Author: Shelby Grad

The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating the death of a 17-year-old boy who died after sticking his head out a car window just before the vehicle he was riding in crashed.

The incident occurred Friday at about 9:25 p.m. in Porter Ranch.

According to the LAPD, the victim had his head outside a window of the vehicle when the driver, 16, crashed into a parked car.

No one else in the car was injured, and no arrests have been made.

The victim, whose name was not released, apparently was not wearing a seat belt and was thrown from the car.

The L.A. County coroner’s office is investigating the incident.

— Shelby Grad

More breaking news in L.A. Now:

Two critically injured in Sylmar drive-by shooting

4.1 earthquake reported in San Bernardino County

Victim identified in fatal La Puente shooting

Medical procedure sets off radiation alarm at Bob Hope Airport

Santa Monica man convicted of torching car for insurance money

L.A. prosecutors have charged a teen tagger accused of killing a gang interventionist as an adult.

Mark Anthony Villasenor, 16, is accused of fatally shooting 40-year-old Ronald Barron, who confronted Villasenor for tagging a wall in the Mid-City area.

Barron was leaving a bar with
his girlfriend when he noticed a tagger defacing a wall on Pico Boulevard.

The Los Angeles Police Department said surveillance video from nearby
businesses captured the Feb. 6 killing in the 5000 block of West Pico
Boulevard.

The footage appeared to
show a gunman wearing dark-colored clothing arguing with Barron in
front of "numerous witnesses," LAPD detectives said.

His slaying stunned colleagues at Amer-I-Can, where Barron had worked for more than a decade.

The loss was also felt at City Hall and LAPD headquarters, where
officials rely on gang interventionists like Barron to help reduce the
grip of gangs in some neighborhoods.

— Shelby Grad

Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines proposed Friday cutting six
days from the school year to help reduce an estimated $640-million
deficit and avoid the need for widespread layoffs in the nation’s
second-largest school system.





The move, announced by news release Friday evening, would save the
district $90 million and could spare up to 5,000 jobs, Cortines said.
The alternative to this drastic action, he said, would be to let the
district go bankrupt.





"Do I think [this] is good education policy? No," he said. "But we are in a real crisis."

Cortines has repeatedly said that he did not want to shorten the school
year. This is the first time in recent history that a Los Angeles
school superintendent has made such a suggestion.

Five of the affected days would be classroom days and the sixth would be a noninstructional day.

Union leaders would have to agree to the move. Nonunion employees,
including senior district staff, have been ordered to take four
furlough days by May, and Cortines criticized groups that have not been
willing to make concessions.

Read the full story here.

— Jason Song

Los Angeles County’s embattled child welfare agency has clamped down on the release of information about 12 recent deaths among children who have passed through the child welfare system.

The decision follows a series of articles in The Times last year that detailed flawed casework. The cases prompted some reforms at the county’s Department of Children and Family Services, including enhanced training for social workers.

But the state law that allowed much of the information to reach the public has been a source of discontent for Department of Children and Family Services Director Trish Ploehn. She has complained to a reporter that the law unfairly "denigrated" her department by placing such a harsh spotlight on the most tragic cases.

This week, she declined to release any records in the 12 most recent child deaths, invoking a provision of the law that allows prosecutors to keep parts of the records confidential during a criminal inquiry.

Among 31 deaths over the last two years that met the county’s standard for abuse or neglect, Ploehn said she identified 18 cases in which social workers committed serious errors. The group of 12 cases now being withheld includes some of those cases.

Read the full story here.

— Garrett Therolf

It started life as a real estate ad and became a world-famous landmark.

It has fallen down and been fixed up. It has been scrawled with hearts that say so-and-so loves so-and-so forever.

Pranksters have draped it in sheets to read HOLLYWEED (for dope), HOLYWOOD (for the pope), RAFFEYSOD (for the Raffeys, an obscure rock band).

Now, workers are covering up the sign again. To raise money to purchase a nearby mountain peak, the sign is being slowly covered to read "SAVE THE PEAK."

The nine giant letters perched on Mt. Lee sit on city property, within the more than 4,000-acre Griffith Park. Built in 1923 for $21,000, the original sign read HOLLYWOODLAND and was owned by the builder of a new subdivision in the hills.

Jury-rigged out of canvas, plywood and telephone poles, it still caught your eye — and no wonder. It blazed with 4,000 light bulbs.
Soon, the neighborhood filled up.

Read on for more on the sign’s interesting history …

There was no more call for the caretaker, who once lived in a shack beside the sign, to clamber up ladders to change bulbs.
The lights eventually went out.
In the mid-1940s, the developer dumped a 455-acre property, including the sign, on the city to get out from under a mountain of back taxes. The city wanted the property to expand Griffith Park.

As for the sign, it let it quietly crumble.
By the late 1940s, the sign had lost its H and was tilting precariously. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce stepped in, restored the missing letter and took off the last four letters.

"The city didn’t really want to take care of it. The sign started falling down the hill. It became sort of an embarrassment," said Leron Gubler, president and CEO of the chamber, told The Times in a 2002 interview.

"By the mid-1970s, it was in terrible disrepair. The first O’s top third was missing. The last O was completely missing," he said.
Shards of the original sign littered the hillside. Bits and pieces had been tumbling down for years.

So began a major effort that restored the sign to its former glory.

Today’s Hollywood sign, by the way, is constructed out of 194 tons of concrete, sheet metal and steel beams sunk into the earth. The letters are five stories high. The whole thing weighs 480,000 pounds.

–Nita Lelyveld

Photos: Top, the sign in transition. Credits: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times,  File photo from 1993 (above left), Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times. (center) @matterafact on Twitter (right) found by @8bus on Twitter.

Click here for more photos of the sign over the years.

View the sign’s latest look on a 24-hour webcam.

L.A. authorities are trying to clarify the status of Roman Polanski’s extradition to the U.S. after a Swiss justice official said the country won’t extradite
the director to the United States until L.A. courts resolves related legal disputes.

A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office
said in a statement that it was looking into “somewhat
conflicting news reports from Switzerland”
over the extradition process.

“At present, this rests with the Swiss courts,” spokeswoman Sandi
Gibbons said.

A Swiss official said Friday that Polanski should remain under house arrest at his
Alpine lodge until the courts in California resolve various legal
issues.

"When the question is still open, why should he be extradited?" justice official Rudolf
Wyss told  the Associated Press. "As long as the question is still open,
our decision depends on that."

Last month, a judge rejected Polanski’s request to be sentenced in absentia, scuttling the
director’s latest bid to end his three-decade-old child sex case.

The judge hoped that such a sentencing would allow his lawyers to
lay out evidence of judicial misconduct in his case and secure him a
sentence of no further time behind bars. Although a state appeals panel had suggested that Polanski
be sentenced in absentia as the director is facing extradition
proceedings in Switzerland, Judge Peter Espinoza said he was not
bound by the higher court’s suggestion.

Polanski’s defense quickly vowed to appeal. 

Polanski fled the U.S. just before he was set to be sentenced for
having sex with the girl, contending that the original judge in the
case, the late
Laurence Rittenband, reneged on a promise to count the time the
director spent in state prison before sentencing as his entire
punishment.

Swiss officials have said Polanski faced two years in prison if sent back to L.A.

Asked about the Swiss official’s statement, U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said, “According to my folks, it’s still a pending case.”

— Harriet Ryan and Shelby Grad

Photo: A 1978 Los Angeles Times cover.

In a victory for Roman Polanski, a Swiss justice official said Friday  that authorities there won’t extradite the director to the United States until L.A. courts determine whether Polanski should serve time for having sex with a 13-year-old girl more than three decades ago.

The official said Polanski should remain under house arrest at his Alpine lodge until the courts in California resolve various legal issues.

Last month, a judge rejected Polanski’s request to be sentenced in absentia, scuttling the
director’s latest bid to end his three-decade-old child sex case.

The judge hoped that such a sentencing would allow his lawyers to
lay out evidence of judicial misconduct in his case and secure him a
sentence of no further time behind bars. Although a state appeals panel had suggested that Polanski
be sentenced in absentia as the director is facing extradition
proceedings in Switzerland, Judge Peter Espinoza said he was not
bound by the higher court’s suggestion.

Polanski’s defense quickly vowed to appeal. 

"When the question is still open, why should he be extradited?" Swiss justice official Rudolf
Wyss told  Associated Press. "As long as the question is still open,
our decision depends on that."

Polanski fled the U.S. just before he was set to be sentenced for having sex with the girl, contending that the original judge in the case, the late
Laurence Rittenband, reneged on a promise to count the time the
director spent in state prison before sentencing as his entire
punishment.

Swiss officials have said Polanski faced two years in prison if sent back to L.A.

–Shelby Grad

Photo: Associated Press

More breaking news in L.A. Now:

Jaycee Dugard’s diary entries offer insight into her captivity

Newport Beach bandit, who allegedly stole millions from upscale homes, is convicted

Gardena police seek witnesses in fatal hit-and-run accident

L.A. Unified and L.A. County Academic Decathlon winners announced

Philippe’s restaurant closed because of cockroach infestation

Excerpts from a diary kept by a woman held captive for 18 years in Northern California were filed in court this week, providing insights into Jaycee Dugard’s mental state as she was kept prisoner.

Prosecutors cited the diary entries when seeking a protective order that would bar her alleged captor, Phil Garrido and his wife Nancy, from contacting Dugard and the woman’s children fathered by Garrido. Garrido faces kidnapping, rape and other charges.

Dugard was grabbed from outside South Lake Tahoe home in 1991.

Here are some excerpts from the diary from the Associated Press. They show Dugard’s fears as well as her need to protect Garrido:

1994: "I got (a cat) for my birthday from Phil and Nancy … they did something for me that no one else would do for me, they paid 200 dollars just so I could have my own kitten."

2004:  "I don’t want to hurt (Garrido)  … sometimes I think my very presence hurts him," she wrote. "So how can I ever tell him how I want to be free. Free to come and go as I please … Free to say I have a family. I will never cause him pain if it’s in my power to prevent it. FREE."

2004: "It feels like I’m sinking. … this is supposed to be my life to do with what I like … but once again he has taken it away. "How many times is he allowed to take it away from me?" she wrote. "I am afraid he doesn’t see how the things he says makes me a prisoner."

–Shelby Grad

A man who police say stole millions of dollars in jewelry, guns and cash from upscale Newport Beach homes has been convicted of burglary.

Paul Layton Keesling, 50, — dubbed the "Dinner Time Bandit" by Newport Beach police — was convicted in a Fullerton courtroom Thursday for stealing $250,000 in cash and jewelry in 2007, according to the Daily Pilot’s Joseph Serna.



If the judge accounts for Keesling’s previous felony strikes, Keesling faces 40 years to life in prison at his March 19 sentencing, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Terry Cleaveland.



Though he was convicted of just the one burglary, Newport Beach police say Keesling was responsible for more than 20 similar crimes in the city. Police claim he stole millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry, guns and cash. He often burglarized unoccupied homes between 5 and 11 p.m., officials said.

Authorities speculate Keesling was stealing from people’s homes for more than 20 years up and down the Southern California coast, from Santa Barbara to San Diego.

Read the full story here.

— Joseph Serna

Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines earned more than $150,000 last year for serving on the board of one of the nation’s leading educational publishing companies, a firm with more than $16 million in contracts with the school district over the last five years.



Scholastic Inc. provides the main reading intervention curriculum for the Los Angeles Unified School District, a program that is part of the company’s fast-growing educational technology business.

Cortines has disclosed his relationship with the New York-based company, and officials say he has avoided any decisions on Scholastic contracts.

Cortines’ role, however, has generated criticism among some former senior officials and current employees. They said the corporate tie creates an appearance of impropriety.

"My objection is the perception it creates and the door it opens for others to do the same thing," said former school board member Marlene Canter, who sits on the city ethics commission and who said she admires Cortines.

Read the full story here.

— Howard Blume

The California Assembly on Thursday failed to confirm Sen. Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria)  as lieutenant governor, setting the stage for a potential court fight between the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He received 37 votes in favor of his confirmation and 35 votes against confirmation. All but one of the Assembly’s Republican members voted for his promotion. Only eight members of the 49-member Democratic caucus voted to support Maldonado. The Assembly’s only independent member, Juan Arambula of Fresno, also voted in support of confirmation.

But it may not be over. In the end, the courts may be asked to decide what the definition of rejection is. At issue is whether Maldonado’s nomination had to be rejected by a majority of the Assembly’s 80 members, as the administration maintains. The Assembly leadership says Maldonado’s confirmation was rejected simply because he failed to receive 41 votes in the Assembly.

Read the full story and more coverage on state politics at PolitiCal, The Times’ California Politics Blog.

Photo: L.A. Times file

A Westminster fortuneteller and her daughter were stabbed to death because a spell did not work, the prosecutor in the case said Thursday.

Suspect Tanya Nelson blamed the fortuneteller, Ha "Jade" Smith, for a love fortune gone bad and was so angered she decided to kill her, said Sonia Balleste of the Orange County district attorney’s office.

A letter found in Nelson’s North Carolina home indicated that Nelson wanted Smith to change the fortune, Balleste said. Smith wrote in the letter that she could not do that, Balleste added.

Balleste said Nelson was angered by Smith and decided to travel to Orange County to kill her.

Nelson is accused of persuading an accomplice, Phillipe Zamora, to take part in the April 21, 2005, killing.

The bodies of Smith, 52, and daughter Anita Vo, 23, were found stabbed and covered in white paint in their home.

The prosecution relied on the testimony of Zamora, who pleaded guilty last year to two counts of first-degree murder.

Defense attorney Ken Reed argued in closing statements Thursday that Zamora acted alone in the murders and testified against Nelson to avoid the death penalty.

If convicted, Nelson could face the death penalty.

— My-Thuan Tran in Santa Ana

In a Thursday afternoon ceremony, City Council member Tom LaBonge and officials from the Trust for Public Land will drape the Hollywood sign in a cover with the words “SAVE THE PEAK” emblazoned in red lettering.

The group will leave from Beachwood Market at 2 p.m., leading a caravan up to the sign, officials said. The 250-foot-long white fabric cover is being used to publicize efforts to raise funds to acquire Cahuenga Peak, the 138-acre parcel that sits just to the west of the sign.

“We want to raise the visibility of it, so that people will support our campaign to save the peak, to save the land,” said trust spokesman Tim Ahern.

LaBonge called the trust when reports surfaced that property owners were looking to develop the land for luxury residential housing. The Trust for Public Land has an agreement to purchase the land for $11.7 million, which is about half off the $22-million asking price, Ahern said.

Trust officials say they have raised about half the amount they need, but must have the total amount by April 14.

— Amina Khan

A man convicted of killing his bride by throwing her off a cliff on the Palos Verdes Peninsula was sentenced Thursday to 25 years to life in prison.

Brandon Jason Manai was accused of throwing his wife, Julia Cuevas Rosas, 24, of Norwalk, off a 200-foot-high cliff near Calle Entradero and Palos Verdes Drive West.

The couple had been married for two weeks.

Rosas’ body was found the afternoon of July 3, 2005, on rocks near the base of the cliff.

Investigators believe that she had been thrown that morning. Detectives believe Rosas approached Manai about a divorce or an annulment, and that may have led to her death.

In the days before her death, Rosas had complained to friends and co-workers about her husband’s possessiveness, constant phone calls and text messages, authorities said.

Manai has insisted that he is innocent.

— Shelby Grad

More than 1,500 inmates have been released from county jails around California in response to legislation designed to cut the state prison population, prompting an outcry from some law enforcement officials.

More than 300 inmates have been released from Orange County Jail in the last few weeks and about 200 have been freed in Sacramento County, including a man who allegedly assaulted a woman hours after getting early release.

On Wednesday a judge in Sacramento ordered a temporary halt in that county’s early releases, saying the legislation applies only to state prisons and not to county jails. The judge sided with the deputy sheriff’s union, which filed suit against the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department to block the releases.

Officials for Sacramento, Orange, San Bernardino, Ventura, Riverside and other counties have said their legal counsels advised them that the law did apply to county jails, and they created release plans when the law took effect in January.

The legislation, signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year, was designed to reduce the state prison population in the wake of the state’s financial crisis and court rulings about prison overcrowding.

[Updated at 5:23 p.m.: Officials have said the law would reduce the state prison population by 6,500 low-level offenders over the next year. The state prison system has not yet released prisoners early under the terms of the law.

The law changes the formula by which prisoners receive time off for good behavior, speeding their release. The state legislative counsel’s summary of the law said it would “revise the time credits for certain prisoners confined or committed to a county jail or other specified facilities.”

David Tennessan, chief deputy of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, said his agency has had no choice but to release 200 inmates in recent weeks. But officials have not done so happily. The law "was misguided,” he said, adding that he expects the county to ultimately release at least 600 inmates.

The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department has not released any inmates early under the new law. The county requires that male inmates serve 80% of their sentences, and officials said they won’t reduce that requirement because of the new law.

"We have no plans to release anyone from county jail based on what the state is doing," Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said. "We don’t think it applies to us."

In San Bernardino County, 648 inmates have been released so far, according to the Sheriff’s Department. In Riverside County, more than 170 inmates have been released.

A previous version of this post said nearly 1,000 inmates had been released from county jails.]

–Andrew Blankstein and Richard Winton

Photo: L.A. County Jail. Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times

As the skies cleared in the L.A. Basin, the mountains of Southern California were experiencing a snow day.

According to the National Weather Service, Wrightwood saw 7 to 9 inches of snow and Mountain High saw 10 to 14 inches.

Snow was expected to continue to fall in some mountain communities into the afternoon as the last remnants of the most recent storm to hit Southern California moved through. The weather conditions had some people headed up mountain roads for skiing and snowboarding. 

According to KTLA News, between 2 and 4 inches of snow are expected to accumulate across the Antelope Valley foothills, In the San Gabriels, total snow accumulation of between 6 and 12 inches is expected as a result of the storm. Higher elevations could see up to 16 inches of snow.

All eight schools of the Rim of the World School District in San Bernardino County remained closed Wednesday because of the storm, as were schools in the Snowline Unified School District.

— Shelby Grad

Photo: Kiesha Harris of Victorville gets pelted after stopping at a turnout off Interstate 15 near Hesperia to experience the snowfall. Credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times

Authorities are searching for the "blue note bandit," who is accused of robbing 15 banks in Southern California.

Most of the robberies have occurred at banks in Orange County, including the robber’s target on Tuesday: A Home Savings of America branch on Moulton Parkway in Laguna Niguel. According to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, the suspect walked up to a teller with a note demanding money. It is unclear how much money he made away with.

He was given the "blue note" moniker by authorities because he submitted some of the notes to tellers on blue paper.

According to the OCSD, the suspect is described as having crooked, gapped teeth. He is white and tanned and appears to be in his 40s, with brown hair and an average build. He is about 6 feet tall and weighs about 180 pounds.

There is a $20,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the robber. Anyone with information is asked to call (866) TIP-OCSD. 

— Shelby Grad

More breaking news in L.A. Now:

AP test results show California students doing better, but fewer are taking the tests

Manhattan Beach man arrested after offering cash for urine in school bathroom

Snow packs a punch in Southern California mountains

Lawsuit claims Pomona College student was detained by TSA over Arabic flashcards    

Illegal immigrant population in U.S. plummets, according to a new report

After hearing complaints from residents about noise and allergens, the Newport Beach City Council on Tuesday vowed to keep looking into the feasibility of a citywide ban on leaf blowers in residential areas.



“I am absolutely opposed to leaf blowers,” Corona del Mar resident Hunter Cook said at a council study session on the matter. “There is so much noise on my street at some times of the day that it makes it almost impossible to live.”



The city’s Environmental Quality Affairs Committee took up the leaf blower issue last year after hearing numerous complaints from residents about noisy leaf blowers.

The committee found that the noise generated by most leaf blowers exceeds the city’s 55- to 60-decibel noise limit.

Read the full story here.

— Brianna Bailey, from the Daily Pilot

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa addressed the L.A. City Council on Tuesday, urging them to act on his plan to cut city jobs.

Last week, the mayor expressed frustration about the council’s indecision in dealing with the city’s budget shortfall, including his call to eliminate 1,000 city jobs.

But Council President Eric Garcetti on Tuesday defended the council, saying it "didn’t slow down one day on the layoffs." Last week, the council approved a motion stating "that no layoffs of city personnel take place in the next 30 days," but members called for a list of 1,000 positions that could be cut.

"There was no failure to act," Garcetti said.

What do you think? Should the council cut the 1,000 jobs? Is there a better way? Or is the council simply stalling? Share your views below.

— Shelby Grad

Photo: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa addresses the City Council, answering questions for nearly two hours Tuesday. Credit: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times

Southern California was pummeled this afternoon by a powerful rainstorm, prompting flash-flood warnings and new evacuations in the Sierra Madre area [Updated at 6 p.m.: The mandatory evacuations in Sierra Madre were lifted).

The storm brought thunder storms, lightning, hail and snow in both the Cajon Pass and the Grapevine. The snow level was expected to drop below 4,000 feet this evening.

The Sierra Madre evacuations apply to all streets above Churchill Road and Old Ranch Road, all streets above Woodland Drive and Sturtevant Drive, all streets above Lotus Lane at Camillio Street, the private sections of Auburn Avenue above Elm Street.  The Community Recreation Center on Sierra Madre Boulevard has been established as an evacuation center.

The National Weather Service issued a flash-flood warning for foothill areas burned in the Station fire just after 1 p.m, saying trained weather spotters had recorded very heavy rainfall and hail around La Cañada Flintridge. The warning is in effect until 5 p.m.

Authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders Monday night for more than 500 residences in mudslide-prone areas in La Cañada Flintridge, La Crescenta and Acton. Sheriff’s deputies ordered residents to leave their homes by 10 a.m. Tuesday.

Patchy showers and isolated thunderstorms will come in two waves — one Tuesday afternoon and another Tuesday night — bringing at least one-third of an inch of rain and possibly as much as 2 inches, with snow falling as low as 2,500 feet, forecasters with the National Weather Service in Oxnard said.

As much as half an inch of rain is expected to fall throughout Los Angeles County and could cause widespread roadway flooding.

Small hail and coastal tornadoes called waterspouts are also possible, forecasters said.

A complete list of addresses under evacuation orders is available on the Department of Public Works website.

Evacuation centers have been set up at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, 2411 Montrose Ave., Montrose, and the Acton Community Center at 3748 Nickels Ave. in Acton, authorities said.

— Tony Barboza

Photos: Storms pound the Southland

Photo: A rainbow appears over downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday evening. Credit: Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times