Author: Amanda Covarrubias

An overturned big rig on the westbound 134 Freeway in Eagle Rock turned the usually easy Good Friday commute into an exercise in frustration for many drivers.

The truck overturned about 5:20 a.m. west of Figueroa Street, according to a California Highway Patrol report.

An ambulance responded to the scene, but it was unclear if the driver was injured.

The truck came to a halt on the right shoulder and slow lane of the134 Freeway and lay across two lanes for at least two hours as crews worked to remove the wreckage.

Authorities were investigating the cause of the crash.

Commuters were encouraged to use the Foothill Freeway to the north and then cut back down on the Glendale Freeway. The CHP said the 134 Freeway could be closed for a couple more hours.

— Richard Winton

Photo: The overturned big rig on the westbound 134 Freeway in Eagle Rock. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

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Police at UCLA are warning female students to be extra vigilant after a man tried to rape a woman on campus when she was making a cellphone call outside a residence hall.

The attack follows several other incidents in which female students have been grabbed or accosted. But UCLA police say that the attempted rape does not appear to be related to those recent sexual batteries, based on the victim’s description of the attacker.

The attempted rape occurred about 3:30 a.m. Wednesday when a female student outside the Covel Commons building was grabbed and taken to a more isolated location, the university police department said. The attacker then threw the woman to the ground and straddled her, UCLA police said.

For some reason, the attacker stopped the assault and walked away. The woman was scratched during the attack.

The suspect is described as Latino, 20 to 30 years old, and unshaven. He was wearing a baggy black hoodie and baggy black pants, police said.

On March 26, a sexual battery occurred at Westwood Plaza and Young Drive South about 6:25 p.m. when a female student reported a man grabbed her crotch.

A similar attacked occurred March 8 in the Structure 9 parking garage. The suspect in that attack was described as a 40- to 50-year-old Latino, 5-feet-5 to 5-feet-6 in height.

On March 5, another woman affiliated with the university was knocked to the ground on Hilgard Avenue in an attempted sexual assault. The suspect was described as an Asian man about 25 years old with short black hair, medium build, medium complexion and wearing a white T-shirt, khaki shorts and white sneakers.

Anyone with information on these cases is asked to call detectives at (310) 825-9371.

— Richard Winton

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A Los Angeles County sheriff’s narcotics team on Thursday discovered what it says was $6.2 million worth of marijuana plants growing in Placerita Canyon State Park in Newhall.

Narcotics detectives with the marijuana eradication team were hiking in a fairly remote part of the canyon Thursday morning when they found several thousand plants being guarded by two men, sheriff’s officials said.

When investigators moved in on the crop, the two men ran into the canyon. The men evaded capture even though a helicopter was used to help in the search.

The specialized narcotics unit scouts potential open-air growing areas across the county and monitors them, said Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department. The outdoor marijuana growing season runs from March to the fall and during that time investigators target large concealed crops hidden in remote forests or canyons.

“This was the first operation of the season,” Whitmore said.

The unit uses helicopters to help identify the marijuana-growing areas. Over the years, investigators have uncovered large marijuana fields deep in remote parts of the Angeles National Forest.

The heavily disguised growing areas are often operated by Mexican drug traffickers, serviced by farmers brought across the border and guarded by heavily armed men, officials said.

— Richard Winton

L.A. County sheriff’s detectives are investigating the circumstances surrounding a self-inflicted shooting in West Hollywood that left an elderly man in grave condition and a 73-year-old woman dead.

Deputies responded about 8 p.m. Wednesday to a report of someone screaming from an apartment in the 800 block of North Kings Road, said Deputy Byron Ward.

Deputies found the woman suffering from a gunshot wound. She was believed to be a resident of the apartment, Ward said.

After searching the apartment, deputies found an 84-year-old male suffering from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Ward said.

The weapon was recovered at the scene.
It was unclear what the relationship was between the man and woman, Ward said.
They were taken to a hospital, where the woman died.

— My-Thuan Tran

A plan for boosting electric rates by 4.5% could go into effect Thursday if the Department of Water and Power board gives the go-ahead.

The board’s 4:30 p.m. meeting Wednesday comes one day after the City Council mustered eight votes – the  minimum needed – to call for higher rates.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who appoints the DWP board, has been seeking four increases over the next year to help pay for new environmental initiatives and other expenses at the utility. The council reduced the size of his first proposed increase by 25%.

DWP Commissioner Jonathan Parfrey, who was a supporter of the mayor’s plan, said he had not yet decided how he will vote.

“I’m agnostic,” Parfrey said Wednesday morning. “I want to hear from the public.”

If the council’s plan is approved by the board, the DWP’s residential customers would see the following increases over the next three months, according to Council President Eric Garcetti’s office:

Tier 1 households, which make up 58% of the utility’s customers, would see their monthly bills go up by a range of $1.70 to $2.40.

Tier 2 households, which consume more electricity and make up 36% of the utility’s customers, would see their monthly bills go up by $4.48 to $5.65.

Tier 3 customers, who use large amounts of power and comprise just 6% of residential ratepayers, would see monthly increases of $9.88 to $13.49, depending on where they live.

Those figures could change as soon as July, when a plan for restructuring rates is scheduled to go into effect. The restructuring plan would decrease the size of the increase for Tier 1 and Tier 2 ratepayers but add to the cost of bills for those in Tier 3.

— David Zahniser at Los Angeles City Hall

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After decades on the rise, California’s foreign-born population has peaked and in some large areas — including Los Angeles County — has even slightly declined, with that trend expected to continue, according to a new report.

This peaking of the foreign-born population has occurred earlier than previously forecast because of sharp declines in new immigrant arrivals, largely attributed to stepped-up border enforcement and the downturn in the economy, according to the report by USC demographer Dowell Myers. In the report’s figures, California has a population of roughly 34 million.

"In the last decade, homegrown residents have surpassed migrants and immigrants to become a majority of the California population for the first time since before the Gold Rush," Myers said in his report.

From 2000 to 2008, the foreign-born population in Los Angeles County declined from 36.2% of the total population in 2000 to 35.2% in 2008; neighboring Orange County leveled off during the same time period from 29.9% to 30%, according to the report. Overall, the state’s foreign-born population went from 26.2% to 26.8% during this period.

In addition, the foreign-born population has not risen substantially since 2000 in any Southern California county except Riverside, which went from 19% at the beginning of this decade to 22.3% in 2008, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the California-born population in Los Angeles County increased from 45.2% of the total population to 48.8% during this same time period, while Orange County jumped from 46.5% to 50.1%. This mirrored a statewide trend, with the homegrown population increasing from 50.2% to 53.3%.

"The simplest way of describing the dramatic transition," Myers said in his report, "is that none of the Southern California counties had a homegrown majority in 1980."

In 1990, only San Bernardino County had a homegrown majority. By 2000, Riverside and Ventura counties had joined this category, followed by Orange County in 2008, according to the report. By 2010, it is projected that all counties – including Los Angeles and San Diego – will have acquired a homegrown majority.

What economic and political changes this demographic shift will have on a state that has been focused on migration-driven growth remains an open question, Myers concludes. But one thing is certain, Myers says, the state has transitioned into a new era that will increasingly be shaped by native Californians.

— Teresa Watanabe

Photo: Massive immigration rights rally in downtown Los Angeles in 2006. Los Angeles Times

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Los Angeles County supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to terminate their relationship with the troubled foster care agency that placed a 2-year-old girl with a woman who is now under investigation in connection with her death.

United Care, which oversaw 88 homes with 216 foster children under contract with the county, had been repeatedly cited in recent years after caregivers choked, hit or whipped their charges with a belt. In 2007, a foster child drowned while swimming unsupervised in a pool.

Craig Woods, United’s executive director, said the citation record obscured his agency’s strengths and urged the county to conduct a fuller investigation before severing ties.

“Terminating United Care’s contract will not accomplish what is needed to reform the system,” he said. “United Care has a stellar 21-year track record of partnership with the county.”

The foster mother, Kiana Barker, 30, and her boyfriend, James Julian, 38, were arrested earlier this month on suspicion of murder in connection with Viola Vancielf’s death, according to Los Angeles police records. They were released two days later, with no charges filed.

Police are continuing to investigate the couple.
Barker, a resident of South Los Angeles, told investigators Viola was trapped in a bed frame when she accidentally struck the child with a hammer while trying to free her, according to coroner’s records. 

Viola had multiple bruises on her body, records show. The county coroner deemed the death a homicide.
During supervisors’ questioning of Woods and their deliberations about whether to terminate United, new details emerged about the missed warning signs that preceded the death.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said his vote to terminate United was at least partially supported by Woods’ admission that the agency’s social workers made errors during visits to the Barker home. According to Yaroslavsky, they did not report that many of the home’s rooms were padlocked shut and there were video cameras in most of the rooms and corridors.

The purpose of the video cameras was not discussed.
Additionally, Yaroslavsky said he was troubled that Barker was certified as a foster parent despite a criminal record. According to a Times review, Barker was convicted of felony theft in 2002.

The newspaper disclosed earlier that Barker also had been the subject of five child abuse complaints, including one substantiated case involving her biological child.

Julian had a record of armed robbery, but neither United Care nor the state regulator who licenses foster homes was aware he was living in the home, state records show.

Woods said his agency had been aware of Barker’s criminal record but did not believe it was a problem because she had obtained a decision from state regulators that it did not pose a danger.

“I would say that as many as half of the foster homes in Los Angeles County have a criminal background,” Woods said.

Supervisor Gloria Molina said she did not believe that number and would look into the matter. [Updated at 6:13 p.m.: A California Department of Social Services spokeswoman, Lizelda Lopez, said that only 4.67% of foster family agency parents have received an exemption for a crime that would otherwise bar them.]

Woods also faulted the county for missing the warning signs, saying the county was in the final stages of approving Barker to adopt Viola.

“Miss Barker was less than 30 days away from adopting this child. That adoption was being managed by DCFS,” Woods said. “That adoption home study is supposed to be a lot more extensive and intrusive than a foster home certification.”

— Garrett Therolf at the L.A. County Hall of Administration

Read more in The Times’ investigation: Innocents Betrayed

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The mummified body of an Upland man wanted in the stabbing death of his roommate has been found in a car near the Salton Sea, authorities said Monday.

Workers at a nearby ranch were clearing debris from a wash area with a bulldozer Saturday when they spotted an abandoned blue Nissan Sentra, investigators said. The car appeared to have been parked there for awhile because there were no visible tracks around, said Lt. George Moreno of the Imperial County Sheriff’s Department.

The man was slumped in the driver’s seat with all the windows shut. Papers in his wallet identified him as Javier D. Robinson.

“The body was in a state of mummification,” Moreno said. “We haven’t had the hot weather lately. If it had been the summer, he would have melted into that seat, and we would only have bones and clothes left.”

Robinson, 30, was accused of stabbing and killing Chava Barrasa, 34. Both men lived in a state-run halfway house serving violent offenders with severe mental illnesses.

Robinson allegedly stabbed Barrasa in January and stole another roommate’s car. Robinson had vanished until Saturday’s gruesome discovery.

Investigators had not determined how he died, but they found rat poison in the trunk of the car.

“In the past, he had tried to commit suicide using rat poison,” Moreno said. “I don’t know if he took it or just lay down and died.”

— Ching-Ching Ni

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 Authorities were searching Monday for a gunman who fired shots at a Redondo Beach police officer in Lawndale.

The incident happened at 166th Street and Condon Avenue at about 1:30 a.m. Monday, said Sgt. Brian Gellis of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department in Lawndale.

He declined to provide any further information about the confrontation. The officer was not hurt.

“There was an officer-involved shooting; we are actively searching the area for a suspect,” Gellis said.

Lawndale is next door to Redondo Beach.

— Ching-Ching Ni 

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Just a week before baseball season opens, the court season starts for the Dodgers’ Frank and Jamie McCourt, who are involved in a contentious divorce battle.

Frank is expected to attend a hearing Monday morning on temporary spousal support for his estranged wife. Jamie is expected to be there as well. Neither is scheduled to testify.

Still, five months and thousands of pages of court documents later, it will be the first time either has stepped a well-shod foot in family court on this matter. The couple’s array of lawyers — some of the most prominent in the city and the nation — will stand before Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon to argue about how much (if any) temporary spousal support Jamie is owed while the rest of the divorce case proceeds.

The hearing is expected to last only through the end of Monday. The larger, more incendiary issue — which carries repercussions for Major League Baseball — is whether Jamie is a co-owner of the Dodgers, as she contends.

A date has yet to be set for the trial to determine whether the marital property agreements the couple signed several years ago, putting the Dodgers in Frank’s name and their homes in her name, should stand and govern how the court divides the marital assets.

Jamie contends she and Frank always believed she was a co-owner of the team. He says he is the sole owner. The commissioner hearing the entire divorce case could decide by Tuesday on the date for the trial.

Meanwhile, both sides have invested an enormous amount of legal time and energy on the issue of Jamie’s temporary support. Both McCourts — who are 56 and married more than 30 years ago — have argued passionately in court papers about what is fair and not fair in the temporary allotment of their fortune.

She is asking for $988,845 a month in support and $9 million to pay her legal team. Her lawyers have long insisted this entire process is sexist in the sense that Jamie, a lawyer who worked as general counsel in Frank’s real estate company in Boston and who made $2 million a year as the Dodgers CEO, must appear as a supplicant asking her estranged husband for funds.

Frank has argued that because his wife was highly paid and has a portfolio of investments in her name —  their eight residential properties scattered from Malibu to Cape Cod — she has plenty of funds to draw on for expenses, including the management of their homes. (If she must, she should sell or rent them, he has said in court papers.)

Her lawyers argue that her request of nearly $1 million a month is still less than half of the $2.31 million they estimate the couple took in each month during the last five years. In the process of arguing what should be assigned, the couple has laid bare the extravagances of their lifestyle — thousands spent on clothes (by both Frank and Jamie), homes, travel and restaurants.

Each has accused the other of having more funds available than claimed in court documents. The array of legal talent assembled to help them may cost, by the couple’s estimate, as much as $19 million.

— Carla Hall

President Obama has nominated Arizona federal trial court Judge Mary H. Murguia to serve on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the court announced Friday.

Murguia, 49, has served for the last decade as a federal district judge and previously held senior positions in the U.S. attorney’s office for Arizona during the Clinton administration.

During her tenure on the trial court bench, Murguia issued rulings that halted a Bush administration attempt to remove protections for desert nesting bald eagles in the state, and that doubled the damages to be paid to a New Jersey surgical supplies innovator after an Arizona company was found to have infringed its patent rights.

Murguia, a native of Kansas, is the twin sister of Janet Murguia, a former Clinton advisor and head of the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Latino civil rights advocacy group.

— Carol J. Williams

The MTA board is expected to approve Thursday $690 million in funding for the extension of the Gold Line in the San Gabriel Valley.

The money would go toward extending the light rail line 11.3 miles from Pasadena to Azusa. If approved, the project would break ground in June and begin service in 2014.

— My-Thuan Tran

Hosts of loud parties in the city of Cypress who are asked by police to quiet down for a second time in a single night will have to pay a $1,000 fine starting next month, city officials said Thursday.

“This is not a measure for covering family barbecues,” said Capt. Ed Bish, a spokesman for the Cypress Police Department. “This is for loud parties with numerous neighbor complaints.”

Over the last 18 months, one in three party disturbance calls — corresponding to more than 225 incidents — required officers to return a second time, according to police statistics.
Police currently issue a written warning to hosts of noisy parties, advising that “if we have to come back, there is a possibility of criminal prosecution.”

The new law, which was approved earlier this month by the Cypress City Council, would slap violators with a flat administrative fee of $1,000. The fine would cover the cost of dispatching officers from the police department, which already has limited resources, Bish said.

It would not automatically mean the offender would go to court.

“The disturbance could cause prosecution, if a citizen wanted to support prosecution,” Bish said.

— Ann M. Simmons

Los Angeles police searched Thursday for a man who drove up to a group of people walking on the sidewalk in South L.A. and fired shots at them, killing a man.

The group of friends was walking north in the 7000 block of Raymond Avenue at about 9 p.m. Wednesday when a gray vehicle stopped in front of them, said LAPD Officer Norma Eisenman.

A man got out of the car, ran up to the group and fired several shots, she said.

Some people managed to flee, but Daniel Smith, 20, was shot. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The shooter got back in the car and drove off.

Police have no information on the shooter and a search is ongoing, Eisenman says.

— My-Thuan Tran

"Fly Girls," a new reality television show debuting Wednesday on the CW network, boasts that its cameras follow five “beautiful” Virgin America flight attendants as “they jet from one glamorous location to the next” from their home base in Marina Del Rey.

But a union trying to organize Virgin America flight attendants says the new show falls somewhat short of reality. The Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) has purchased time to air a contentious 30-second spot during the premier of "Fly Girls."

The text asks viewers to “support us for a secure future” as Virgin America’s currently unorganized flight attendants seek to affiliate with the TWU.

“Virgin is a fun, hip place to work, however not all aspects of the job are fun and hip,” Eric Aquino, a Virgin America flight attendant who appears in the commercial, said in a union statement.

The union says Virgin America’s flight attendants typically earn less than $30,000 a year — hardly enough to sustain the ocean-view apartments and hard-party lifestyle depicted on the program. According to the union, some San Francisco-based attendants unable to afford Bay Area housing have slept in their cars or in the crew lounges.

The union also notes that about one-third of Virgin America’s roughly 500 flight attendants are men — “fly boys,” that is.

“I still live with my parents in Orange County,” said flight attendant Manny Artavia in the union statement. “I’m lucky.”

In an e-mail response, Virgin America spokeswoman Abby Lunardini called the union’s characterizations “misleading and actually suspect.” She said the airline’s salaries are “competitive with the industry” and noted that “teammates” (employees) are eligible for health benefits and flight privileges.

“We think that when people actually have had the chance to watch the show, they will see that it is focused primarily on a few teammates’ lives away from work, but they’ll also see that when working, the crew members featured are smart, pleasant, professional and take the business of flying seriously,” Lunardini said.

Virgin America cooperated with the show, opening up the airline to the production crew, she said. A Virgin America executive has said "Fly Girls" illustrates how the company is “bringing the style and fun back to flying.”

The 3-year-old San Francisco-based company serves about a dozen cities on the West and East coasts, with cross-country service between the coasts.

— Patrick J. McDonnell

Photo: "Fly Girls." Virgin America.

The owner of a Los Angeles-based drug and alcohol rehabilitation center and five of her associates have been arrested for alleged Medi-Cal fraud, the state attorney general’s office announced Tuesday.

Tatyana Yakovenko, the owner of New Beginnings Recovery Treatment Center Inc., and five members of the center’s upper management were arrested Tuesday on charges of felony grand theft and filing false Medi-Cal claims, according to the attorney general’s office.

The maximum sentence for conviction on both felonies is three years in state prison.

"These individuals stole tens of thousands of dollars from the state’s alcohol and drug treatment programs," California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown said in a statement. "In this time of economic crisis, it’s brazen and offensive that these individuals chose to rip off public health programs instead of helping substance abusers get their lives together."

Between July 1, 2005, and May 30, 2009, Yakovenko and her associates submitted 1,642 fraudulent claims totaling more than $68,000 to the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, Brown’s office claims.

New Beginnings, which operated four treatment centers in L.A. County, provided alcohol and drug treatment services to Medi-Cal patients. The center recently closed its operations, said Dana Simas, a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office.

— Carla Hall

The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services and the Hawthorne Police Department received at least two reports concerning a 2-year-old Long Beach boy before the child was killed, investigators said Tuesday.

At least one of the reports came from the boy’s relatives, said Officer Jackie Bezart of the Long Beach Police Department, which is investigating the death. She could not provide details.

Deandre Fitzgerald Green was pronounced dead Saturday at Long Beach Memorial Hospital. His mother’s boyfriend, Hector Ernest Jr., 26, of Hawthorne was arrested on suspicion of killing the boy, police said.

Hospital officials called police after the boy was taken there by Ernest and his mother. Hospital staff tried unsuccessfully to revive Deandre, whose body showed signs of physical abuse, police said.

Detectives believe neighbors in the 3100 block of Springdale Drive may have heard Deandre crying or being abused.

Anyone with information is asked to call Det. Mark McGuire or Det. Greg Krabbe at (562) 570-7244.

— Tony Barboza in Long Beach

Photo: Family photo

Learn about the homicides of other young children on The Times’ interactive Homicide Report.

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At least seven people were injured in a multi-vehicle crash Tuesday morning near the Antelope Valley community of Pinion Hills, authorities said.

It was not immediately clear how many vehicles were involved in the crash, which left a big-rig truck engulfed in flames about 6:45 a.m. on the Antelope Highway (Route 138) at 263rd Street East, said California Highway Patrol Officer Krystal Carter.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department extracted several people from a vehicle involved in the crash, said Inspector Matt Levesque. Six people were reported to have minor injuries and another was flown by helicopter in critical condition to a nearby hospital, he said.

The CHP shut down the intersection, about 30 miles southeast of Palmdale. Traffic was being diverted from the Antelope Highway to Pearblossom Highway (Route 18) and back along Oasis Road, Carter said.

— Alexandra Zavis

Map: The location of the crash. Credit: Google Maps

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A motorcyclist was killed Tuesday on the westbound San Bernardino Freeway  in Alhambra, the California Highway Patrol said.

It was not immediately clear whether any other vehicles were involved in the accident, which occurred about 6:25 a.m. east of Garfield Avenue on the freeway, also known as Interstate 10, said CHP officer Krystal Carter.

The carpool and No. 1 lanes were closed until further notice.

The motorcyclist was pronounced dead at the scene, Carter said.

The identity of the victim was withheld until family could be notified.

No one else was reported injured.

— Alexandra Zavis

The former owner of half a dozen L.A.-area medical marijuana dispensaries was sentenced Monday to six years in federal prison for conspiring to sell the drug, officials said.

Virgil Edward Grant II, 42, of Carson pleaded guilty last June to a single conspiracy count after federal agents raided the dispensaries, which authorities claimed were operated like retail pot stores.

The federal investigation began after a driver who was high on marijuana crashed his pickup truck into a car that had been stopped by a CHP officer, authorities said. The crash resulted in the death of the driver of the stopped vehicle and left the CHP officer paralyzed, officials said.

Investigators later determined that the driver of the pickup had purchased marijuana and “marijuana edibles” from one of Grant’s dispensaries, Holistic Caregivers, in Compton.

At Monday’s hearing, U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson labeled as “not credible” Grant’s explanation that he was operating his multiple marijuana dispensaries as nonprofit cooperatives.
According to federal prosecutors, Grants’ facilities generated more than $1.3 million in revenue during more than two years in business.

Grant has been in federal custody since December, when authorities shut down the dispensaries he was continuing to operate, said a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office. His six-year sentence is to be followed by three years of supervised release.

Federal authorities dropped charges against his wife, Psytra Monique Grant, 33. A former employee, Stanley Jerome Cole, received probation in the case.

— Patrick J. McDonnell