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Tag: George Gascon

  • Trump’s DOJ hires voting rights lawyer behind L.A. case cited by conspiracy theorists

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    Eric Neff’s tenure at the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office ended after he was placed on administrative leave in 2022 over accusations of misconduct in the prosecution of the CEO of Konnech, a software company that election conspiracy theorists said was in the thrall of the Chinese government.

    Now, three years later, Neff is serving as one of the Trump administration’s top election watchdogs.

    Late last year , his name began appearing on lawsuits filed by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, listed as “acting chief” of the voting section.

    Neff’s appointment, first reported by Mother Jones, has prompted renewed scrutiny of his work at the L.A. County district attorney’s office.

    The Times interviewed several of Neff’s former colleagues, who revealed new details about claims of misconduct that emerged from the Konnech case, and said they were alarmed that someone with almost no background in federal election law was named to a senior position.

    Neff led the 2022 investigation of Konnech, a tiny Michigan company whose software is used by election officials in several major cities. In a criminal complaint, Neff accused the company’s CEO, Eugene Yu, of fraud and embezzlement, alleging the company stored poll worker information on a server based in China, a violation of its contract with the L.A. County registrar’s office.

    Six weeks after a complaint was filed, prosecutors dropped the case and launched an investigation into “irregularities” and bias in the way evidence was presented against Konnech, the D.A.’s office said in a 2022 statement.

    The county paid Konnech $5 million and joined a motion to find Yu factually innocent as part of a legal settlement.

    The internal probe was focused on accusations that Neff misled supervisors at the district attorney’s office about the role of election deniers in his investigation, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the case who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

    Neff also allegedly withheld information about potential biases in the case from a grand jury, according to the two officials.

    In a civil lawsuit filed last year, Neff said the internal review by the D.A.’s office cleared him of wrongdoing. The two officials familiar with the probe who spoke on the condition of anonymity disputed Neff’s characterization of the findings.

    A spokesman for Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman declined to comment or provide the results of the investigation into Neff, which the officials said was conducted by an outside law firm that generated a report on the case. Neff’s attorney also did not provide a copy of the report.

    A Department of Justice spokesman declined to comment.

    Neff’s attorney, Tom Yu — no relation to the Konnech CEO — said his client had no obligation to provide background information about the origins of the case to the grand jury.

    Neff’s appointment comes as President Trump continues to remake the DOJ in his own image by appointing political loyalists with no criminal law background as U.S. attorneys in New Jersey and Virginia and seeking prosecutions of his political enemies, such as former FBI Director James Comey.

    Trump has never recanted his false claim that he won the 2020 election.

    When then-L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón announced the charges against Konnech in 2020, Trump said the progressive prosecutor would become a “National hero on the Right if he got to the bottom of this aspect of the Voting Fraud.”

    The Konnech case was centered on contract fraud, not voter fraud or ballot rigging. Six weeks after the charges were filed, the case disintegrated.

    The D.A.’s office cited Neff’s over-reliance on evidence provided by True the Vote, the group that pushed the unfounded Chinese government conspiracies about Konnech and also appeared in a film that spread claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

    Gascón initially denied that True the Vote was involved in the case, but weeks later, a D.A.’s office spokesman said a report from the group’s co-founder, Gregg Phillips, sparked the prosecution. Phillips testified in court in July 2022 that it was Neff who first contacted him about Konnech.

    The two officials who spoke to The Times said that Neff withheld True the Vote’s role from high-level D.A.’s office staff, including Gascón, when presenting the case.

    Gascón declined an interview request, noting he is named in Neff’s pending lawsuit, which is slated for trial in early 2026.

    Neff’s attorney insisted the case against Konnech was solid.

    “He was let go because Trump tweeted a statement of ‘Go George Go’,” the attorney said. “That’s why Eugene Yu was let go. Because Gascón was so scared he was going to lose votes.”

    Calls and emails to an attorney who previously represented Eugene Yu were not returned.

    In his lawsuit, Neff claimed he had evidence that “Konnech used third-party contractors based in China and failed to abide by security procedures” to protect L.A. County poll worker data. The evidence was not attached as an exhibit in the lawsuit.

    A DOJ spokesperson declined to describe Neff’s job duties. His name appears on a number of lawsuits filed in recent months against states that have refused to turn over voter registration lists to the Trump administration.

    Neff is also involved in a suit filed against the Fulton County clerk’s office in Georgia seeking records related to the 2020 election, records show.

    “We will not permit states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by refusing to abide by our federal elections laws,” Asst. Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, the California conservative who now leads the civil rights division, said in a recent statement. “If states will not fulfill their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will.”

    Dhillon declined to comment through a DOJ spokesman.

    The voting section “enforces the civil provisions of the federal laws that protect the right to vote, including the Voting Rights Act,” according to the DOJ’s website.

    It does not appear that Neff has any background working on cases related to federal election law. He first became an L.A. County prosecutor in 2013 and spent years handling local crime cases out of the Pomona courthouse. He was promoted and reassigned to the Public Integrity Division, which investigates corruption issues, in 2020, according to his lawsuit.

    While there, he handled only two prosecutions related to elections. One was the Konnech case. The other involved allegations of election rigging against a Compton city council member.

    In August 2021, Isaac Galvan, a Democrat, was charged with conspiring to commit election fraud after he allegedly worked to direct voters from outside his council district to cast ballots for him. Galvan won the race by just one vote, but was booted from office when a judge determined at least four improper ballots had been cast.

    Galvan’s criminal case is still pending; he recently pleaded guilty to charges in a separate corruption and bribery case in federal court. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles said there was no overlap between the D.A.’s election rigging case and the bribery case against Galvan. Federal prosecutors are not reviewing the Konnech case, the spokesman said.

    Court filings show Neff was involved in Galvan’s L.A. County case, but the prosecution was led by a more senior attorney.

    Justin Levitt, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School who served in the civil rights division during the Obama administration, said section chiefs normally have decades of experience in the area of law they’re meant to supervise.

    “The biggest problem with somebody with Neff’s history is the giant screaming red flag that involves filing a prosecution based on unreliable evidence,” Levitt said. “That’s not something any prosecutor should do.”

    Neff’s attorney, Yu, scoffed at the idea that his client was not experienced enough for his new role in the Trump administration, or that he was selected due to his involvement in the Konnech case.

    “Eric got the job because he’s qualified to get the job. He didn’t get the job for any other reason. He got the job because he’s an excellent advocate,” Yu said. “I think the Justice Department is very fortunate to have Eric.”

    Times Staff Writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.

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    James Queally

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  • Menendez brothers resentenced to 50 years to life, opening the door for possible parole, judge rules

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    A judge resentenced Erik and Lyle Menendez to 50 years to life in prison for the 1989 murders of their parents, ruling Tuesday the brothers will be eligible for parole. The brothers have been serving life without parole for the killings.The stunning decision came at the end of the first day of what was scheduled to be a two-day hearing about resentencing for the brothers, who were convicted of first-degree murder for the killings in the living room of the family’s Beverly Hills home.Judge Michael Jesic said during the resentencing that a horrific crime was committed, but he was equally shocked by the letters from prison and corrections officers, saying it’s remarkable what the brothers have done.While they are immediately eligible for parole, Jesic said he is not suggesting they should be released, but “one day they should get that chance.”The state parole board and governor must still decide whether to grant parole. A hearing with the board is already scheduled for June 13 as part of a separate bid by the brothers.They’re also seeking clemency from the governor, which could allow for their immediate release, and they have filed a habeas petition for a new trial.“It’s now up to the parole board and the governor of California,” Jesic said. CNN has reached out to the governor’s office and the state parole board for comment on the ruling.The parole board could either deny their request or recommend to the governor that they be granted parole. If the board recommends parole be granted, the decision will go to Gov. Gavin Newsom.In California, the governor has “executive authority to affirm, reverse, or modify any Board decision to grant or deny parole to a convicted murderer,” according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He’ll have 120 days to do that.In 2022, Newsom used that authority to deny parole for Sirhan Sirhan, the man convicted of assassinating Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, after the board recommended Sirhan for parole.Last fall, former Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón recommended resentencing for the brothers, but his successor, Nathan Hochman, has fought against it.“The decision to resentence Erik and Lyle Menendez was a monumental one that has significant implications for the families involved, the community, and the principles of justice,” Hochman said in a statement Tuesday evening. “Our office’s motions to withdraw the resentencing motion filed by the previous administration ensured that the Court was presented with all the facts before making such a consequential decision.”The hearing moved much more quickly than expected. Jesic had given no indication about when or in what form he would rule, acknowledging the complicated nature of the case in which the family members are victims who also support the defense. It was even thought a decision wouldn’t come before the end of proceedings Wednesday, he said.Brothers take ‘full responsibility’ for the murdersThe high-stakes hearing began Tuesday with arguments about whether Erik and Lyle Menendez should be resentenced in the first place.The brothers appeared remotely from prison before the judge made the decision, and both took “full responsibility” for the murders.“I committed an atrocious act against two people who had every right to live, my mom and dad,” Erik said, adding that he “created a crushing sadness” for his family and there was “no excuse” for his behavior.“I will never stop trying to make a difference whether I am inside or outside of prison,” he said.Lyle also admitted to killing his parents, saying he “was immature” and “filled with rage.”“Had I trusted others to help me, I wouldn’t have committed these crimes,” he said. “I didn’t think anyone would believe me about my sexual abuse.”If he was let out of prison, he would “continue to serve sexual abuse victims,” he said.After court, defense attorney Mark Geragos said, “I just know that on a day like today, that redemption is possible.”“The fact is, the Menendez brothers have done remarkable work, and today is a great day after 35 years,” he said. “They are a real family, real people who have lived through unimaginable horrors, and I’m hopeful and glad that we’re one, one huge step closer to bringing the boys home.”The brothers were hoping the judge would reduce that sentence to life with parole; Geragos said earlier Tuesday he hoped the judge would go even further and reduce the charge to voluntary manslaughter, with a sentence of time served.Family members and close supporters testifyFamily members who have long supported the brothers were in court Tuesday, with several taking the stand to plead for the brothers’ release.“We just want this to end,” cousin Anamaria Baralt testified.Relatives say the brothers have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation, and that the severity of the sentence should be revisited because of an evolving understanding of childhood sexual abuse. The brothers have maintained they carried out the murders in self-defense after years of abuse by their father, and continued to say that Tuesday.Diane Hernandez, another cousin who testified Tuesday, lived with the Menendez family in their Beverly Hills home and viewed herself as an older sister to the boys. On the stand, she described how Jose Menendez intimidated and terrorized the house, and testified about his “hallway rule” that when he was with the brothers, no one else could be.“Please be merciful,” Hernandez told the judge. The brothers, she said, “are remarkable human beings at this point.”Hochman, the current Los Angeles County district attorney, had said he was not opposed to resentencing, but doesn’t feel it’s justified yet. The brothers, he says, have “fabricated” their claims of abuse and self-defense and must admit it first.“The Menendezes have had numerous chances to come clean with all their actions and if and when they do, they’ll be ready for resentencing,” Hochman told CNN earlier Tuesday.Prosecutors pressed family members on whether they were aware of the brothers having lied to them over the years.“Were you aware the brothers lied to the family, to law enforcement and to the media?” Seth Carmack asked Tamara Goodell, another cousin. She said she was, but that the brothers never spoke about it to her one way or another and they talk about the murders with her only to say sorry.Baralt was also asked whether the brothers had ever admitted to lying and trying to manipulate the case. She said Lyle had recently admitted asking a girlfriend to lie about his father’s abuse.Retired Judge Jonathan Colby, who knew the brothers through a prison program, also testified they were great inmates, calling them “peacemakers” in prison. Anare Brown, who met the brothers while he was in prison, said they have remorse and insight, and have helped “dozens” of people they were imprisoned with.Another factor Hochman cited in opposing resentencing is the recent finding the brothers would pose a “moderate” risk of violence if released. That came in a pair of comprehensive risk assessments conducted by the state parole board.Both brothers had committed cell phone violations while in prison, he said – Lyle in November 2024 and Erik in January 2025.Prosecutor Habib Balian asked Baralt on Tuesday about the cell phones, and she acknowledged some of her conversations with Lyle had taken place on an illegal burner phone he had in prison.Efforts toward releaseUnlike a new trial, which would focus on the facts of the case, resentencing allowed the judge to consider a variety of factors, including the brothers’ rehabilitative efforts.The brothers have founded a long list of prison programs, with Erik starting at least five, including a support group for disabled and elderly inmates. Lyle founded a massive beautification program, raising more than $250,000 to install greenery to help prison life to resemble the outside world.Besides authority to change parole board decisions, Newsom also has the power to commute the brothers’ sentences, which would immediately free them – but he has so far refrained from doing so. The “comprehensive risk assessments” the judge requested ahead of the resentencing hearing were commissioned by the state’s Board of Parole after Newsom asked them to investigate whether the brothers would pose an “unreasonable risk” to the public if released.Attorneys for the Menendez brothers are also pursuing a new trial, formally known as a habeas corpus petition. Attorneys claim to have new evidence against the brothers’ father, including a 1988 letter from Erik Menendez to a relative referencing the alleged abuse.

    LOS ANGELES —

    A judge resentenced Erik and Lyle Menendez to 50 years to life in prison for the 1989 murders of their parents, ruling Tuesday the brothers will be eligible for parole. The brothers have been serving life without parole for the killings.

    The stunning decision came at the end of the first day of what was scheduled to be a two-day hearing about resentencing for the brothers, who were convicted of first-degree murder for the killings in the living room of the family’s Beverly Hills home.

    Judge Michael Jesic said during the resentencing that a horrific crime was committed, but he was equally shocked by the letters from prison and corrections officers, saying it’s remarkable what the brothers have done.

    While they are immediately eligible for parole, Jesic said he is not suggesting they should be released, but “one day they should get that chance.”

    The state parole board and governor must still decide whether to grant parole. A hearing with the board is already scheduled for June 13 as part of a separate bid by the brothers.

    They’re also seeking clemency from the governor, which could allow for their immediate release, and they have filed a habeas petition for a new trial.

    “It’s now up to the parole board and the governor of California,” Jesic said. CNN has reached out to the governor’s office and the state parole board for comment on the ruling.

    The parole board could either deny their request or recommend to the governor that they be granted parole. If the board recommends parole be granted, the decision will go to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    In California, the governor has “executive authority to affirm, reverse, or modify any Board decision to grant or deny parole to a convicted murderer,” according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He’ll have 120 days to do that.

    In 2022, Newsom used that authority to deny parole for Sirhan Sirhan, the man convicted of assassinating Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, after the board recommended Sirhan for parole.

    Last fall, former Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón recommended resentencing for the brothers, but his successor, Nathan Hochman, has fought against it.

    “The decision to resentence Erik and Lyle Menendez was a monumental one that has significant implications for the families involved, the community, and the principles of justice,” Hochman said in a statement Tuesday evening. “Our office’s motions to withdraw the resentencing motion filed by the previous administration ensured that the Court was presented with all the facts before making such a consequential decision.”

    The hearing moved much more quickly than expected. Jesic had given no indication about when or in what form he would rule, acknowledging the complicated nature of the case in which the family members are victims who also support the defense. It was even thought a decision wouldn’t come before the end of proceedings Wednesday, he said.

    Brothers take ‘full responsibility’ for the murders

    The high-stakes hearing began Tuesday with arguments about whether Erik and Lyle Menendez should be resentenced in the first place.

    The brothers appeared remotely from prison before the judge made the decision, and both took “full responsibility” for the murders.

    “I committed an atrocious act against two people who had every right to live, my mom and dad,” Erik said, adding that he “created a crushing sadness” for his family and there was “no excuse” for his behavior.

    “I will never stop trying to make a difference whether I am inside or outside of prison,” he said.

    Lyle also admitted to killing his parents, saying he “was immature” and “filled with rage.”

    “Had I trusted others to help me, I wouldn’t have committed these crimes,” he said. “I didn’t think anyone would believe me about my sexual abuse.”

    If he was let out of prison, he would “continue to serve sexual abuse victims,” he said.

    After court, defense attorney Mark Geragos said, “I just know that on a day like today, that redemption is possible.”

    “The fact is, the Menendez brothers have done remarkable work, and today is a great day after 35 years,” he said. “They are a real family, real people who have lived through unimaginable horrors, and I’m hopeful and glad that we’re one, one huge step closer to bringing the boys home.”

    The brothers were hoping the judge would reduce that sentence to life with parole; Geragos said earlier Tuesday he hoped the judge would go even further and reduce the charge to voluntary manslaughter, with a sentence of time served.

    Family members and close supporters testify

    Family members who have long supported the brothers were in court Tuesday, with several taking the stand to plead for the brothers’ release.

    “We just want this to end,” cousin Anamaria Baralt testified.

    Relatives say the brothers have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation, and that the severity of the sentence should be revisited because of an evolving understanding of childhood sexual abuse. The brothers have maintained they carried out the murders in self-defense after years of abuse by their father, and continued to say that Tuesday.

    Diane Hernandez, another cousin who testified Tuesday, lived with the Menendez family in their Beverly Hills home and viewed herself as an older sister to the boys. On the stand, she described how Jose Menendez intimidated and terrorized the house, and testified about his “hallway rule” that when he was with the brothers, no one else could be.

    “Please be merciful,” Hernandez told the judge. The brothers, she said, “are remarkable human beings at this point.”

    Hochman, the current Los Angeles County district attorney, had said he was not opposed to resentencing, but doesn’t feel it’s justified yet. The brothers, he says, have “fabricated” their claims of abuse and self-defense and must admit it first.

    “The Menendezes have had numerous chances to come clean with all their actions and if and when they do, they’ll be ready for resentencing,” Hochman told CNN earlier Tuesday.

    Prosecutors pressed family members on whether they were aware of the brothers having lied to them over the years.

    “Were you aware the brothers lied to the family, to law enforcement and to the media?” Seth Carmack asked Tamara Goodell, another cousin. She said she was, but that the brothers never spoke about it to her one way or another and they talk about the murders with her only to say sorry.

    Baralt was also asked whether the brothers had ever admitted to lying and trying to manipulate the case. She said Lyle had recently admitted asking a girlfriend to lie about his father’s abuse.

    Retired Judge Jonathan Colby, who knew the brothers through a prison program, also testified they were great inmates, calling them “peacemakers” in prison. Anare Brown, who met the brothers while he was in prison, said they have remorse and insight, and have helped “dozens” of people they were imprisoned with.

    Another factor Hochman cited in opposing resentencing is the recent finding the brothers would pose a “moderate” risk of violence if released. That came in a pair of comprehensive risk assessments conducted by the state parole board.

    Both brothers had committed cell phone violations while in prison, he said – Lyle in November 2024 and Erik in January 2025.

    Prosecutor Habib Balian asked Baralt on Tuesday about the cell phones, and she acknowledged some of her conversations with Lyle had taken place on an illegal burner phone he had in prison.

    Efforts toward release

    Unlike a new trial, which would focus on the facts of the case, resentencing allowed the judge to consider a variety of factors, including the brothers’ rehabilitative efforts.

    The brothers have founded a long list of prison programs, with Erik starting at least five, including a support group for disabled and elderly inmates. Lyle founded a massive beautification program, raising more than $250,000 to install greenery to help prison life to resemble the outside world.

    Besides authority to change parole board decisions, Newsom also has the power to commute the brothers’ sentences, which would immediately free them – but he has so far refrained from doing so. The “comprehensive risk assessments” the judge requested ahead of the resentencing hearing were commissioned by the state’s Board of Parole after Newsom asked them to investigate whether the brothers would pose an “unreasonable risk” to the public if released.

    Attorneys for the Menendez brothers are also pursuing a new trial, formally known as a habeas corpus petition. Attorneys claim to have new evidence against the brothers’ father, including a 1988 letter from Erik Menendez to a relative referencing the alleged abuse.

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  • Gascón still trails Hochman by wide margin in L.A. D.A. race, poll shows

    Gascón still trails Hochman by wide margin in L.A. D.A. race, poll shows

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    With two days left before election day, a new poll shows Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón has cut slightly into challenger Nathan Hochman’s lead in the race for the incumbent’s seat.

    But Gascón is still down 25 points in the closely watched contest. While that’s an improvement over the 30-point deficit he was staring down in the same poll on Oct. 8, it’s still no better than the 25-point margin he faced in the survey on Aug. 18.

    If the election were held today, 50% of likely voters would vote for Hochman, a former federal prosecutor, and 25% would cast a ballot for Gascón, a former LAPD assistant chief who swept into office in 2020 on a progressive platform of criminal justice reform. That leaves 25% undecided, according to the poll of 1,205 likely L.A. County voters from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times.

    The poll comes near the end of a period of intense politicking by both candidates and their supporters. Since the last Berkeley-LA Times poll results were released on Oct. 8, Gascón and Hochman have held a series of campaign events across the county, addressed hundreds of voters, and faced off in a contentious debate.

    Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll conducted online in English and Spanish between Oct. 22-29, said the slight narrowing of the gap between Gascón and Hochman shouldn’t offer much hope to the incumbent.

    “It’s really not all that significant a change. The voters have pretty much stuck where they were before, with a quarter not really paying much attention,” he said.

    Negative opinions on Hochman increased slightly since last month’s poll, which DiCamillo attributed partly to Hochman having the “scarlet letter” of being a former Republican in deep blue L.A. County, but his unfavorability still pales in comparison to the bad vibes voters seem to get from Gascón. Forty-nine percent of likely voters have a somewhat or strongly unfavorable view of Gascón, compared to just 15% for Hochman, who has also served as a former assistant U.S. attorney general and past president of the L.A. City Ethics Commission.

    “It’s mostly a vote on Gascón,” DiCamillo said. “Hochman is the other candidate in this race and he’s in that fortunate position of running against an unpopular incumbent.”

    About 70% of Gascón’s supporters said partisan affiliation played a role in their decision, and it’s possible undecided voters could trickle toward the incumbent given Democrats hold a massive advantage in voter registration in L.A. County.

    Hochman is running as an independent and has worked to distance himself from his past GOP affiliation, saying he plans to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in this year’s presidential race.

    Jamarah Hayner, Gascón’s chief campaign strategist, said the narrowing deficit is a sign that his campaign’s ground game is impacting the race.

    “What we hear when we talk to voters are serious concerns about Hochman’s history with the Republican Party and the likelihood that he’ll roll back progress on issues like police accountability and wrongful convictions,” she said in a statement. “So every phone call and door knock matters as we get down to the wire.”

    Hochman countered that the poll results are still indicative of an electorate frustrated with Gascón. A former two-term D.A. in San Francisco, Gascón has faced multiple lawsuits from his own staff in L.A. over implementation of his policies. He has also been forced to confront the perception that crime is rising — even as he points to statistics showing declines in some categories.

    “The people of Los Angeles County are fed up with crime and ready for new leadership in the D.A.’s Office,” Hochman said in a statement. “I appreciate that voters want a prosecutor like myself with 34 years’ criminal justice experience who will base decisions on just the facts and law and not on a personal political agenda.”

    Asked about a list of factors in the D.A.’s race, 54% of voters selected “ability to prosecute cases involving violent crimes” as influencing their decision; 48% cited “making reforms to the criminal justice system.”

    But that hasn’t translated into similar levels of support for the incumbent, whom Hochman has repeatedly slammed as soft on crime. Gascón has countered by arguing that Hochman wants to return to mass incarceration and pull back on police reform and accountability.

    Asked if Gascón should have any reason for hope on election day, DiCamillo said: “Unless the polling world is turned upside down, I would say no.”

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    James Queally, Connor Sheets

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  • D.A. says he will make decision on Menendez brothers by week’s end

    D.A. says he will make decision on Menendez brothers by week’s end

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    L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón announced that he would make a decision on the possible resentencing of the Menendez brothers by the end of the week.

    Erik and Lyle Menendez have spent 34 years behind bars after being convicted of the 1989 slaying of their parents, but evidence recently surfaced supporting the brothers’ claims that they were sexually abused by their father, prompting a reexamination of the case.

    Gascón had promised to offer a position on the case by a November hearing but told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Tuesday that he was accelerating this timeline in response to increased public attention.

    The famous case has soared back into the public eye thanks in part to a new Netflix miniseries and documentary that shone a light on the violent past of Jose Menendez, the brothers’ father. It has also sparked a heated public discourse over whether the brothers deserve a new shot at justice and if societal views of rape have evolved since the pair were sentenced to life in prison in 1996.

    Gascón, for his part, told Tapper it was concerning that one of the prosecutors made comments about “how men cannot be raped.”

    “There was certainly implicit bias that took place at that time that perhaps may have had an impact in the way the case was perceived and presented to the jury,” he said.

    He said prosecutors in his office today were split into two camps regarding a possible resentencing.

    “I have a group of people, including some that were involved in the original trial, that are adamant that they should spend the rest of their life in prison and that they were not molested,” he said. “I have other people in the office that believe they probably were molested and that they deserve to have some relief.”

    Gascón said the Menendez brothers were facing two possible forms of relief.

    The first is a petition filed by the brothers’ defense team arguing that new evidence challenges the argument prosecutors made during trial — that the murders were motivated by the boys’ desire to secure their $14-million inheritance and that Jose Menendez did not abuse his sons.

    This evidence includes a letter that attorneys say Erik Menendez wrote about the sexual abuse he endured as a teenager prior to committing the killings as well as new claims brought forward by Roy Rosselló, a former member of the boy band Menudo, who said he too was raped by Jose Menendez.

    The second possible form of relief is a California law that allows for the early release of prisoners who have already served long sentences and are not deemed a threat to the community, Gascón said.

    Gascón said he was considering both options and noted that either one would require a court approval.

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    Clara Harter

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  • L.A. mom charged with murder in death of her 3-month-old baby

    L.A. mom charged with murder in death of her 3-month-old baby

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    A mother from Porter Ranch has been charged with murder in the death of her 3-month-old baby, authorities said Friday.

    Jalyn Simone SmithJermott, 21, faces one count of murder and one felony count of assault on a child causing death, according to the L.A. County district attorney’s office. She is scheduled to be arraigned Monday and faces a maximum sentence of 25 years to life if convicted, prosecutors said.

    Authorities said the baby was found not breathing in his bassinet on Sept. 10 and was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

    Eric Shannon Johnson, 35, who authorities said is the baby’s father, has also been charged with one felony count of child abuse. He pleaded not guilty Monday and his next court appearance is scheduled for Thursday. If convicted as charged, he faces up to six years in prison.

    “Children, especially babies, depend on their parents and loved ones for care and nurturing. It is a profound betrayal when that trust is shattered,” Dist. Atty. George Gascón said in a statement.

    During Johnson’s arraignment on Monday, prosecutors said that the baby suffered third-degree burns and a 4-inch head fracture in August — causing blood to collect between the skull and the surface of the brain, ABC7 reported. Prosecutors alleged that Johnson failed to seek medical help for the baby due to fear of repercussions from the Department of Children and Family Services, according to the station.

    The case is being prosecuted by the district attorney’s Family Violence Division’s Complex Child Abuse Section and investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department.

    “I want to assure the community that we will prosecute these offenders to the fullest extent of the law,” Gascón said. “We owe it to the victim and to all children who deserve a safe and loving environment.”

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    Clara Harter

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  • ‘Kind of bunk’: A closer look at the controversial case against a top L.A. D.A. official

    ‘Kind of bunk’: A closer look at the controversial case against a top L.A. D.A. official

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    One legal expert called it “kind of bunk.” Another said it simply raises more questions than it answers.

    But two months after state prosecutors announced 11 felony charges against a top advisor to Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón, a newly unsealed court record offers a window into the controversial case.

    The basis for the allegations against Gascón advisor Diana Teran had remained opaque since California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced them in April.

    State prosecutors have said only that Teran improperly accessed confidential police records while working as the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department’s constitutional policing advisor in 2018, then improperly used data from those records when she joined the district attorney’s office three years later.

    It’s been unclear whose files she’d allegedly used or how, but after weeks of legal wrangling, an attorney for the Los Angeles Public Press convinced a judge to unseal the affidavit used to justify the arrest warrant.

    The 15-page document, unsealed late Tuesday, shows the core allegations are focused on Teran’s efforts to include more deputies’ names in district attorney’s databases used to track problem officers, much as her attorney had previously speculated.

    But the document also shows that records of disciplinary against at least two of the 11 deputies were already public when she flagged them for inclusion. This week, The Times found the records were easily located through a Google search.

    The identities of the nine other deputies were still redacted in the public version of the affidavit — though Teran’s lawyer said he was “99% confident” their records were already public as well.

    “I can’t believe a case would be filed on this type of evidence,” James Spertus told The Times. “I understated before how bad this case was.”

    On Wednesday, several legal experts who reviewed the affidavit raised questions about the case.

    “It strikes me as we’ve lost the forest for the trees from a broader criminal justice point of view,” said Hanni Fakhoury, a San Francisco attorney with a background in computer crimes. “It’s not like she’s putting people on the database who shouldn’t be there.”

    In an emailed statement, Bonta’s office declined to comment, citing the need to “protect the integrity” of a pending case.

    One law enforcement source familiar with the matter — who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record — said the state is considering dropping two of the charges against Teran, and late Wednesday, Spertus confirmed that was his expectation as well.

    With months to go before the general election — in which Gascón is facing a serious challenger — some have taken the Teran prosecution as a political betrayal, because Bonta endorsed Gascón four years ago. But it’s unclear what, if any, impact the controversy will have on the race.

    The district attorney’s office and the Sheriff’s Department did not immediately offer comment.

    The 15-page affidavit signed by Special Agent Tony Baca of the state Department of Justice traces the investigation into Teran back to a traffic stop involving a different district attorney’s official three years ago.

    The affidavit doesn’t identify that official, but the details line up with the December 2021 arrest of Gascón’s chief of staff, Joseph Iniguez.

    As The Times previously reported, Azusa police pulled over Iniguez’s fiance after he allegedly made an illegal U-turn into a McDonald’s drive-through. Police said Iniguez tried to interfere with the stop, and arrested him on suspicion of public intoxication.

    The police union later alleged that Iniguez threatened to have the arresting officer’s name added to the district attorney’s so-called Brady List, which contains officers with problematic disciplinary histories. The name is a reference to a landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision that requires prosecutors to turn over any evidence favorable to a defendant — including evidence of police misconduct.

    Given the potential conflict of interest, the case against Iniguez was turned over to the California Department of Justice. But state prosecutors never pursued charges, and Iniguez eventually sued the Azusa Police Department in a case that was settled last year.

    According to Baca’s affidavit, the state’s investigation somehow led officials to Teran, who had responsibility for the district attorney’s Brady database. The Department of Justice has not offered further explanation.

    Spertus said previously he believed the investigation into his client was sparked by a complaint from former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who said in 2019 he alerted the FBI and the state Department of Justice about a “massive data breach” involving Teran. At the time, neither agency agreed to take on the case.

    When Teran worked at the Sheriff’s Department under Villanueva’s predecessor, part of her usual duties included accessing confidential deputy records and internal affairs investigations. According to Baca’s affidavit, the department’s secret tracking software logged all of her searches starting in 2018.

    When she joined the district attorney’s office in 2021, Teran allegedly began suggesting the names of deputies who should be added to the Brady list — a practice two prosecutors told Baca was not usual. Then in April 2021, the affidavit says, Teran sent a list of 33 names to another prosecutor for possible inclusion in the databases.

    The affidavit says that several of those names were deputies whose files she’d accessed while working at the Sheriff’s Department, and that she “would not have identified so many of these deputy sheriffs” otherwise. The affidavit also alleges that some of the documents Teran sent along with the names appeared to have been “scanned, copied, or taken directly from the LASD data files.”

    The 11 charges, Baca wrote, reflected the 11 of those 33 deputies whose names did “not appear in either public records request responses or media articles.”

    Susan Seager, the attorney who fought for the record’s release, questioned that reasoning.

    “This is a ridiculously narrow and inaccurate way of determining whether their disciplinary files are confidential,” she wrote in an emailed statement.

    Seager went on to call it “stunning” that Bonta would describe the 11 deputies’ records as confidential, pointing out that two names — Liza Gonzalez and Thomas Negron — were not redacted in the released affidavit.

    “Bonta’s office doesn’t explain why it unsealed those two names,” Seager wrote, “but perhaps that’s because there are two California court of appeal decisions dated 2014 and 2015 that discuss in great detail the disciplinary files of deputies Gonzalez and Negron and how they were fired for dishonesty in in 2010 and 2011, respectively.”

    Other legal experts who reviewed the affidavit were similarly critical.

    “I think it raises more questions than it answers — partly because there are still redactions,” said police oversight expert Michael Gennaco, adding it was “interesting” that the investigator who authored the affidavit didn’t appear to have done a case of this nature before.

    Cristine Soto DeBerry, executive director of the Prosecutors Alliance, panned the “absurdity” of the case.

    “A prosecutor earnestly trying to do her job and track important information should be applauded not punished,” she said in an emailed statement.

    Fakhoury, the attorney with a background in computer crimes, pointed out that state prosecutors don’t appear to be claiming that any of the information Teran flagged for inclusion in the Brady database was incorrect or didn’t belong there.

    “It also appears to me that there’s no allegation that she didn’t have computer access to the records at least when she was employed by the Sheriff’s Department,” he said. “So the unauthorized access is that she took the information she was allowed to have and used it after she left the Sheriff’s Department.”

    Fakhoury said federal prosecutors have tried to argue the theory that “unauthorized access” would include cases akin to Teran’s, in which someone accessed data for a permitted purpose and later used it for a different purpose. But the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected that theory, he said, and California’s Supreme Court has not weighed in on how broadly the state statute should be interpreted.

    “It’s an odd case,” he said. “I think it’s kind of bunk, frankly.”

    Legally, he said, it might not matter whether the records were already public —though that could raise larger questions about the decision to prosecute Teran.

    He wondered whether it might have a “chilling effect” on other prosecutors focused on police accountability: “Is this what we really want this kind of statute and this kind of investigation to go after?”

    Times staff writers James Queally and Richard Winton contributed to this report.

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    Keri Blakinger

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  • Man charged with sexual assault of two women in Angeles National Forest

    Man charged with sexual assault of two women in Angeles National Forest

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    Los Angeles County prosecutors charged a 40-year-old man with sexually assaulting two women in his van in a secluded part of the Angeles National Forest earlier this week.

    Eduardo Sarabia was charged Wednesday with one count of forcible rape and one count of forcible oral copulation, according to court records. Sarabia is accused of raping a woman after driving her to a concealed area of the forest on Sunday and then sexually assaulting a second woman in the same remote area on Monday, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón’s office announced in a news release. The incidents took place along Highway 39 between the hours of 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. authorities said.

    “The horrific and violent sexual assault that these two survivors endured by the alleged suspect is deeply troubling and incomprehensible. Our thoughts are with the victims during this tremendously difficult time,” Gascón said in a statement on Thursday.

    The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is asking for the public’s help to find any additional victims. Based on the circumstances surrounding the case, investigators believe there could be more unidentified victims. The Sheriff’s Department released images of Sarabia and his windowless white-paneled van.

    “I want to emphasize that this is an ongoing investigation, and there may be additional victims who have yet to come forward. I urge anyone who has been affected by similar incidents to contact law enforcement and seek available resources,” Gascón said.

    Sarabia was arraigned in a Pomona courtroom Wednesday and is due back in court June 27. Anyone with information about this case can contact the Sheriff’s Department, Special Victims Bureau at 877-710-5273 or by email at specialvictimsbureau@lasd.org.

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    Nathan Solis

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  • LAPD detective charged with hit-and-run after off-duty crash on 5 Freeway

    LAPD detective charged with hit-and-run after off-duty crash on 5 Freeway

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    A Los Angeles Police Department detective has been charged with hit-and-run exactly one year after she allegedly rear-ended another vehicle on the 5 Freeway while off-duty.

    Prosecutors allege that the detective, Stephanie Carrillo, 47, crashed an unmarked LAPD vehicle into a civilian’s vehicle on May 3, 2023, damaging its rear. Both parties initially pulled over, but Carrillo allegedly got back in her vehicle and fled the crash scene, according to a statement from the L.A. County district attorney’s office.

    Later that day, Carrillo filed a report at a California Highway Patrol station in Orange County stating that she had been in a hit-and-run, according to the statement.

    “Irresponsible and unlawful behavior by law enforcement as allegedly exhibited by Officer Carrillo not only violates public trust but goes against the oath taken by law enforcement to keep the public safe,” said Dist. Atty. George Gascón. The CHP’s East Los Angeles station investigated the incident.

    The LAPD said in a statement Friday that Carrillo has worked for the department for 24 years.

    “The Los Angeles Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division initiated an administrative investigation into this allegation, and Carrillo was relieved of her police powers pending the resolution of the administrative investigation,” the statement said. “With the oversight of the Inspector General, the department will ensure administrative accountability in this matter.”

    Carrillo’s arraignment on a single charge of misdemeanor hit-and-run is scheduled for May 22 at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in L.A. She faces up to six months in jail, if convicted. It was not immediately clear from court records Friday evening if Carrillo had retained a lawyer.

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    Connor Sheets

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  • Gascón faces off against 11 challengers in hotly contested L.A. D.A. race

    Gascón faces off against 11 challengers in hotly contested L.A. D.A. race

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    Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón is expected to advance to a November runoff, but it’s too early to tell who his challenger will be.

    While polls show Gascón has grown deeply unpopular with a significant portion of L.A. County residents, polls and local political observers have suggested his strong progressive base will carry him out of a crowded primary field replete with challengers who spent more time attacking him than they did defining their own candidacies.

    Four years after taking office on a popular criminal justice reform platform in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, Gascón found himself facing a different political landscape in this primary cycle. Multiple polls showed the incumbent with a disapproval rating over 50%, and a mix of frustrations with his policies and his perceived vulnerability led 11 candidates to challenge him.

    While Gascón has undoubtedly had some successes in his term — including stepped up efforts to exonerate wrongfully convicted persons and an increased focus on prosecutions of police officers accused of misconduct and excessive force — his term has been rocked by public disputes with his own prosecutors and a litany of civil suits that have already cost the county roughly $7 million. Some of his reforms were deemed illegal by a judge in 2021 and critics have also blamed his policies directly for heinous crimes.

    Property and violent crime rose in L.A. County from 2019 to 2022, according to California Department of Justice data. But other counties with more traditional prosecutors saw violent crime surge at much higher rates in the same time frame, a data point Gascón often stresses. LAPD data also show homicides and robberies have declined over the past two years and criminologists argue its disingenuous to solely blame a district attorney’s policies for crime spikes or declines.

    The field chasing Gascón includes four prosecutors from within his own office, three judges and two former federal prosecutors. With resumes and messages that largely mirrored one another — 10 of the 11 challengers promised to roll back nearly all of the policies Gascón announced during his inaugaration speech — it became hard for a challenger to stand out from the pack.

    Nathan Hochman, a former federal prosecutor who unsuccessfully ran for state attorney general in 2022 as a Republican, raised the most money in the primary. Now running as an independent, Hochman promised to “get politics out” of an office he says was made increasingly partisan by Gascón and the broader progressive prosecutor movement nationwide.

    While he favors alternative sentencing outcomes for nonviolent defendants struggling with mental illness or drug addiction, Hochman also promised to seek the death penalty in some cases and make use of sentencing enhancements for gang and gun crimes, measures that can sometimes double the prison time for certain defendants. Critics have argued enhancements are disproportionately used against people of color.

    Running as a moderate who can balance reform with justice, ex-federal prosecutor Jeff Chemerinsky was one of lone candidates to embrace criminal justice reform while challenging Gascón. Chemerinsky disagrees with much of what Gascón has done, but also said he’d largely eschew trying juveniles as adults and had serious reservations about the use of gang enhancements. Such positions have led other challengers to describe him as “mini-Gascón.”

    Other top challengers include Deputy Dist. Attys. Jonathan Hatami and Eric Siddall, and Superior Court Judge Debra Archuleta.

    Hatami was one of the three biggest fundraisers in the field, and the pugnacious prosecutor’s long history of publicly criticizing Gascón and his involvement with attempts to recall the D.A. made him popular with victims’ rights advocates. He was the only candidate to break from the pack in a USC/Dornsife poll earlier this year, snaring 8% of the vote and finishing a clear second to Gascón. Along with Archuleta, he received the endorsement of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the largest law enforcement union in L.A. County.

    Siddall, a veteran prosecutor of cases involving gang crime and attacks on police officers, bagged the endorsement of the union representing rank-and-file prosecutors and has also frequently antagonized the district attorney through the union. Siddall was also running as a moderate, claiming to represent a “new generation of prosecutors” who want to balance reform and aggressive prosecution of violent criminals, but he and Chemerinsky often found themselves fighting for the same airspace.

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    James Queally, Sonja Sharp

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  • Los Angeles police searching for assailant in three fatal shootings of homeless people

    Los Angeles police searching for assailant in three fatal shootings of homeless people

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    Los Angeles police have launched a search for a killer suspected of fatally shooting three homeless people in separate incidents around the city, police officials announced Friday.

    All three killings occurred in the early morning hours over a three-day span in November, Police Chief Michel Moore said at an afternoon news conference at police headquarters downtown, where he was joined by Dist. Atty. George Gascón and Mayor Karen Bass.

    “This is a killer preying on the unhoused,” Bass said.

    The first victim was shot about 3:10 am. on Nov. 26 in an alley near the intersection of 110th Street and Vermont Avenue in South L.A., police said. The man, identified by police as Jose Bolanos, 37, was found dead with a gunshot wound.

    The following day, Mark Diggs, 62, was shot and killed about 4:45 a.m. in the 600 block of Mateo Street. Moore said Diggs was pushing a shopping cart and had stopped to plug in his phone and was about to go to sleep when the assailant approached him and shot him.

    The third shooting occurred on Nov. 29 about 2:30 a.m. near the intersection of Avenue 18 and Pasadena Avenue in the Lincoln Heights area, where the body of a 52-year-old adult Latino man was discovered.

    Los Angeles police are seeking help to find a suspect and a vehicle possibly involved in the death of three people.

    (Image courtesy of the Los Angeles Police Department)

    Police did not identify the victim pending notification of his family.

    Moore said in all three instances the victims were alone and out in the open.

    “Each one was shot and killed as they slept” or were preparing to turn in for the night, Moore said.

    Moore said the department has set up a task force of investigators that is working 24/7 to apprehend the killer.

    Bass urged the city’s homeless residents not to sleep alone and to seek available services. She said homeless outreach workers have been informing those living on the street about the killings and the search for the killer.

    “To the person responsible for this, I say this: We will find you, we will catch you and you will be held accountable.”

    “An assault on one of us is an assault on all of us,” Gascón said.

    Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report.

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    Ruben Vives

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  • DeSantis slams L.A. County D.A. George Gascón in debate with Newsom

    DeSantis slams L.A. County D.A. George Gascón in debate with Newsom

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    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis lambasted L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón during a Thursday night Fox News debate with Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    In a spat over crime in California and Florida, DeSantis repeatedly pointed to Gascón, who has sought to overhaul L.A. County’s criminal justice system since he entered office in 2020.

    “They are on an ideological joyride to let people out of prison,” DeSantis said. “Gavin’s buddy in Los Angeles, Gascón, he doesn’t even prosecute them,” he added, continuing that he had heard from people in California who were scared to go shopping for fear of getting mugged.

    “Gavin Newsom has not lifted a finger to rein in Gascón in L.A.,” DeSantis said, arguing that the county has “collapsed” because the district attorney “is not enforcing the law.”

    A Times analysis of the L.A. County district attorney’s office’s filing rates showed that Gascón actually prosecuted felonies at a near-identical rate to his predecessor, Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey, during his first two years in office. Gascón did, however, file only half as many misdemeanor cases as Lacey after barring prosecutors from filing low-level charges for crimes such as trespassing and simple drug possession.

    Avoiding those low-level charges was part of Gascón’s effort to keep people experiencing mental illness or homelessness out of jail and instead steer them into diversion programs for counseling, treatment and rehabilitation.

    Violent crime, robberies and aggravated assaults have gone up in L.A. County during Gascón’s tenure, according to California Department of Justice statistics. But criminologists have noted similar crime increases in parts of the state overseen by traditional prosecutors, raising doubts about any link between Gascón’s policies and a crime surge.

    Violent crime in the city of L.A. was down nearly 7% in the first nine months of 2023 relative to the same period last year, according to Los Angeles Police Department statistics.

    One of Gascón’s proposals was to reduce the length of prison sentences for up to 30,000 people in California prisons. Few people have actually had their sentences changed, a Times analysis concluded.

    Gascón has received blowback on his policies since entering office, but survived two failed recall efforts last year. He faces a crowded field of challengers in next year’s election.

    Times staff writer James Queally contributed to this report.

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    Faith E. Pinho

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  • Under attack at his home, he fired his concealed handgun. So why was his gun permit suspended?

    Under attack at his home, he fired his concealed handgun. So why was his gun permit suspended?

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    Two armed men in masks charged at Vince Ricci just as he was walking to his front door, one pointing a handgun at his chest. Video shows Ricci dropping his keys and a to-go drink and, in seconds, pulling a handgun from his waist and shooting as the men ran away.

    In interviews and videos, he said he wasn’t just trying to protect himself but also his wife and 5-month-old daughter, who were inside the house. Now the 37-year-old says his concealed weapon permit has been suspended, making him vulnerable and unable to protect his family.

    In short order, Ricci became a poster child for 2nd Amendment advocates and conservative figures. On Friday, he appeared on Fox News‘ “The Ingraham Angle.” On Saturday, he was featured in a video for the National Rifle Assn. in which he criticizes California Democratic elected figures including Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón and “leftist gun grabbers.”

    Gascón and California have been common targets of criticism for conservative pundits, with claims of increased crime and violence, even though statistics show violent crime has declined citywide compared with last year.

    One Texas lawmaker suggested, on social media, that Ricci find a real estate agent and move to Texas.

    “They would rather leave me out there to dry and let my family become a statistic,” Ricci said in the NRA video, which has been viewed more than 60,000 times.

    What’s unclear is why Ricci’s concealed carry weapon permit, also known as a CCW, was suspended in the first place.

    According to the LAPD — which stressed on social media that the department had neither issued nor revoked Ricci’s permit — the attempted robbery occurred at about 7:30 p.m. in the 400 block of Plymouth Boulevard.

    That’s when one of two individuals in dark clothing and masks ran toward him as he stood at his front door and pointed a gun. Ricci quickly armed himself and, according to home security video, shot at the fleeing suspect at least six times.

    Ricci was not injured, and police said it was unclear whether the assailants were injured from the gunfire. The two people who jumped over a wall into Ricci’s home, and a third man believed to be a driver, are still at large, according to an LAPD news release of the incident.

    In an emailed statement, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that Ricci’s permit, which the department issued, had been suspended but added that the department had been in contact with him and his family about permit protocols.

    “There are avenues for Mr. Ricci to re-apply for his permit,” the statement reads. “The CCW permit may be immediately reinstated as long as the permit holder has also followed all required CCW policies (i.e. proper notifications, use of properly documented weapon, etc.).”

    The statement does not give a specific reason why the permit was suspended, or when, only that “the Sheriff’s Department must follow the DOJ parameters in accordance with the law.”

    “We recognize that this incident was extremely traumatic and startling for the Ricci family, and we hope the individuals responsible for this crime are arrested and held accountable,” the statement from the Sheriff’s Department reads.

    Ricci did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    In his video for the NRA, Ricci also does not specify a reason, only that, “as a result of that night, the California government has temporarily suspended my ability to conceal carry.”

    On Friday, Ricci was interviewed by Fox News conservative commentator Laura Ingraham but did not answer why the permit was suspended.

    Instead, Colin Noir, a gun rights activist and a prominent and popular commentator for the NRA, stepped in instead.

    “What’s the reason?” Ingraham asked.

    “I mean, I think it’s pretty blatant what the reason is,” Noir said. “California has had a notorious reputation for being anti-gun and being anti- anybody carrying a firearm unless you’re part of the government somehow.”

    Also on Fox News, Ricci was quoted as saying he was told the permit was revoked because of him “yelling” at LAPD officers who were investigating the robbery and shooting three days after it happened.

    Neither the Sheriff’s Department nor an LAPD spokesperson responded to The Times’ questions regarding Ricci’s allegation that the permit was revoked because he yelled or otherwise criticized the investigation.

    In September, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a bill that added new limitations around carrying firearms in public. For example, according to the bill, people legally carrying a firearm must carry the permit, not impede an officer in their duty, and must display the license and the listed firearm to police “for the purpose of inspecting the firearm.”

    On Fox News, Ricci said he has one handgun, a Glock, registered as his concealed carry weapon, but he never thought he’d have to use it.

    “I acquired it the right way, they granted me the right to carry, now they’re stripping me with the men at large that were looking for me,” he said. “The sheriff’s attempt now at coming after me is petty.”

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    Salvador Hernandez

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  • Driver charged in 2022 wrong-way crash that killed and injured L.A. County sheriff’s recruits

    Driver charged in 2022 wrong-way crash that killed and injured L.A. County sheriff’s recruits

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    The man behind the wheel in a horrific wrong-way crash outside an L.A. County Sheriff’s Department training facility, which left one person dead, has been charged with manslaughter, prosecutors said Thursday.

    Nicholas Gutierrez, 23, surrendered Thursday and faces charges of vehicular manslaughter and reckless driving that caused injuries in the November 2022 wreck, prosecutors said. Gutierrez plowed into a group of recruits who were on a training run in South Whittier, near the Sheriff’s Department’s STARS Center training academy.

    More than two dozen recruits were struck, and five suffered critical injuries. Earlier this year, 27-year-old Alejandro Martinez died of his injuries. He had been hospitalized and on a ventilator for nearly eight months.

    “There is nothing we can do to bring back the life of young Alejandro Martinez … he will never be back with his family,” said Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón.

    Photos of Darrell Cunningham and Jorge Soriano are displayed at the news conference Thursday.

    (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

    If convicted of all charges, Gutierrez faces 12 years in state prison. The district attorney announced the charges immediately following another news conference about a vehicle crash that claimed the life of a law enforcement officer. Prosecutors also brought murder charges Thursday against 20-year-old Brian David Oliveri, the driver who slammed into a vehicle in Northridge last week that claimed the life of off-duty LAPD Officer Darrell Cunningham.

    At the time of the 2022 crash outside the training facility, then-Sheriff Alex Villanueva claimed that Gutierrez intentionally slammed his car into the recruits, saying his department’s investigation had turned up probable cause to file attempted murder charges.

    But Gutierrez’s lawyer, Alexandra Kazarian, said her client simply fell asleep behind the wheel on his way to work. A breathalyzer test conducted at the scene confirmed Gutierrez was not under the influence of alcohol.

    Prosecutors said Thursday that they were “exploring a claim of drowsiness,” but would not discuss the exact cause of the crash. Gascón said the evidence did not support allegations that Gutierrez speeded up while careening toward the recruits.

    Gutierrez comes from a law-enforcement family, Kazarian previously told The Times. His father is a retired corrections officer and he has relatives who worked in the Los Angeles Police Department, the California Highway Patrol and the Sheriff’s Department.

    “He harbors absolutely no animosity toward law enforcement,” Kazarian said.

    In an interview with KNBC-TV Channel 4 last year, Gutierrez said the crash was an accident and that he wished “it never happened.”

    On the morning of Nov. 16, roughly eight weeks into the 76-member academy’s training regimen, the group was on a four-mile training run, moving in formation. Around 6:30 a.m., a mile into their run, those at the front of the group spotted a Honda CR-V approaching.

    L.A. County sheriff's cadets were injured Wednesday when a driver plowed into them during a morning run in Whittier.

    The aftermath of the crash in which a group of L.A. County sheriff’s cadets was struck in Whittier in November 2022.

    (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

    The SUV veered to the wrong side of the road and into the group. The runners at the front were able to get out of the way before the SUV struck others and crashed into a lamppost.

    Authorities said several of the recruits suffered broken bones and severe head trauma. Villanueva described the scene as an “airplane wreck.”

    Villanueva’s successor, Sheriff Robert Luna, said the crash forever altered Academy Class 464, noting that several of those struck suffered life-altering injuries.

    “Some of them dreamed of becoming police officers and deputy sheriffs,”Luna said. “Some of them aren’t going to be able to do that.”

    A native Angeleno, Martinez made it his life’s mission to be a dedicated public servant, serving as a member of the Army National Guard before applying to become a deputy sheriff, those who knew him said.

    He was sworn in as a full deputy soon after the crash.

    “He was a great recruit,” said his former drill instructor, Victor Rodriguez. “He wasn’t one to draw attention to himself, which spoke volumes. He had this maturity, this life experience. He was an example of a recruit for other ones that are new to this type of career, new to this structure.”

    William Preciado, a former California Highway Patrol officer whose daughter Lauren Preciado was seriously injured in the crash, said of the charges: “We knew this day was coming. We just didn’t know when.”

    “It gives me, I guess, a sense of satisfaction that some kind of justice will be forthcoming for this individual,” he said.

    Preciado said his daughter was planning to follow in his footsteps by getting into law enforcement, a career that is now in jeopardy.

    “The incident changed many lives. Not only my daughter’s but the other individuals that were trying to pursue their future,” he said. “That’s a lasting impact for the Martinez family who lost their son. My daughter is on a long road to recovery.”

    With the injury his daughter sustained, Preciado said, “I don’t really know that she’ll be effective to the point that she can be gainfully employed anywhere, let alone law enforcement.”

    “A broken bone will heal, the skin may heal itself as well,” he said. “But how do you fix a crushed dream? How do you do that? That was my daughter’s dream.”

    In the Northridge case, Gascón said Oliveri was under the influence of alcohol and driving at speeds above 100 mph when he ran a red light and slammed into Cunningham’s vehicle. The officer and his passenger, Jorge Soriano, died at the scene.

    Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon comforts Eddrinna Cunningham, mother of LAPD Officer Darrell Cunningham

    L.A. Police Chief Michel Moore speaks at the news conference as D.A. George Gascón comforts Eddrinna Cunningham.

    (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

    Oliveri was charged with two counts of murder, two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and one count of driving under the influence and causing injury. If convicted of all charges, Oliveri faces life in prison, Gascón said.

    An off-duty San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy who was in the car with Cunningham was seriously injured, according to LAPD Chief Michel Moore. The deputy suffered a broken pelvis and remains hospitalized but is expected to survive, Moore said. Soriano was also planning to join the academy soon.

    Cunningham had nearly 5 years on the job and in talking with everyone who knew him, he lit up a room … he lived to be a member of this organization. He lived a life of service,” Moore said. “At a time when we struggle to identify people who are willing to step into this profession, to have lost his life, to have lost Darrell’s life, in such a senseless fashion, is beyond words.”

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    James Queally, Brittny Mejia

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  • Woman at center of Gascón juvenile sentencing controversy takes plea deal in Kern County killing

    Woman at center of Gascón juvenile sentencing controversy takes plea deal in Kern County killing

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    Hannah Tubbs — whose prosecution on sexual assault charges in 2021 marked one of the biggest controversies of L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón’s first term — pleaded no contest Tuesday in the killing of a homeless man in Kern County, prosecutors said.

    Tubbs, 27, entered the plea to charges of voluntary manslaughter, robbery and witness intimidation in the 2019 killing of Michael Clark near Lake Isabella, according to Kern County Dist. Atty. Cynthia Zimmer.

    Prosecutors filed murder charges against Tubbs last May, months after Gascón faced criticism for allowing Tubbs to be tried as a juvenile for the sexual assault of a child inside an Antelope Valley restaurant in 2014.

    Tubbs was 17 at the time of the assault but wasn’t linked to the attack until 2019, after police obtained her DNA when she was arrested in another state. By the time the case worked its way into an L.A. County courtroom, Gascón had been elected on a reform platform that included a blanket ban on trying juveniles as adults.

    The case exploded into a national debate over criminal justice reform early last year when Fox News obtained recordings of Tubbs bragging about receiving a light sentence on a jailhouse phone call and making crass remarks about her victim, who was 10 at the time of the attack.

    The Times later obtained law enforcement documents largely corroborating the Fox report and Gascón even questioned whether Tubbs, who is a transgender woman, had lied about her gender identity in order to receive lenient treatment.

    “It’s unfortunate that she gamed the system,” Gascón said in an interview with The Times last year. “If I had to do it all over again, she would be prosecuted in adult court.”

    The case led Gascón to backpedal on his juvenile policy and create a committee that could approve requests to try juveniles as adults. The panel has approved only one such case, but a judge later ruled that defendant should still be tried as a juvenile, citing changes in California law.

    The L.A. County district attorney’s office did not respond to an inquiry about Tubbs’ plea. Kern County prosecutors were investigating the homicide at the same time Tubbs’ case was playing out in L.A. County last year.

    In the Kern County case, Tubbs was charged with killing Clark after an argument at a homeless encampment where the two were living in April 2019. Clark’s body was not found until four months later. The local medical examiner’s office ruled that his drowning death was not an accident or suicide, according to Kern County Deputy Dist. Atty. Cole Sherman, who prosecuted Tubbs.

    Sherman said Clark also suffered broken ribs, indicating a struggle.

    Tubbs faces up to 15 years in prison at sentencing, according to Zimmer, who called the defendant a “dangerous individual.”

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    James Queally

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  • Catalina Island diner owners underpaid workers, required 18-hour days, D.A. says

    Catalina Island diner owners underpaid workers, required 18-hour days, D.A. says

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    Los Angeles County prosecutors charged the owners of a popular old-school Catalina Island diner and pizza restaurant with withholding over a half a million dollars in wages from their employees and expecting them to work 18-hour days.

    The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office announced Thursday it had charged Jack Arthur Tucey, 80, and Yueh Mei Tucey, 75, with felony grand labor and wage theft, among other charges. The Tuceys, a married couple who run three restaurants and a hotel in Avalon, face a maximum sentence of 22 years in prison if convicted, according to prosecutors.

    The district attorney’s office said the couple would have their workers rotate around their Avalon businesses, regularly working 12-hour days or longer. For the overtime, Dist. Atty. George Gascón said employees would be paid only minimum wage — a violation of California law requiring that workers earn above their hourly rates when they work days longer than eight hours.

    Prosecutors also accused the couple of filing fraudulent statements with the state’s Employment Development Department, concealing the real wages they were paying to their workers.

    “What you will see in this case is individuals that for years have been operating in Catalina Island exploiting many workers,” Gascón said at a news conference Thursday.

    Gascón said the office has identified 18 workers who were victims of wage theft, many of them immigrants who were living on the couple’s property. He said he believed additional workers would soon come forward.

    The Tuceys were arrested Thursday, according to the district attorney’s office, and could not be reached for comment.

    Since 2001, the couple have owned multiple businesses across the tourist town, according to prosecutors, who said they now own a hotel and three restaurants: Original Jack’s Country Kitchen, Mrs. T’s Chinese Kitchen and Avalon Bake Shop and Original Antonio’s Pizzeria and Deli.

    Lilia García-Brower, the California labor commissioner, said her team’s investigation into the owners began in 2017 and determined that everyone from busboys to maintenance workers had been systemically underpaid, with some forced to clock out prematurely in the payroll system to avoid their overtime hours getting documented.

    If they left the job, she said, they faced eviction, which deterred employees from confronting the owners.

    “Many of these employees were also living in the properties owned by these defendants, which placed them in a particularly vulnerable situation,” García-Brower said. “All the workers lived on Catalina Island, they were geographically isolated and feared being blacklisted if speaking up.”

    She said last month her team conducted an audit of wages paid to the 18 workers interviewed and found they were owed more than $1 million in unpaid wages from 2008 to 2022.

    Court records show Jack Tucey had been sued twice over failure to pay wages. In July 2016, his handyman, Francisco Rodriguez, alleged he’d often worked six days a week but was never paid an overtime rate. In January 2021, two employees of Original Jack’s Country Kitchen — Lin Mei Qian and Xiv Peng Sonog — sued the couple, alleging they had never received overtime pay or the meal periods they were entitled to under California law.

    It’s the second case to come out of the district attorney’s Labor Justice Unit, formed in September to prosecute wage theft cases. That month, the office filed charges against owners of two garment businesses in South Los Angeles, who allegedly paid workers as little as $6 an hour.

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    Rebecca Ellis

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  • Letter: ‘George Gascón is Unfit for the Office of Los Angeles District Attorney’

    Letter: ‘George Gascón is Unfit for the Office of Los Angeles District Attorney’

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    LOS ANGELES, February 27, 2020 (Newswire.com)
    –
    ​​​​​​The following is an open letter from Liberals Against Gascón, a social media page founded by Chris Bucchere.

    Democrat George Gascón is running for District Attorney in Los Angeles and claims to be a progressive criminal justice reformer. But is he? Not according to Liberals Against Gascón, whose founding member wrote the book Bikelash: How San Francisco created America’s first bicycle felon. Gascón, when he was San Francisco’s D.A., used Bucchere’s bicycle accident to send a message to the cycling community, in the process refusing to acknowledge what the defendant believed was exculpatory evidence. In choosing L.A.’s next D.A., Bucchere asks voters to look past Gascón’s messaging and instead pay attention to his record.

    1. Gascón was a Republican before moving to San Francisco.
    2. He has never tried a case in a courtroom.
    3. Gascón failed to get endorsements from anyone who worked closely with him in San Francisco. A prosecutor he supervised, Nancy Tung — as well as Interim D.A. Suzy Loftus, the D.A.’s union of Los Angeles, and the SF Police Union — all wrote scathing reviews of his performance. San Francisco Mayor London Breed and City Attorney Dennis Herrera endorsed the incumbent over Gascón.
    4. In a sworn video affidavit, the San Francisco Police Union president accused Gascón of using offensive racial slurs directed at Blacks and Mexicans. 
    5. ​Gascón said that members of San Francisco’s Afghanistan and Yemen communities “could park a van in front of the Hall of Justice and blow it up.”
    6. Gascón never once brought charges against any SFPD officers in the high-profile shooting deaths of five people of color in San Francisco: Alex Nieto, Mario Woods, Amilcar Perez Lopez, Luis Gongora, and Jessica Williams. The SFPD shot and killed 24 civilians while Gascón was DA—13 of them Black or Latino—and he did not file a single charge against any of the officers involved.

    To send a message to the city’s cycling community, Gascón pursued unprecedented felony vehicular manslaughter charges for Bucchere’s bicycle accident. “I finally understood Gascón’s view of politics over justice,” said Bucchere, “when he called a press conference after my sentencing and said, ‘This was not so much about Mr. Bucchere. This was about preventing future collisions and death.’”

    L.A. needs a principled D.A. who will prosecute cases according to the law, not to fulfill a political agenda and advance their career.

    Source: Liberals Against Gascon

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