Author: Steve Marble

A 25-year-old man fatally shot his 1-year-old son and a woman Thursday morning at an Alhambra home and then took his own life, authorities said.

Alhambra police said that, based on the crime scene, they believe the deaths were the result of a double-murder suicide.

Police officers had received a call of a possible suicide at the home in the 800 block of South Sierra Vista Avenue about 4:30 a.m. When officers entered the home, they found three bodies, Alhambra police Lt. Edith Lopez said.

Lopez said several other family members were inside the four-bedroom house at the time of the shooting, but they were unharmed. They alerted authorities to the shooting.

Coroner’s officials identified the apparent gunman as Angel Berrios Jr. The victims were Natasha Katherine Cobian, 23, and 1-year-old Angel Joseph Berrios.

–Richard Winton

A veteran Orange County district attorney’s investigator who was fired after he refused to drop his probe into one of the district attorney’s close friends and political contributors has, for a second time, won back his job and will probably get more than $1 million in back pay.

Lyle Wilson was fired in 2002 for his handling of an investigation into the business dealings of Patrick Di Carlo, a wealthy Newport Beach businessman and supporter of Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas.

The firing brought criticism of Rackauckas early in his career as district attorney and led to an Orange County Grand Jury report that accused the district attorney of interfering in criminal investigations involving political contributors.

In an opinion filed Wednesday, appellate court Justice Eileen C. Moore wrote that the case “arises against a backdrop of political intrigue and purported cover-ups.”

The controversy started in 2000 after Wilson was assigned to investigate allegations that Di Carlo was the victim of extortion. Wilson and his supervisor subsequently shifted the investigation to Di Carlo for purported violations of federal and state securities laws.

Rackauckas later suspended Wilson and his supervisor and accused them of stealing evidence. He also accused Wilson of investigating Di Carlo, even after he was ordered off the case, and of talking about the case with the media.

Following about two years’ paid suspension, Wilson was fired for insubordination, untruthfulness and violating the district attorney’s media policy.

In 2008, a Los Angeles Superior Court ruled that the district attorney erred when Wilson was fired for insubordination and ordered the firing vacated.

But rather than reinstate Wilson, county officials told Wilson the reason for his firing had been changed.

The move was an attempt to “game the system by backdating an amended discharge order and hoping it would fly,” Moore wrote in the opinion.

“It was a no-brainer,” said Corey Glave, Wilson’s attorney. “The county tried to play a game to do an end run around the court’s judgment without appealing it and it backfired.”

The district attorney’s office received the opinion on Thursday and was “exploring all legal options to decide what our next step is,” spokeswoman Susan Kang Schroeder said.

— Paloma Esquivel

A 54-year-old Westlake Village resident who police say shot and killed a popular Pasadena art professor at a party pleaded not guilty to murder charges Tuesday.

Attorneys for Steven Ronald Honma, who was arraigned in a Van Nuys courtroom, said their client was defending himself during an attack at a neighbor’s party and did not intend to shoot Norman Schureman, 50, of Altadena.

On March 20, Honma and his wife attended a Persian new year’s party in Westlake Village, hosted by Schureman’s mother-in-law. Honma felt that someone had made a crude remark about his wife, and he took her to their home two doors away from the house where the party was held, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Liam Gallagher said.

Honma later returned to the party with a knife and two guns. Authorities say that after a fight broke out, Honma shot Schureman in the upper torso. Schureman died the next day at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Westwood.

Honma’s attorneys said their client was beaten during the fight and was hospitalized with head wounds and internal injuries.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office charged Honma with one count of murder and one count of possession of a firearm with a prior conviction.

“This is not a case of murder, rather an unintended and accidental homicide which occurred during the course of a physical struggle that Mr. Honma did not initiate,” Honma’s attorneys at Kestenbaum, Eisner & Gorin said in a statement. “Friends, family and co-workers hold him in very high esteem and find the alleged conduct to be completely out of character.”

Honma was being held on $2-million bail. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

— Corina Knoll

An off-duty Westminster police detective and a California corrections officer were arrested late Saturday in connection with the alleged kidnapping and rape of a 25-year-old woman in Ontario.

According to  Sgt. David McBride of the Ontario Police Department, the woman was walking to her car in the parking lot of Ontario Mills Mall when Westminster police Det. Anthony Nicholas Orban and California Corrections Officer Jeff Thomas Jelinek approached her.

As the woman got in her car, Orban slid into the passenger side, pointed his service gun at her and told her to drive, McBride said. Jelinek allegedly stood by and watched.

Orban then ordered the woman to drive to a commercial complex, where he raped her at gunpoint, authorities said. At some point, the woman was able to get out of the car and ran to a local business, where she summoned police.

Authorities said Orban ran after her, leaving his gun in her car. He later called Jelinek, who picked him up and took him back to the mall, police said.

Orban then called his wife and told her he’d lost his gun in Ontario, McBride said. Orban’s wife, police said, called the Ontario Police Department and officers responded to the mall to help. But at the same time, the 25-year-old woman was talking to Ontario police officers, who began investigating the alleged rape.

The police detective and the corrections officer were identified and arrested, McBride said.

Orban, 30, has been with the Westminster Police Department for five years, assigned to investigations, McBride said. He has been relieved of active duty pending the outcome of the investigation and was booked at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga on suspicion of kidnapping, false imprisonment, rape and carjacking. He is being held in lieu of $1 million.

Jelinek, 30, is a corrections officer assigned to the Chino Institution for Men. He also has also been relieved of duty pending the outcome of the investigation and was booked at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga on suspicion of carjacking and being an accessory to the crime. He is also being held on $1-million bail.

— Paloma Esquivel

The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health on Thursday fined Bimbo Bakeries $230,000, including more than $120,000 in rarely issued “willful” citations given to companies that intentionally disregard safety regulations.

The action comes after a Times investigation last fall highlighted cases at Bimbo Bakeries in which five employees lost fingers or parts of fingers, and one lost an arm, in separate bakery accidents. Many of the fines in those cases were later dismissed or reduced.

In October, the Cal/OSHA high-hazard unit visited Bimbo plants in Escondido, Montebello and South San Francisco and found equipment that lacked proper guarding, designed to prevent an employee from suffering cuts or potential amputation.

“We believe there are systemic problems which have resulted in numerous employees suffering amputations due to unguarded equipment,” Cal/OSHA Chief Len Welsh said in a statement.

Bimbo officials could not be reached for comment. The firm can appeal the fine.

The action comes as Cal/OSHA and the appeals board that reviews the citations it issues are under pressure from lawmakers and federal officials over its operations. Cal/OSHA is charged with protecting safety in California’s workplaces.

In a hearing last month, the head of the state Senate’s Labor Committee accused the head of the Cal/OSHA workplace safety board of being biased toward employers.

One issue is that the Cal/OSHA appeals board has repeatedly reduced fines or dismissed cases over the objections of Cal/OSHA investigators,

In a case in which a Bimbo worker lost her arm in a bread machine in 2003, Cal/OSHA fined Bimbo $21,000. An administrative law judge working for the appeals board later dismissed the case. The full appeals board is set to reconsider that case this year.

A year later, an employee at the Montebello plant reached into a machine that lacked a guard and lost part of a finger. Cal/OSHA fined Bimbo $22,500, but an appeals board judge reduced that fine to $5,000. Cal/OSHA appealed that case to the entire appeals board; it has not yet been heard.

— Jessica Garrison

A man was killed Friday afternoon in a car-to-car shooting in East Los Angeles, authorities said.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said the assailants pulled up alongside the victim’s car at 3:52 p.m.  in the 4000 block of Hubbard Street and shot him.

Deputies said the unidentified man died at the scene.

[Updated March 27: At least 17 homicides have been reported within one mile of the 4000 block of Hubbard Street by L.A. County coroner’s officials since January 2007, according to data collected for The Times interactive Homicide Report.

The most recent was the Nov. 25 shooting of Joseph Jones, 35, in the 4200 block of Olympic Boulevard in East Los Angeles.]

–Jill Leovy

An attorney for a former Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer charged with murdering an unarmed rider in Oakland asked a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Friday to include police officers as prospective jurors despite a state law excluding them from jury service.

In a written motion, lawyer Michael L. Rains argued that a 1992 law preventing officers from serving as jurors violated Johannes Mehserle’s right to a fair trial.

Mehserle is charged with the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant on a BART station platform on Jan. 1, 2009.

The case was moved to Los Angeles because of concerns about pretrial publicity in Alameda County.

At a hearing Friday, Judge Robert J. Perry said he would consider Rains’ request.

–Jack Leonard

A man in his 20s was shot and killed Friday afternoon in Pacoima after arguing with two men, Los Angeles police said.

The unidentified man was walking in the 10100 block of Laurel Canyon Boulevard about 5 p.m. when the assailants approached and shot him after an argument.

He died at the scene, police said, and the suspects fled.

[Updated March 27: At least five homicides have been reported within a mile of the 10100 block of Laurel Canyon Boulevard since January 2007, according to data collected for The Times’ interactive Homicide Report.

The most recent was the Jan. 1 shooting death of Antonio Carlos Jr., 34, who was found fatally wounded on the sidewalk at Haddon Avenue and Pierce Street in Pacoima.]

–Jill Leovy

The Orange County Fair Board has agreed to pay for a security system at the home of its chief executive, who has been the repeated victim of vandalism and harassment since the state began trying to sell off the fairgrounds to reduce California’s ballooning deficit.

Steve Beazley’s home has twice been pelted with eggs, and in another incident a noxious liquid was splashed on his property.

According to fair board members, Beazley was also falsely accused of crimes against children and women in fliers that were distributed in his neighborhood.

Robin Wachner, the fairgrounds’ spokeswoman, said the incidents took place as public emotions over the proposed sale of the fairgrounds escalated.

The fairgrounds was put up for auction last year, but the winning bid was ultimately rejected as being too low.

— Steve Marble

The Daily Pilot has more.

An off-duty Orange County sheriff’s deputy was allegedly drunk when he crashed into a planter in the frontyard of a county supervisor’s home and will be charged with driving under the influence and possession of a controlled substance without a prescription, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Mark Wayne Hewlett, 30, of Orange had left a friend’s house after a night of drinking on Dec. 13 when he lost control of his vehicle, drove across a front lawn and crashed into a planter in the frontyard Orange County Supervisor Bill Campbell’s Villa Park home, prosecutors said.

Hewlett was on his way home at the time of the incident and happened to drive through the neighborhood where the supervisor lives, said Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Brock Zimmon.

A passing driver told authorities he saw the crash and alerted his father, who called 911.

About one hour and 45 minutes after the crash, Hewlett had a blood alcohol of level of .13% – above the legal limit of .08%, prosecutors said. The deputy, they added, was also in possession of the drug Xanax without a prescription.

Hewlett has returned to full-duty status. A personnel investigation is pending, said sheriff’s spokesman John McDonald.

— Paloma Esquivel

Operators of the Standard Hotel in downtown Los Angeles agreed Tuesday to plead guilty to a charge of negligent discharge of pollutants and pay more than $370,000 after a hotel employee dumped pool chemicals down a rooftop drain last year, causing several people to become ill, the U.S. attorney’s office announced.

On Jan. 18, 2009, a maintenance worker poured chlorine and muriatic acid into a storm drain atop the trendy hotel, located at 550 S. Flower Street.

The mix of chemicals created a cloud of noxious gas found its way into a nearby Metro station about 6:30 a.m. the following day.

At least two people became ill from the fumes, and an L.A. County sheriff’s deputy reported experiencing a burning sensation in his eyes and lungs. The intersection of 6th and Flower streets was closed for several hours as gas continued to escape from the storm drain system.

Authorities at first were concerned about a possible terrorist attack, but then traced the gas to a drain outside the Standard and discovered two empty 50-gallon drums of chemicals near the hotel’s rooftop pool.

FBI agents said employees eventually acknowledged emptying the majority of the contents of both drums down the drain.

HotelsAB Downtown Employees LLC filed a plea agreement Tuesday in U.S. District Court in connection with the misdemeanor charge and will pay a criminal fine of $200,000 and make a $150,000 community- service payment that will go to the National Fish and Wildlife Fund for environmental initiatives.

The corporation has also agreed to pay a total of $20,283.56 in restitution to the hazardous materials division of the L.A. County Fire Department and the watershed protection division of the city of Los Angeles.

— Corina Knoll

Photo: The rooftop of the Standard Hotel, shown in May 2002. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

A man was convicted Friday of kidnapping his estranged wife and holding her captive until she signed divorce papers.

A Los Angeles County jury found Mohammad Hanafi, 58, of Hawthorne guilty of kidnapping his wife, Raisa Hanafi, in 2008, and holding her for ransom. The jury also convicted Hanafi for threatening to kill his wife.

Hanafi was not convicted of torturing his wife, though prosecutors had argued that Hanafi gagged, drugged and tortured her when he allegedly forced her to sign over her assets in divorce papers.

Raisa Hanafi was confined for five days before she was able to escape, according to court documents.

The jury also found co-defendant Kisasi Liggins, who helped Mohammad Hanafi in the 2008 crime, guilty of kidnapping for ransom. The jury deadlocked on whether to convict Mohammad Hanafi for grand theft, and the count was dismissed.

Both Mohammad Hanafi and Liggins face a maximum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. Sentencing is scheduled for July.

— My-Thuan Tran

The Orange County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to strip the treasurer of his investment powers over the county’s more than $6-billion investment pool.

The vote comes two weeks after Treasurer Chriss Street was ordered to pay $7 million to a bankruptcy trust he once oversaw for breach of fiduciary responsibilities by mismanaging the trust and acting in his own interest and not that of the beneficiaries.

The investment authority will transfer to the county’s chief financial officer, Robert Franz, by the end of the month.

"It’s a sad day," Supervisor Bill Campbell said before the vote. He added that he didn’t know of any problems Street has had as the treasurer and said his vote was motivated by the "public trust."

"This is something we have to do to protect the public’s interest," said Chairwoman Janet Nguyen.

In a memo sent to Nguyen on Friday, Street requested that the investment duties be temporarily taken away while he weighs his legal options. He also announced that he will not seek re-election in June. Street dismissed calls for his resignation and said he will serve out his term, which ends in January when his replacement will be sworn in.

— Raja Abdulrahim in Santa Ana

All inmates booked into Orange County jails will have their immigration status checked through fingerprint identification starting Tuesday, authorities said.

Orange County joins 11 other California counties — including Los Angeles, San Diego and Ventura — that started the process of checking the status of all inmates as part of a national program to identify and deport undocumented immigrants who land in jail.

Under the Secure Communities initiative, which was developed by the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, inmates’ fingerprints will be compared against a database that will simultaneously check FBI criminal history and immigration records maintained by DHS, authorities said.

Previously, specially-trained deputies screened inmates upon arrival in jail. Those who were foreign born were checked further for immigration status.

Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens is also negotiating with DHS to house hundreds of immigration detainees in county jails to help supplement a massive budget shortfall.

— Paloma Esquivel

Photo: Orange County jail cell. L.A. Times file

Newport Beach’s city attorney was arrested Sunday night on suspicion of felony spousal abuse, authorities said.

David R. Hunt, 52, was arguing with his son at his Santa Ana home at about 8 p.m. Sunday when his wife intervened, said police spokesman Anthony Bertagna.

Hunt hit his wife, causing her to hit a table and then the floor, the spokesman said. The 49-year-old woman cut her arm and sustained a large bump on the back of her head, police said. She was taken to a local hospital for treatment.

Hunt was booked at Orange County Jail and was released Monday, according to sheriff’s records. Hunt has been city attorney since late 2008, according to the city’s website.

— Paloma Esquivel

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Orange County Treasurer Chriss Street will not seek re-election and has asked county supervisors to temporarily strip him of his investment powers over the county’s investment pool of about $5 billion.

The statement and request comes in the wake of a $7-million judgment against Street for self-dealing and mismanaging a bankruptcy trust as a trustee for eight years before he was elected treasurer in 2006.

Supervisor John Moorlach, the county’s former treasurer and once one of Street’s biggest supporters, had called for Street’s resignation, and Supervisor Bill Campbell said Thursday that he had submitted an agenda item for Tuesday’s meeting to take away Street’s investment powers.

“As a public servant, I am committed to putting the interests of the taxpayers and my staff first,” Street wrote in the letter sent Friday to county Chairwoman Janet Nguyen. “It is therefore my recommendation that the Board of Supervisors temporarily delegate investment authority of the County Pools to the elected Auditor-Controller David Sundstrom while I weigh my legal options.”

Street’s attorney said his client did not resign because he didn’t feel that would be “appropriate” or “necessary.”

Street announcement awakens memories of the county’s historic bankruptcy in 1994, at the time the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

The 1994 financial collapse was blamed on the risky and capricious investment strategy developed by then-Treasurer Robert Citron. Street, along with Moorlach, was among those who had predicted the county’s bankruptcy and was viewed as a reformist when he took office.

The lawsuit that resulted in the $7-million judgment stems from the eight years that Street spent at the helm of a bankruptcy trust for a group of shipping companies, in which he was supposed to conserve and liquidate assets for the beneficiaries, but instead bought bankrupt trailer manufacturers and lost millions, according to court document.

“This is a case where a fiduciary lost sight of his mandate … by engaging in unsuccessful business ventures, self-dealing and violations of the liquidating trust agreement,” wrote Judge Richard Neiter, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge who presided over the two-day trial in early February.

Street was trying to create a conglomerate of which he would be chief executive, Neiter wrote.

— Raja Abdulrahim

Photo: Orange County Treasurer Chriss Street in 2008. Credit: Marc Martin / Los Angeles Times

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Convicted serial killer Rodney James Alcala asked jurors to spare him the death penalty Tuesday, concluding his defense by playing a portion of “Alice’s Restaurant,” the rambling 18-minute Vietnam War protest song by folk singer Arlo Guthrie.

By assigning the death penalty, “you become a wannabe killer in waiting,” Alcala told jurors before playing a section of the 1960s-era song in which a man being drafted for war tells a military psychiatrist:

"Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth…I mean kill, Kill, kill kill."

As the words reverberated through the Santa Ana courtroom, Robert Samsoe, brother of 12-year-old murder victim Robin Samsoe, stood up and walked out.

Alcala was convicted last month of murdering Samsoe and four Los Angeles County women during a killing rampage in Los Angeles and Orange counties in the late 1970s.

The jury is set to decide whether he should be sentenced to life in prison without parole or condemned to death row. Alcala has twice been sentenced to death for Samsoe’s murder, but each conviction has been overturned.

“This is probably the most important decision you will ever make,” Alcala told the jury. “Choose wisely.”

The jury is set to begin deliberating late Tuesday afternoon.

— Paloma Esquivel reporting from Santa Ana

A Los Angeles Muslim civil rights organization has filed a misconduct complaint and requested an internal investigation of police in Henderson, Nev., after seven Southern California Muslim men were detained and questioned for praying in a parking lot.

The men were driving through Henderson on Dec. 20 when they stopped for food and gas at a shopping center, according to the Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

While stopped, the men prayed next to their vehicle. Two patrol officers soon arrived – followed by a police sergeant, according to a Henderson police spokesman.

“We got a call from a citizen saying that seven suspicious males [were] in a parking lot engaging in suspicious behavior," said Officer Todd Rasmussen, a department spokesman.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations alleges that one of the officers said he was responding to a call about a “bunch of guys doing weird moves."

Muslim prayer is conducted by a series of movements that include bending down and prostrating on the ground.

The officers did a cursory search of the men’s vehicle and questioned them about their jobs, schooling and places of birth for more than half an hour, according to the complaint filed by the Muslim civil rights group.

“The scope and length of the stop was not reasonable under the circumstances, nor did it serve any legitimate investigative purpose,” Ameena Qazi, a staff attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, wrote to Henderson Police Chief Jutta Chambers.

In addition to an investigation, the Muslim civil rights group has asked for disciplinary action against the officers, changes in officer training and compensation for the emotional distress suffered by the Muslim men.

The department’s internal affairs bureau has begun an investigation into the incident, Rasmussen said.

–Raja Abdulrahim

A woman who vanished 14 years ago with her 7-year-old daughter was arrested Tuesday in Monrovia and her daughter was located unharmed, authorities said Friday.

Wendy Hill, 52, was spotted at a local Claim Jumper restaurant and arrested on suspicion of abducting her own daughter.

Jessica Click-Hill, now 22, was contacted by authorities after the arrest. She is believed to be living out of state.

“I’m just so excited that Jessica is found and well and that, physically, she’s fine,” said the girl’s father, Dean Click. “She’s got family who haven’t gotten to be with her, to spend Christmas or Thanksgiving together, so we’re looking forward to reconnecting with each other.”

Click said that since his daughter is an adult, authorities will not release her contact information. "At this point, she will have to come to me,” he said.

The father said he and his ex-wife were in a custody dispute when Hill cleaned out her Redlands apartment in the fall of 1995 and left with the girl.

Click said he lived in Walnut Creek in Northern California at the time and for years had not been able to visit his daughter without a mediator present. He said at the time he’d been accused of molesting his daughter, a claim he denied.

He said he ultimately was exonerated and that his rights were restored for full, unsupervised visits. On his first visit, he said he celebrated by bringing his parents along and taking Jessica out to lunch.

On his second visit, he said he arrived at the apartment complex and found that his ex-wife and daughter had left.

Authorities said Hill changed her name to Gail Jackson and moved from state to state. She was sighted outside Tampa, Fla., and at one point lived in Boston, authorities said.

A warrant was issued for her arrest in 1996 out of Contra Costa County, and the FBI issued its own warrant a year later.

Click said he kept in touch with authorities, but leads were few and far between. Then a tip came in several months ago from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about the mother’s alias and her location, said Sgt. Tom Cashion of the Walnut Creek Police Department .

Hill flew to Los Angeles, apparently for a business meeting, and was picked up Tuesday at the Monrovia restaurant, Cashion said.

She has since been taken to Northern California, where she was being held on $250,000 bail.

Click said he was asked by prosecutors if he wanted to press charges.

“I said ‘yes’ because she’s been a thief and she’s taken away those years that I did not get to spend with my daughter,” Click said.

— Amina Khan

An off-duty Orange County sheriff’s deputy, who allegedly was intoxicated when he crashed his Mercedes-Benz into another vehicle and injured a passenger, had crashed 30 minutes earlier and was allowed to drive from that accident scene by fellow deputies, authorities said Friday.

Sheriff’s deputies were called Monday afternoon to a crash involving Deputy Allan James Waters, 36, and another vehicle outside City Hall in Dana Point. Deputies took a report and permitted Waters keep driving, said Assistant Sheriff Mike James.

About 30 minutes later, at 5:20 p.m., Waters crashed his Mercedes-Benz into a Toyota in Laguna Niguel, causing it to cross the center median and slam into a tree, according to the California Highway Patrol. Dolores Molina, a 78-year-old passenger in the Toyota, suffered minor injuries.

CHP officers said Waters showed signs of being intoxicated and was booked on suspicion of driving under the influence. He was released Wednesday, according to jail records.

Waters is a 13-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Department, assigned to south Orange County, James said.

The department is conducting an internal investigation to determine why Waters was allowed to keep driving, James said.

Waters had been placed on administrative leave about two months ago, but James would not say why. He said the deputy will remain on leave while the investigations are conducted.

–Paloma Esquivel