Author: Shelby Grad

Authorities said there is growing evidence that a Fallbrook family that disappeared two months ago may have planned to vanish into Mexico.

San Diego County Sheriff’s Department officials said they examined the family’s home computers and found evidence that they had been looking into information about child passports to Mexico shortly before they vanished.

The family’s car was found at the U.S.-Mexico border, and a videotape shows four people who might be the family crossing into Mexico. Family members have been skeptical that the family is in Mexico and remain worried about foul play.

No one has seen or heard from the family — Joseph McStay, his wife, Summer, and their
two children, Gianni, 4, and Joseph, 3 — since February.

 Family and
friends describe Joseph McStay, a 40-year-old businessman, and his
43-year-old wife as devoted parents excited by their recent move from
San Clemente to a home they bought on a cul-de-sac in Fallbrook.

Authorities
say they are stumped by the disappearance of a family that had no
apparent financial or marital problems and no known enemies or
connections to drugs or crime.

On Feb. 14, McStay’s brother went to the family’s home to check on them
after Joseph’s partner in a water fountain business said he couldn’t
reach him. Michael McStay found the couple’s two dogs had been left
unfed and perishable food was on the kitchen counter.

— Shelby Grad

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Detectives investigating the slayings of three members of a Hollywood family are looking into the possibility that the crimes might be a connected to a personal relationship involving the father of the family, a law enforcement source told The Times.

Police have said they have no evidence that the victims were linked to any criminal activities either in L.A. or in Armenia, where they emigrated from in 2003. Authorities said they have several theories in the case but have declined to provide details.

The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said one angle detectives are pursuing involved a "personal relationship" that soured involving Khachik Safaryan.

He was found shot to death along with his 9-year-old daughter at the family’s apartment in 2008. They were discovered by his other daughter, who was 12 at the time. Then 18 months later, on Friday night, the girl discovered her mother shot to death in her car outside an apartment a few blocks away.

"We just want them to find the people who did this so they can finally get their punishment," the girl told The Times in an interview earlier this week.

The law enforcement source declined to describe the nature of the relationship or say whether it occurred in the U.S. or in Armenia.

— Andrew Blankstein

Photo: Crime scene in Friday’s shooting. Credit: Katie Falkenberg / For The Times

More breaking news in L.A. Now:

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Park

A deeply divided Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday backed increases in electric rates, acknowledging that they will be painful for customers but insisting that the hikes are needed to maintain the Department of Water and Power’s financial health.

The council’s decision capped months of debate and political maneuvering — as well as an outcry from L.A. residents and business owners who say they already pay enough for electricity.

Revenues from the rate hike would go in part to environmental initiatives backed by the mayor, including renewable energy contracts and more aggressive conservation programs. Without the hike, the Department of Water and Power said it could have its bond rating downgraded.

The fee structure backed by the council would increase electric rates 4.5% for both residential and business ratepayers. That would generate a quarter less revenue than what the mayor proposed over the next three months.

After the vote, Villaraigosa said he had “serious reservations” about the council’s action, adding that revenues generated from the rate hike would not be enough for the DWP to pay for expenses as well as his environmental programs.

A significant concern is the fluctuating cost of coal, which makes up 44% of the DWP’s power.
While the mayor’s fee hike proposal has won praise from environmentalists, it has come under withering criticism from business interests and ratepayer activists who say the city should not be charging more during an economic downturn.

City Council members Tuesday said they were sensitive to these concerns and tried to do what they could to lessen the blow. 

“People are worried to death about their next bill,” said Councilman Bill Rosendahl. “I’ve had more people come up to me in the last two weeks and say, ‘Councilman, for God’s sake. I can’t take another hit.’ "

The lowered fee increases were approved on an 8-to-6 vote, with some in the minority saying they could not support any increases in electric rates.
Tuesday’s showdown is considered the first act in a series of electric rate hikes the mayor is proposing, which would increase residential bills anywhere from 9% to 28% over a 12-month period.

The council’s action signals that Villariagosa is going to have a fight on his hands.
The rate issue has put the mayor at odds with some L.A. business interests at a time when Villaraigosa has vowed to refocus his administration on job creation.

The mayor and DWP argue that rate hike will create 18,000 “green jobs” over the next decade. Critics, however, dispute that number and worry that other jobs will be lost.

“The DWP proposal is the wrong idea at the wrong economic time,” said Estela Lopez, executive director of the Central City East Assn., a business group with 1,800 members.

Some environmentalists immediately bashed the council’s decision to reduce the size of the rate hike.

“The funding for renewable energy and energy efficiency programs that was approved today is insufficient to move us forward on the goal of getting off coal,” said Sierra Club regional representative Evan Gillespie.

— David Zahniser and Maeve Reston

Photo: L.A. Times file

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday recommended raising electric rates paid by L.A. homeowners and businesses, capping months of debate.

The move would raise the rate paid by residents by 4.5% and the rate paid by businesses by roughly 5% to 6%.

[Updated at 4:42 p.m.: Aides said late Tuesday that the rate paid by both businesses and residential customers would increase by 4.5%.]

A final decision on the rate hike will be made by the Water and Power Commission.

The proposed increase is about 25% less than what Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wanted to cover the next three months. But that is not likely to soothe some residents and businesses angered that the city is hiking rates during a recession.

The vote set the stage for a yearlong debate over Department of Water and Power rates, since the mayor will be seeking three more increases to help pay for the fluctuating cost of coal, renewable energy contracts and more aggressive conservation programs.

Villaraigosa has treated his DWP initiative like a political campaign, attracting endorsements from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Vice President Al Gore and accusing the City Council of lacking a commitment to the environment.

 Labor leaders, including the union that represents DWP employees, have pressed the council in recent weeks to approve the increases, saying the extra money would help clean up a utility that gets 44% of its power from coal. 

— David Zahniser at L.A. City Hall

Multiple investigations were launched Tuesday into the actions of Burbank police officers who tried to stop a high-speed pursuit by firing at the suspect while they were stopped in rush-hour traffic Monday.

Officials said they are looking at the tactics used by the officers, who fired at the suspect on two occasions during the wild chase.

Of biggest concern is one officer’s decision to fire into the suspect’s SUV while he was in the middle of traffic on Barham Boulevard near the 101 Freeway. The officer, whose name was not released, was standing to the side of the suspect’s vehicle.

The driver tried to pull away from stopped traffic in the direction of the officer, who fired at least one shot.

One expert who reviewed the tape for The Times said he was concerned because the shots could have hit motorists in surrounding cars. Geoffrey P. Alpert, professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina, said the tape doesn’t tell whole story, but it raises questions about tactics.

"It appears that they failed to take tactical advantage as they approached the suspect, therefore putting officer and, perhaps, civilian lives at risk," Alpert said. He added "There may be more facts beyond what can be seen in the video that would justify the use of deadly force."

That shot by the officer didn’t hit the suspect, 30-year-old Steve Satterly of Wabash Ind., who proceeded to drive to the parking entrance of Universal City. He tried to run from officer and was shot and wounded, said Burbank police spokesman Robert Quesada.

Satterly, who was wanted for allegedly stabbing his ex-girlfriend in Indiana, was shot because he was armed with a knife and did not follow orders from officers, Quesada said. "He was armed and dangerous and his actions were threat to society," Quesada said.

"They [the officers] could not allow this guy to escape, especially because he was armed and going towards City Walk."
But experts questioned the tactics that led up to the shootings, especially the decision by one of the officers who opened fire at the suspect on Barham.

The pursuit began around 4 p.m. when California Highway Patrol officers in the Cajon Pass spotted a dark-colored Chevy Blazer that had been reported stolen following a stabbing in Indiana.
For the better part of an hour, Satterly led police east down the Foothill Freeway and then on to the Ventura Freeway, hitting speeds of up to 100 m.p.h. The chase eventually reached Burbank, where the suspect got off the freeway and began driving on surface streets, leading the CHP to hand off the pursuit to Burbank police officers.

[Updated at 2:30 p.m.: The case is being investigated by the L.A. County district attorney and Burbank police.]

–Andrew Blankstein

Photo: KTLA. Watch video of chase here via KTLA News.

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$500,000 donation approved for nonprofit that
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Wednesday

Bus, tanker crash ties up westbound 210
Freeway

L.A. man who set beloved homeless man on fire
with flare pleads guilty to murder

An Orange County judge on Tuesday sentenced serial killer Rodney Alcala to death for five killings in the 1970s, marking yet another turn in a three-decade-long legal drama.

Judge Francisco Briseno’s decision came several weeks after a jury recommended the death penalty for Alcala after convicting him on charges of slaying four women and a teenage girl.

Briseno said photos of the women taken by Alcala show he had "sadistic sexual motives" and that "some of the victims were posed after death." The judge said Alcala had an "abnormal interest in young girls."

It was the third time that Alcala, 66, had been convicted for the murder of Robin Samsoe, 12, last seen riding her bike to ballet class in June 1979. He had been condemned to death both times, but the convictions were overturned. He has been in custody since his 1979 arrest.

Before the third trial began in January, he was linked through DNA, blood and fingerprint evidence to the deaths of Jill Barcomb, 18, whose body was found in the Hollywood Hills; Georgia Wixted, 27, of Malibu; Charlotte Lamb, 32, of Santa Monica; and Jill Parenteau, 21, of Burbank.

During his closing arguments earlier this month, Alcala — a onetime photographer and “Dating Game” contestant who acted as his own attorney in this trial — asked jurors to spare him from the death penalty, saying they would become killers themselves if they sent him to death row and arguing that the sentence would lead to decades of appeals.

A sentence of life in prison without parole "would end this matter now," he said.

— Paloma Esquivel in Santa Ana

Photos: Serial killer Rodney Alcala listens as he is sentenced to death by Judge Francisco Briseno in a Santa Ana courtroom Tuesday.  Credit: Michael Goulding / Pool photo

Alcala: The long road to justice

1972 — Alcala is convicted in the 1968 rape and beating of an 8-year-old girl.

Nov. 10, 1977 — The body of 18-year-old Jill Barcomb is found in the Hollywood Hills. She had been sexually assaulted, bludgeoned and strangled with a pair of blue pants.

Dec. 16, 1977 — Georgia Wixted, 27, is found beaten to death at her home in Malibu. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

1978 — Alcala appears in an episode of “The Dating Game” as Bachelor No. 1.

June 24, 1978 — Charlotte Lamb, a 32-year-old legal secretary from Santa Monica, is found in the laundry room of an El Segundo apartment complex. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled with a shoelace. 

June 14, 1979 — Jill Parenteau, 21, is found strangled on the floor of her Burbank apartment.

June 20, 1979 – Robin Samsoe, 12, disappears near the Huntington Beach Pier. Her body is found 12 days later in the Sierra Madre foothills.

July 24, 1979 — Rodney James Alcala, an unemployed photographer, is arrested at his parents’ Monterey Park home.

September 1980 – Alcala is convicted of the 1978 rape of a 15-year-old Riverside girl and sentenced to nine years in state prison.

June 20, 1980 — Orange County Superior Court Judge Philip E. Schwab sentences Alcala to death after he is convicted of Samsoe’s murder.

July 11, 1980 — The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office files murder, burglary and sexual assault charges against Alcala in the slaying of Parenteau.

April 15, 1981 — The L.A. County district attorney’s office tells a judge that prosecution of Alcala in the Parenteau case could not proceed because a key witness admitted that he had committed perjury in another case.

Aug. 23, 1984 — The state Supreme Court reversed Alcala’s murder conviction in connection with Samsoe, ruling that the jury was improperly told about Alcala’s prior sex crimes.

June 20, 1986 — For the second time, Alcala is convicted of Samsoe’s murder and sentenced to death in Orange County Superior Court.

Dec. 31, 1992 — The California Supreme Court unanimously upholds Alcala’s death sentence.

April 2, 2001 — A federal appellate court overturns Alcala’s death sentence in the Samsoe case, ruling that the Superior Court judge precluded the defense from presenting evidence “material to significant issues.”

June 5, 2003 — The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office files murder charges against Alcala alleging that he killed Wixted during a burglary and rape.

Sept. 19, 2005 — Additional murder charges are filed against Alcala in connection to the deaths of Barcomb, Wixted and Lamb.

Jan. 11, 2010 — Alcala’s trial for the five murders begins. He represents himself.

March 9, 2010 — Alcala is again sentenced to death.

— Kimi Yoshino

More breaking news in L.A. Now:

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L.A. man who set beloved homeless man on fire with flare pleads guilty to murder

The families of the women slain by serial killer Rodney Alcala are expected to offer testimony before a judge decides whether to sentence him to death.

A jury earlier this month recommended death for Alcala after the panel convicted him of slaying four women and a teenage girl.

It was the third time Alcala, 66, had been convicted for the murder
of Robin Samsoe, 12, last seen riding her bike to ballet class in
June 1979. He had been condemned to death both times, but the
convictions were overturned. He has been in custody since his 1979
arrest.

Before the third trial began in January, he was linked
through DNA, blood and fingerprint evidence to the deaths of Jill
Barcomb, 18, whose body was found in the Hollywood Hills; Georgia
Wixted, 27, of Malibu; Charlotte Lamb, 32, of Santa Monica; and Jill
Parenteau, 21, of Burbank.

During his closing arguments earlier this month, Alcala — a onetime photographer and “Dating Game” contestant
who acted as his own attorney in this trial — asked jurors to spare
him the death penalty, saying they would become killers themselves if
they sent him to death row and arguing that the sentence would lead to
decades of appeals.

A sentence of life
in prison without parole "would end this matter now," he said.

It took an Orange County jury about one hour Tuesday to vote for the
death penalty for Alcala.

— Paloma Esquivel and Shelby Grad

Alcala: The long road to justice

Antiwar protesters crashed a Beverly Hills book-signing by former Bush White House figure Karl Rove, creating a chaotic scene that ended the event early.

A group of protesters arrived at the Saban Theatre, where Rove was signing "Courage and Consequences: My Life As a Conservative In The Fight" to an audience of about 100 people.

The incident was captured on tape by CBS 2 News. The video shows protesters coming up to Rove, calling him a war criminal, among other things.

But Rove fought back. "With all due respect, this goes to show the totalitarianism of the left. They don’t believe in dialogue, they don’t believe in the 1st Amendment," he told the crowd."

At one point, Rove told a protester, "Get the heck out of here…. This man is a lunatic."

Rove was eventually forced to leave the stage, and those who came to hear him speak did not get their books signed.

— Shelby Grad

Photo: Karl Rove. Credit: Associated Press

More breaking news in L.A. Now:

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Bus, tanker crash ties up westbound 210 Freeway

L.A. man who set beloved homeless man on fire with flare pleads guilty to murder

A man accused of setting a beloved homeless man on fire two years ago has pleaded guilty to the crimes, prosecutors say.  Ben Matthew Martin, 31, pleaded guilty to one count each of first-degree murder, torture and arson causing great bodily injury to John McGraham.

Authorities said Martin, a onetime barber, poured gasoline on the homeless man and then used a road flare to set him on fire.

L.A. police arrested Martin in Riverside County. He was connected to the 2008 slaying in the Mid-Wilshire area by eyewitnesses and DNA at the scene of the crime. Martin left a red plastic gasoline can behind at 3rd and Berendo streets.

Authorities said the motive was unclear, but sources said the unemployed barber had previously voiced his dislike of the homeless in the area.

McGraham was a well-known fixture in the neighborhood.

McGraham, 55, who once worked nearby as a bellman at the Ambassador Hotel, suffered from depression. For two decades, he repeatedly spurned efforts of family members and others to remove him from the streets and obtain treatment for him.

But those living and working in the densely populated, diverse neighborhood around 3rd and Berendo streets fed him daily and provided him with clothing.

More than 300 people attended his memorial.

— Shelby Grad

Photo: Mourners at John McGraham’s funeral in October of 2008.

A wild police pursuit from San Bernardino County into the San Fernando Valley ended when a man who had tried to flee from officers surrendered.

The pursuit began in the Cajon Pass when the driver of a sport utility vehicle refused to pull over. Police said he was speeding.

The chase went along the 210 and 134 freeways and on surface streets in Burbank and Los Angeles.

According to KABC-TV Channel 7 News, an officer fired either a gun or a less-than-lethal round into the man’s car on Barham Boulevard. It’s unclear whether the suspect was hurt.

— Shelby Grad

Raw video of chase from KTLA News.

Michael Jackson’s heart beat briefly when he was taken from his rented Holmby Hills mansion to UCLA Medical Center, according to an attorney for the pop star’s father, Joe Jackson.

In an interview with CNN, attorney Brian Oxman claims that Jackson might have been saved had paramedics and doctors gotten to him sooner.

"The bottom line is, had [paramedics] gotten there earlier and had they been called right away, chances are he could have been revived," Oxman told CNN.

It’s unclear how Joe Jackson’s camp obtained the information about Michael Jackson’s heart or whether earlier medical intervention would have saved him.

The entertainer had high levels of the powerful anesthetic propofol in his
system when he died, according to the L.A. County coroner’s office.

Jackson’s doctor, Conrad Murray, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with Jackson’s death. He has pleaded not guilty and maintains that he did nothing wrong.

Murray told investigators that Jackson, 50, was a chronic insomniac who
had depended for years on propofol — a white liquid that the singer
called "milk" — to sleep, according to police affidavits filed in
court.

But an anesthesiologist consulted by the coroner’s office wrote in the
report that she knew of "no reports of its use for insomnia relief."

— Shelby Grad

Photo: Michael Jackson and his father, Joe, before the pop star’s death. L.A. Times file photo

On a fall afternoon in 2008, a 12-year-old girl arrived home from school and discovered her father and 9-year-old sister shot to death inside the family’s Hollywood apartment.

Eighteen months later, the girl, now 14, came home to an empty apartment Friday night. She got worried when her mother didn’t come home from work, so the girl walked down to the carport looking for her.

There, she found the body of Karine Hakobyan, 38, slumped in her Honda CRV, with a gunshot wound to the back of the head.
On Monday, a team of Los Angeles police detectives were trying to piece together the three killings, which occurred a few blocks from each other in Hollywood’s Little Armenia district.

Detectives believe the killings are connected but declined to provide more details. Det. Michael Whelan stressed that police have no evidence that the victims were involved in criminal activities either in the United States or in Armenia, which they left in 2003. The father, Khachik Safaryan, had worked as a butcher in Hollywood, and the mother worked as a patient care service aid at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.

Sitting in the family living room Monday next to a shrine of roses and framed family pictures, the girl tried to make sense of what has happened to her family. She told The Times that Friday was a typical day – she and her mother exchanged cellphone calls throughout the day, and she expected her mother home by 8 p.m. What the girl saw when she got to the carport horrified her.

“I just saw blood,” she said. “That’s when I knew something was seriously wrong.”

The girl was surrounded Monday by grandparents, extended family and friends, all wearing black and huddling on a sofa. Amid the mourners, the girl made clear she wants justice for her sister and parents.

“We just want them to find the people who did this, so they can finally get their punishment,” she said.

Detectives said they are keeping a close eye on the girl, making sure she has access to counseling and protection as she deals with the trauma. Whelan described her as good student who planned to go to college.

She’s showing remarkable strength amid the violence that has befallen the family, he added.

“She’s very intelligent, and very well grounded despite of this horrific thing that has happened to her,” Whelan said. “She’s held up in some regards better than some of the family members around her.” 

The violence began Dec. 11, 2008. That morning, the girl’s sister Lucine was set to recite her first  poem she’d written in English at school.

But she never got the chance.

Police believe that the gunman entered the family’s apartment between 7:30 and 8 a.m. – after the 12-year-old left for school but before her younger sister did.

There were no reports of gunshots, and the bodies were not discovered until the older girl came home from school that afternoon.
The slaying shocked the neighborhood of low-rise apartments in east Hollywood, particularly because the assailants killed a 9-year-old girl.

After the slayings, the girl and her mother moved to another apartment nearby. It was there, in the carport, where the girl found her mother shot dead in her car Friday night.

As in the first killings, there were no witnesses, and no one reported hearing gunshots.

“We have a theory and are running with that,” Whelan said of the investigation. “There are a lot of unanswered questions.”

— Andrew Blankstein in Los Angeles, Ching-Ching Ni in Hollywood

Photo: A man walks through the apartment building where Karine Hakobyan lived.
Hakobyan’s body was found in the driver’s seat of her car last Friday
night at her apartment. She had been shot. (Katie Falkenberg / For The
Times)

L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, responding to the deaths of children who passed through the county’s child welfare system, on Monday renewed his call to update the computer system designed to provide child abuse investigators with information about a child’s jeopardy.

The Times reported Sunday that county’s system for sharing information about suspicious injuries, domestic violence and other key risk factors was among the unfinished reform efforts. The system has been repeatedly cited over the years as insufficient, and its shortcomings have played a critical role in numerous child deaths and abuse cases.

“Technology may not be a cure, but it is part of the treatment,” Ridley-Thomas said in a statement that also acknowledged the role of deep poverty, high social worker caseloads and multigenerational patterns of abuse.

“We must give the protectors of minors in the county’s custody or care [the] adequate tools for their mission to safeguard children,” he said. “We wouldn’t think of sending soldiers to war carrying jammed rifles; we can’t go on asking social workers to use an incomplete children’s data network just because it’s what we now have.” 

County supervisors approved a plan last year to revamp the computer system, known as the Family and Children’s Index, but nearly a year later, key portions of the order are behind schedule or are unfulfilled entirely.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky has argued for modest improvements to FCI and has led the opposition against Ridley-Thomas’ proposal to scrap it in favor of more user friendly technology with an “early warning” mechanism for families who accumulate numerous risk factors.

“This tends to be a knee-jerk reaction every time there is a case, that it could be a technological issue, or if we only would have had a $100-million computer system it might have solved it,” Yaroslavsky said at last week’s board meeting.

— Garrett Therolf

RELATED:

Innocents Betrayed: A Times Investigation

The Republican National Committee is investigating allegations that nearly $2,000 in committee funds was spent at a provocative West Hollywood nightclub.

The Daily Caller reported that $1,946.25 was spent at Voyeur West Hollywood, an adult nightclub on Santa Monica Boulevard.

In a review of the club, The Times describe the Voyeur scene this way: "Provocative scenes play out above and beyond patrons’ reach at the risque West Hollywood club. The inspiration? The film ‘Eyes Wide Shut.’ Let’s be clear, however: This is not a sex club but rather a high-end nightclub that boasts inventive cocktails."

The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper, quoted an RNC spokesman as saying it was investigating the matter. But the spokesman said RNC Chairman Michael Steele "had no knowledge of the expenditure, nor does he find the use of committee funds at such a location at all acceptable."

According to The Times’ review, Voyeur "has definitely caught Hollywood’s attention. An unusual cavalcade of celebrities bypassed the rope on opening night, including music impresario Rick Rubin with actor Vincent Gallo in tow. Reality personality Jack Osbourne, Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell and actor Gerard Butler also made the scene."

— Shelby Grad

Photo: Inside Voyeur. Credit: Los Angeles Times

The search for Mitrice Richardson, who vanished last September from outside the Malibu sheriff’s station, has shifted to downtown Los Angeles.

On Sunday, several church members joined a group of volunteers to search in the skid row area.

Chip Croft, an independent video producer who helped to coordinate Sunday’s event, said there have been several credible sightings of Richardson downtown. With numerous homeless shelters, single-room occupancy hotels and social service centers, skid row is a place where someone like Richardson, who is thought to have had no money and may have been suffering from emotional problems, might end up, Croft said.

"We just hope that she’s safe; we don’t want to think anything more than that," added Rhonda Minter, another church volunteer. "We just hope that someone is watching over her."

Richardson, 24, a Cal State Fullerton graduate, vanished after being released from the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station after midnight on Sept. 17, 2009. She had no car, no purse and no cellphone. She had been arrested at a Malibu restaurant for not paying a dinner bill and was reported by staff to have been acting strangely. Authorities have searched the rugged hills and canyons of Malibu several times without finding a trace of her.

— Carla Rivera

Photo: Volunteer Althea Anderson, left, talks to a man who identified himself as Ray Ray on 6th Street in downtown L.A. Anderson and other volunteers were handing our fliers with images of Mitrice Richardson, who has been missing for about six months. Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

For decades, Glendale has banned professional boxing, fearing it would bring the wrong element to the city.

But on Tuesday, the City Council may permanently lift the ban, with some critics even saying they think it’s a good idea.

A wary City Council last year voted to temporarily lift a 62-year ban on pro boxing matches in the city after promoters and local boxers lobbied to open up the Glendale market.



The yearlong trial period’s two events ran smoothly and generated about $20,000 in revenue for the Glendale Civic Auditorium — two reasons why city officials are recommending that the City Council approve permanently lifting the ban, according to a city report.

Both events were produced by local fighter and promoter Kahren Karutyunyan’s Art of Boxing Productions, with the second match nationally televised on ESPN.

“That gave great exposure to the promoter, the city and the Civic Auditorium,” Brittney Bilotti, community services administrator with the Community Services and Parks department, told the Glendale News-Press.

Read the full story here.

— Melanie Hicken

Photo: A poster from one of the Art of Boxing events in Glendale.

In December 2008, a 15-year-old girl arrived home from school to discover her father and 8-year-old sister fatally shot inside the family’s Hollywood apartment.

Los Angeles police detectives labeled it a double homicide — but the case remained unsolved.

Then, on Friday, a 38-year-old woman was found shot to death about two blocks from the apartment. Detectives said the woman is related to the family linked to the double homicide. They are investigating whether there is a connection.

Officers responding to a call in the 5800 block of Lexington Avenue about 8:20 p.m. Friday discovered Karine Hakobyan’s body in the driver’s seat of her Honda CR-V, Los Angeles police said.

The original double homicide shocked the neighborhood of low-rise apartment complexes in the eastern part of Hollywood, known as Little Armenia. All three shooting victims were Armenian. Khachik Safaryan, 43, and his 8-year-old daughter, Lusine, were found shot to death Dec. 11, 2008, in the 1200 block of Tamarind Avenue.

Investigators believe the father and daughter were killed between 7:30 a.m. and 8 a.m. — after the 15-year-old went to school.

The family vehicle was found a few blocks from the home, officials said, and there was no indication of forced entry into the car. Police said they did not know who moved the car.

Robbery-homicide detectives with the Los Angeles Police Department are investigating the case. Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call (877) LAPD-24-7. Anonymous tipsters may call (800) 222-8477.

— Shelby Grad and Corina Knoll

Photo: The carport where Karine Hakobyan’s body was found. Credit: KTLA

Hoping to halt the conversion of the Fairfax Theater into apartments,
neighbors joined preservationists and community activists Saturday to
collect petition signatures and to celebrate the cinema’s 80th birthday.

"We
view the Fairfax not only as a historic treasure, but as a social and
cultural treasure, given the role it has played in the Fairfax District
for the past 80 years," said Hillsman Wright, co-founder of the Los
Angeles Historical Theatre Foundation.



"It’s much more than a physical structure," he said. "It’s in many ways part of the heart and soul of that neighborhood."

Property owner Alex Gorby announced last week that the Fairfax, which was being operated by Regency Theatres, would remain closed indefinitely after suffering major damage during rainstorms this year.

"The
landlord did not want to make the necessary repairs, so we had to
terminate the lease," said Andrew Golin, vice president of Regency
Theatres. "We are saddened by the closure."

Read the full story here.

–Ann M. Simmons in the Fairfax District.

Photo: The 80-year-old Fairfax Theater has been closed indefinitely due to heavy rain damage this year.

(Christina House / For The Times / March 27, 2010)

A private Christian campus in Costa Mesa has seen student attendance plummet after parents learned that the pastor of the church that owns the campus was accused of soliciting a prostitute.

The pastor of Beach Cities Calvary, the Rev. Jim Kempner, who
has presided over the church since 2001, was arrested as part of a
special prostitution investigation conducted by the Tustin Police
Department in May 2008, police told the Daily Pilot. He was charged with one misdemeanor count of agreeing to engage in
prostitution after he placed $100 on a dresser in exchange for sex,
according to documents provided by the Orange County district
attorney’s office.

Kempner pleaded guilty and was ordered to complete an AIDS testing and
education program, eight days of community service and two years of
probation, according to court records.

After parents learned of the incident, Prince of Peace School in Mesa Verde, which is on the same property as the church, has
struggled to stay open in the face of plummeting student enrollment. “Many outraged parents made decisions to not re-enroll their children in
the school next year, bringing enrollment down to an all-time low,” a
group of parents said in a statement Friday.

“I love this school, and I
want it to stay open,” Michael Gaumond, an administrator for the Costa
Mesa school, said Friday. “Hopefully, God will intervene and we will
have a school next year — that’s what I’m hoping and praying for.”

With
enrollment numbers looking grim, it doesn’t appear that the preschool
and K-6 school will have enough students to remain open at every grade
level next year, Gaumond said.

Read the full story here.

— Brianna Bailey, Daily Pilot

A large swath of the southern Orange County coast remained closed Sunday, five days after a major sewage spill.

Officials said they would reopen the O.C. beaches when water quality met state standards for two straight days.

An underground
sewage main in Rancho Santa Margarita ruptured Tuesday afternoon,
sending an estimated 500,000 gallons of raw sewage gushing into a creek
that emptied into the ocean at Doheny State Beach in Dana Point,
officials said Thursday.

Beaches from the breakwater at Dana Point Harbor to Capistrano Bay
Community Beach are closed.

The shoreline, which includes a
state campground and sheltered beaches favored by families with young
children, has a long history of bacterial-pollution problems, with some
stretches routinely receiving "Fs" in the annual report card on the health of state beaches by the nonprofit organization Heal the Bay.

— Shelby Grad