TV crew he had been calling the sheriff's department about problems at the house for years. He said there had been numerous overdose deaths there, but "nothing ever seemed to turn up."

Lomeli had at least one previous arrest. He was jailed by Culver City police on an unnamed felony charge on Dec. 3, according to Los Angeles County jail records. Lomeli apparently posted the $20,000 bail, but no court information was immediately available. He is currently being held without bail.

In another twist to the case, a fire broke out at the house last night. Neighbors reported seeing smoke and flames coming from the house around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, it was reported.

Sheriff's deputies reportedly described packrat conditions in the home.

Investigators worked Thursday to determine what caused a fire at a Lennox drug house days after a body was found in the backyard.

Arson detectives were called to the charred home in the unincorporated Lennox area on Wednesday night after firefighters extinguished the blaze.

The fire added a new layer of mystery to a case that already includes missing persons, a carjacking and a possible killing.

The homeowner, James Stein, 53, and his wife, Gabriela, vanished at different times in December.

On Tuesday, a man's body wrapped in cloth and plastic was unearthed from the trash-strewn backyard.

Los Angeles County sheriff's homicide Lt. Don Slawson said coroner's investigators had not identified the person.

A two-day search of the property turned up no further human remains, and the Steins are both officially considered to be missing, Slawson said.

"We're trying to hunt her down (and) try to find out what happened," the lieutenant said. "Hopefully, she's alive. That would be the best-case scenario for all of us."

The fire was reported shortly after 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, about two hours after a man was arrested on suspicion of carjacking someone at the home days earlier.

Marcos Lomeli, 26, surrendered at a Pico Rivera motel following a brief standoff with a SWAT team, sheriff's Capt. Mike Parker said.

He remained jailed without bail on Thursday.

Homicide detectives want to question him about the body that was discovered.

Authorities had been searching for Lomeli since Saturday, when a man called authorities to report he had been carjacked at the home, Slawson said.

Investigators believe that Lomeli and Jenny Salazar, who both lived at the home, called the man to the house by saying they needed his truck to move some property.

When he arrived, they asked to borrow the truck and told him they "needed to move a body or bodies, as the case may be," Slawson said.

When he refused, he was tied up and his truck was stolen, Slawson said.

Salazar, 22, was arrested Monday for investigation of false imprisonment, robbery and assault with a deadly weapon.

She prompted a search of the property by telling investigators a body was buried in the backyard, Slawson said.

She remained jailed Thursday on $250,000 bail.

Slawson said investigators were looking into the possibility that the fire was set to destroy evidence.

Other motives might be vandalism or a desire to get rid of a house neighbors claimed had been a hangout for drug addicts for decades, Slawson said.

LOS ANGELES - Saying it would "wreak havoc" in the criminal justice system, District Attorney Steve Cooley warned today that a state budget proposal to transfer thousands of convicted felons and parolees to county custody and supervision threatens the safety of citizens.

The realignment proposal is a public safety nightmare," Cooley told the Assembly Budget Subcommittee during a late afternoon hearing in the Board of Supervisors hearing room at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration.

The hearing is on Gov. Jerry Brown's budget proposal that would transfer responsibility for specified "lower-level offenders" and parolees from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to individual counties.

Cooley noted that Los Angeles County already faces a severe and chronic jail overcrowding problem that prompted a more than 20-year-old ongoing federal court-mandated population cap on the jail population. This has resulted in many incidents of early release of county jail prisoners over the years.

The District Attorney said that the county's jails, according to the Sheriff's own statistics, house about 18,000 inmates. About 90 percent are pre-trial detainees, leaving some 1,800 beds for post-conviction sentencing. Filling those beds now are those sentenced to misdemeanor terms, those sentenced to jail for violating probation, or defendants who have been given a jail term as a condition of a felony probation. These sentenced prisoners are routinely released early.

Cooley estimated that under the Governor's proposal, up to 9,000 convicted felons would be required to serve their sentences in Los Angeles County. "There is no room in the jails for them," he said. "Nor is there room for an estimated 6,500 Los Angeles County parole violators who would receive jail terms in lieu of prison under the proposal," he added.

The District Attorney warned that under the Governor's budget proposal, "Society will not be adequately protected. Convicted felons will not be adequately punished...Tens of thousands of convicted felons will be on the streets with minimal supervision, threatening all Californians.

"...The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office and all other criminal justice entities from law enforcement to the courts would require substantial additional staffing to handle the predictable, significant increase in criminal filings due to felons serving very little or no time in custody," Cooley warned as he urged the subcommittee to reject the budget proposal.

LOS ANGELES - Convicted serial killer Chester Dewayne Turner, who was sentenced to death in 2007 for the murders of 10 women and an unborn child over a 10-year period, was charged today with four additional murders in the 1980's and '90's.

Turner, who is on death row, will be returned from state prison to face the new capital murder case, said Deputy District Attorney Bobby Grace, who prosecuted Turner four years ago. His arraignment date will be announced later.

Turner, 44 (dob 11-5-66), is charged with the June 5, 1987 murder of Elandra Bunn; the Feb. 22, 1997 murder of Cynthia Annette Johnson; the Dec. 16, 1992 murder of Mary Edwards; and the Nov. 16, 1992 murder of Debra Williams. The complaint alleges the special circumstances of murder during commission of attempted rape. Prosecutors will decide later whether to seek the death penalty for a second time against the convicted serial killer.

After Turner was convicted and sentenced to death in May 2007, Los Angeles police detectives from the Robbery Homicide Division continued to investigate the four unsolved murders in which Turner was identified as a suspect.

The four victims in the new case were found strangled to death, similar to the 10 earlier victims. All the victims were killed in South Los Angeles in the area know as the Figueroa Corridor.

In two of the murders, two other men were originally charged. David Allen Jones was convicted of the 1992 murder of Mary Edwards. After further DNA testing excluded Jones, the District Attorney's office asked the court to set aside that conviction. Jones was freed from prison in 2004.

Another man was charged with the 1997 murder of Cynthia Johnson. That case was later dismissed after DNA evidence excluded that suspect and identified Turner.

LOS ANGELES -- Perhaps the "Grim Sleeper" never took a break after all.

Police on Thursday were investigating two additional homicides that could be tied to Lonnie Franklin Jr., a mechanic who already has been charged with killing 10 women from 1985 to 1988 and from 2002 to 2007.

The 14-year pause led to the nickname "Grim Sleeper."

Detective Dennis Kilcoyne said Franklin might also be responsible for the deaths of two women whose bodies were found in South Los Angeles in the 1990s. No charges have been filed in those cases. "I don't think there is a gap," Kilcoyne said. "He was here, he was active. I don't think you stop one day, take a 14-year vacation and then start up again."

Kilcoyne released few details about the additional cases but said the bodies were found in the same general area as other victims. He would not say if there was DNA evidence tying Franklin to the two women, as was the case in several of the deaths that led to charges.

Most of the victims linked to the "Grim Sleeper" were found in alleyways within a few miles of Franklin's mint-green stucco home a few miles south of downtown Los Angeles. Those victims were shot, strangled or both, usually after some kind of sexual contact. Several were prostitutes.

Detectives were led to Franklin after his son was arrested on an unrelated matter and swabbed for DNA. Using a controversial technique known as a familial DNA search, the sample came back as similar to evidence in the serial killings, leading police to investigate relatives of the man who was arrested.

Franklin has pleaded not guilty. A call to his attorney Louisa Pensanti was not immediately returned.

After Franklin's arrest in July, detectives spent days searching his house and garage for evidence. They seized a stash of hundreds of photographs and hours of home videotape of women, many of whom were engaged in sexually explicit behavior.

Learing there may be additional victims, detectives released images of dozens of the women and asked for the public's help identifying them.

Kilcoyne said 72 women in the pictures have been identified and ruled out as victims, and four new missing person cases have been opened involving people in the photos. Women in 62 pictures have yet to be identified.

The women in the two additional homicide cases were not depicted in the photos, Kilcoyne said.

The initial killings occurred during a time of extreme violence in parts of Los Angeles, when many young women were falling prey to crack cocaine and other drug addictions.

As many as 30 detectives investigated the slayings in the 1980s but exhausted leads within a few years.

LOS ANGELES -- A second alleged victim has come forward in the investigation into videotaped sexual assaults of severely disabled women, authorities said.
The 27-year-old woman recognized one of the suspects, Ernie Lloyd, in news coverage, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said in a statement Friday.
The woman said another suspect, Bert Hicks, sexually assaulted her multiple times between 2007 and 2009 when she lived in a housing facility he operated.
Sheriff's officials also said Friday that they served search warrants at three residences as part of the ongoing investigation, it was reported.
Details of the warrants were not released.
Another woman came forward Monday and said she was assaulted by Lloyd a few years ago at a residential care facility in Los Angeles where they both previously lived.
Sheriff's officials say she has physical disabilities that leave her defenseless.
Lloyd was arrested Jan. 8 after surrendering to police.
At least 10 victims appeared in more than 100 hours of video that a man anonymously delivered to sheriff's headquarters in Monterey Park last March.
But prosecutors said the videos alone are not sufficient evidence, telling Sheriff's Department detectives that they need to provide more facts about the women's medical histories, level of disabilities and other information.
"In order to effect a filing, we would either have to prove that the victim did not consent to the sexual acts or she was unable to consent to the sexual acts," the district attorney's office reportedly wrote in a memo. "There is insufficient evidence to prove either of these theories beyond a reasonable doubt."
The woman who came forward Monday also claimed that Hicks married her and took her back to a care facility where she was sexually assaulted by him and Lloyd, investigators said. Hicks, 42, is serving a sentence at Tehachapi State Prison on two felony sex counts and two abuse counts. He is scheduled to be released next year.
The videos, received in the mail, show men sexually assaulting physically and mentally disabled women, some of them in diapers. Officials said it took months for investigators to digitally enhance the grainy footage and produce pictures and artist sketches of the suspects.
Authorities are still seeking two other men seen on the tapes.

"America's Got Talent" audition, ecstasy, speed, a missing woman and the arrest of a rock musician. This story has some interesting twists:

Los Angeles police said Tuesday the wife of a man vying for a spot on "America's Got Talent" was found dead in the stairwell of an upscale hotel where the T.V. show was holding auditions.

Covina native Laura Finley, 48, was discovered about 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning by a guest of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel.

Police said her death appeared to be accidental, but they are looking into "other possibilities" as a precaution, Los Angeles Police Lt. Paul Vernon said.

The coroner's office is waiting for the results of toxicology tests before determining Laura Finley's cause of death, Los Angeles County Department of Coroner Lt. Fred Corral said.

Laura Finley grew up in Covina and married her high school sweet heart, Joe Finley, four years after graduating from Northview High School in 1980, said Laura Finley's sister, Jill Sutterlin.

"My sister loved her husband more than she loved her children and herself," Sutterlin said. "She was his number one fan."

Joe Finley called hotel security and reported his wife missing after he got out of bed Saturday, Vernon said.

The 47-year-old rock musician then attended an audition for the NBC reality T.V. show, Vernon said. Police later notified him about the death of his wife.

Joe Finley was arrested early Sunday on suspicion of drug possession, Vernon said.

During an interview with detectives, Joe Finley said he and his wife had consumed ecstasy before her death, Vernon said.

From the Associated Press:

LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles authorities missed a chance to collect a DNA sample from a suspected serial killer before he allegedly killed his last known victim.
A newspaper reported Wednesday that the DNA profile of Lonnie Franklin Jr. was supposed to be collected under a state law that went into effect in November 2004.
Proposition 69 required the Los Angeles County Probation Department to gather DNA samples from tens of thousands of local offenders who were on probation.
Though Franklin was on probation following a 2003 conviction for receiving stolen property, his DNA was never taken.
The probation department says it took time after the law's approval to implement the new requirements.
Franklin's last alleged victim was killed New Year's Day 2007.