Orange County News Blog

Lorey James

Brenice Lee Smith and his family in Kathmandu, circa 2000

Brenice Lee Smith, the last remaining fugitive from the once-infamous 1972 Brotherhood of Eternal Love case, will be set free from Theo Lacy Prison tonight, having pleaded guilty this morning to transporting hashish from Afghanistan to Orange County between 1966 and 1972. Although questions remain about whether justice was served, one thing can be said with certainty: history has finally shut the doors on longest, most bizarre saga in the annals of Orange County criminal justice: the case of the so-called "Hippia Mafia."

​Here's government-sponsored motivation for you to make it safely to Thanksgiving. The Orange County Sheriff's Department announced this morning that its "DUI Task Force" will conduct "roving patrols" in Stanton and Villa Park on Friday, November 20. Deputies will target areas that attract drunks and collisions.

​What happens when just before being released from duty at Camp Pendleton for the weekend, you allegedly: participate in a mandatory safety briefing that covers the dangers of drunken driving, including the tidbit that should you get behind the wheel while drunk, you'll likely kill someone; go on to chug alcohol for two hours; tell everyone you're going to drive home to Santa Ana; pass out in your barracks; have your car keys removed from your pocket as you're passed out by a lance corporal; wake up, demand your keys, become belligerent, throw trash and break your cell phone against a wall; ask a lower-rank Marine to fetch your keys; pull rank on the same Marine, forcing him to give you your keys; drive your Dodge Caliber 75 mph in a 50 mph zone on MacArthur Boulevard in Newport Beach; fail to stop of slow down near the intersection of Jamboree Road; hit an Aston Martin waiting at the red light with a radiologist in the driver's seat and his wife is in the passenger seat; cause the car to spin out before coming to a stop, resulting in the doctor's life being taken a half hour later and the woman suffering from bleeding in her brain and back injuries; break your ankle in the same wreck; omit an odor of alcohol, slur your speech, rock red, watery eyes and have a blood alcohol level of .12 percent three hours after the crash?

If you're 22-year-old Lance Corporal Elijah Leigh Ferguson, you face trial today in your hometown of Santa Ana on murder charges.

The Orange County District Attorney's office release follows . . .

"Howdy ho!"

​Some day, an enterprising reporter is going to find out what costs a city more: fixing the pipes, pumps and stations that break down and cause raw sewage to spill all over town, or paying the fines levied when the shit really hits the land.

Of course, since taxpayers get stuck with the bills either way, city officials probably don't give a you-know-what.

And so, we discover the City of Laguna Beach just got popped $70,680 from state regulators today for the release of 590,000 gallons of untreated sewage to the Pacific Ocean on Oct. 29, 2008.

What has Dick been doing?

​The County of Orange's lawyer is calling on the California Attorney General to investigate potential illegal deals that could give private control of the $100 million-plus Orange County Fairgrounds property in Costa Mesa to well-connected political insiders.

In an Oct. 30, 2009, letter to Gary Schons--the state AG's top-ranking official in Southern California--County Counsel Nicholas S. Chrisos writes, "it appears" that the public board of the state-owned fairgrounds began violating open meeting and conflict-of-interest laws in July by secretly forming a private foundation to bid on the property, secretly naming themselves to the foundation's private board and hiring--without a bid process--former State Senator Dick Ackerman's law firm as the private entity's consultant.

The fair board was so concerned about secrecy it asked Ackerman's Nossaman, Guthner, Knox and Eliot to create the foundation in July--"eight days before the [law firm's] consulting contract was approved" in public, according to Chrisos.

​Alonso Jose Lopez, a 31-year-old resident of Vista in San Diego County, got Navel Gazing mentions here and here, but he'd no doubt prefer those over the his latest mention: in an Orange County grand jury indictment unsealed today that identifies him as one of nine San Diego criminal street gang members who are among 11 people charged in a recent crime spree in Tustin, Laguna Beach and San Diego County.

Photo from Ryan Sheckler's MySpace page

Ryan Sheckler with one of the spoils of his success.

​Matthew Mercuro, the 36-year-old chief financial officer for fellow San Clemente resident Ryan Sheckler's businesses, was arrested and charged today with embezzling more than $365,000 from the 19-year-old professional skateboarding sensation, according to the Orange County District Attorney.

The suspect, who is accused of fraudulently transferring funds to himself from two corporate accounts, has been charged with two felony counts of grand theft with sentencing enhancements for excessive taking over $200,000 and $65,000. If convicted, Mercuro faces a maximum sentence of six years and eight months in state prison. 

​About 300 officers from 20 law enforcement agencies made sweeps through various Orange County communities last night and early today and swooped up 67 kids in violation of city curfew laws, the District Attorney's office announced.

Curfews begin at 10 or 11 p.m., depending on the city, and last until 5 a.m. the following day. During those hours, minors can't be out in public unless they are accompanied by a parent or guardian, working or taking part in an educational endeavor.

The DA, which billed it as the largest-ever curfew sweep in Orange County, explains more in its statement after the jump . . .  

Henry Samueli with a baseball fan.

​Via the Anaheim Ducks, the National Hockey League announced today that Henry Samueli has been reinstated as an owner.

What is the definition of organized crime?

​"$90 million."

--The amount local labor unions hoped to fleece from public contracts to build the "Great Park" in Irvine, according to Irvine Democrat Chris Mears on the current episode of KOCE's "Real Orange."

Larry the Liar nailed by fellow Liberal

​"We have the great balloon not the Great Park."

--Acclaimed UC Irvine professor Mark Petrecca on the current episode of KOCE's "Real Orange" discussing the failure of Irvine city councilman Larry Agran, a fellow liberal and the ethics-less godfather of the city's politics, to deliver on his nine-year-old promises to convert a military airport into a "world class" public park. In the absence of building a park, Agran has shamelessly celebrated giving massive, taxpayer subsidized balloon rides over the proposed park area.

Courtesy of Orange County District Attorney's Office

Because her race is apparently so important to many who have left comments, here is Tomeka Charee Harris' booking photo.

​QUESTION: What happens if you smoke meth, go for a morning drive on the 91 freeway and fall asleep at the wheel, losing control at high speeds while exiting at the East Street off-ramp, smacking into a fence and plowing into a utility pole, which causes major head trauma and, later, death to your 27-year-old boyfriend and your daughter, who was one day shy of turning 2?

ANSWER: If you're 29-year-old Tomeka Charee Harris of Fullerton, you get six years to stew in prison.

The Orange County District Attorney's Office press release on the case follows the jump . . .  

​UPDATED WITH CORRECTIONS AFTER THE JUMP. . . Citizenship applications that have been backlogged in Santa Ana for years must be processed in the next six months under a settlement announced today.

The agreement also covers cases in the Los Angeles and San Bernardino areas. 

A funny moment--not funny ha-ha but funny nonetheless--happened during CNN's live coverage of the Fort Hood slayings this afternoon.

For anyone who was in a cave, at Disneyland or on the road at the time, 12 people were shot dead and 31 others were wounded in a shooting rampage at the U.S. Army base in Texas, a prime point of deployment for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The lone gunman, who was originally reported to be among the soldiers killed, was being treated for four gunshot wounds, according to Army brass.

After a CNN reporter had just mentioned on air how fears have been expressed that lower enlistment standards have allowed people with criminal records to join the armed forces, Situation Room anchorman Wolf Blitzer wondered aloud to CNN consultant and retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark if the gunman could have been a young gang-banger plucked from the worst streets in America.

As Clark began to answer, Blitzer interrupted to inform that the gunman had just been identified. At least one viewer repeated to himself, "don't be a young gang-banger, don't be a young gang-banger . . ." Of course, he wasn't.

Billy Joe Johnson says drugs blocked his dreams

​On the day he didn't bother to spike his Mohawk (with jailhouse soap) or tuck in his white button down shirt, Costa Mesa serial killer Billy Joe Johnson received the death penalty recommendation from a somber jury of eight men and four women. Johnson accepted the outcome of the hearing, which took less than six minutes, with the same aplomb he's exhibited during the month-long proceedings. The white supremacist gang member of Public Enemy Number One Death Squad (PEN1) smiled at the verdict, which he lobbied for during a sensational witness stand appearance earlier this week.

"Billy Joe genuinely doesn't care," defense lawyer Michael Molfetta told reporters as his client was being shipped back to Theo Lacy Jail to await formal sentencing on November 20. "A lot of people say they don't care. It's truly genuine with him . . . Billy Joe's fine. He's at peace with it . . . He was the one telling me not to get misty."

Brenice Lee Smith: Welcome Home, Now go to Jail.

​

Wow, that was fast.

Yesterday I blogged that a judge denied a request by Gerardo Gutierrez, the lawyer for Brenice Lee Smith, the onetime member of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love who has spent the past three decades living in a Nepalese monastery, to reduce his client's bail from $1.1 million to $50,000. Smith has now been behind bars for a month, apparently awaiting trial on 40-year-old charges that he conspired to smuggle a bunch of hashish from Afghanistan. In the post I mentioned that Gutierrez hadn't filed a motion to have the charges dismissed but that he planned to do so no later than Dec. 7. I also outlined some common-sense reasons why Smith should be set free immediately.

Today, Gutierrez emailed me a copy of that very motion, which essentially argues that the 1972 conspiracy indictment against Smith and more than two dozen other Brotherhood defendants failed to convincingly charge anybody with any specific crimes, instead simply stating that all of the defendants had conspired to form a church, live in Laguna Beach, deal acid and smuggle hash. (And yes, one of the charges in that indictment really was living in Laguna Beach, and yes, every single person charged in that indictment either pled guilty to lesser charges or had the charges dismissed with prejudice, meaning they can never be refiled).

No more birther crowds in the Santa Ana Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse for now. Judge David O. Carter passed down a ruling this morning dismissing Dr. Orly Taitz's Barnett v. Obama lawsuit. Judgement below, more to come.

Earlier today, Taitz posted on her blog that "IF THE COURT DOES NOT ADDRESS OBAMA ELIGIBILITY, THERE WILL BE CIVIL UNREST." Yuh oh.

Judge Carter Ruling on MTD

Nick Schou

Brenice Lee Smith at his first court hearing

​A man accused of of membership in the so-called "Hippie Mafia"--and who has spent the past three decades living a peaceful, possession-free life in a Nepalese monastery--has now been languishing in jail for more than a month.

Brenice Lee Smith was arrested at San Francisco International Airport on Sept. 26 after four decades on the run. A founding member of the Orange County-based Brotherhood of Eternal Love, which formed in 1966 with the intention of promoting peaceful transformation of self and society through consciousness expanding drug experimentation, Smith now stands charged with smuggling 100 pounds of hashish from Afghanistan to California in 1968. After returning from overseas with the intention of moving his Nepalese wife and daughter to the United States, he was extradited from the Bay Area to Orange County's Main Jail.

Many observers who commented on the Weekly's initial blog post, which was picked up by the OC Register, Associated Press and UPI, have expressed shock and amazement that authorities have the time and resources to punish a man who clearly returned to US soil voluntarily and who by all accounts has dedicated himself to peace. Part of the explanation may be that the prosecutor handling the case, Jim Hicks, is the son of DA Cecil Hicks, who presided over the 1972 conspiracy case against the Brotherhood, and who is said to be retiring next March, meaning this case could be his last hurrah.

In the latest developments, Smith had an October 23 hearing in front of Orange County Superior Court Judge William Froeberg, who happens to be married to the chief of the District Attorney's sex crimes unit. Froeberg denied a request by Gerardo Gutierrez, Smith's Chicago-based attorney, to reduce Smith's bail from $1.1 million to $50,000, thus ensuring that his client will remain behind bars for the time being. The next hearings in the case are set for November 7 and December 7. The latter date, Gutierrez said, represents his "drop-dead" deadline for filing a motion to have the case dismissed in the interest of justice.

​An Irvine, California-based property management company was forced last week to remind tenants in a Santa Ana housing complex about common rules of decency. In a letter mailed to each unit, the manager urged tenants to "please be considerate" by using trash cans for trash, keeping noise down at night and monitoring unruly, screaming children playing soccer in the building's concrete courtyard. But that was not what caught our attention. The manager's final request was, no joke, "And please do not defecate in the elevator." He went on to threaten that further elevator defecating would require installation of surveillance cameras to catch the public poopers.

​Talk about a party wrecker. This just came in from the DA:

A man was convicted today of murdering a family friend on Cinco de Mayo in 1991 by shooting him in the face. Jesus Guillermo Batiz Rosales, 69, Santa Ana, was convicted of one felony count of murder and the sentencing enhancement allegation for the personal use of a firearm was found true.  Rosales faces a maximum sentence of 30 years to life in state prison at his sentencing on Dec. 11, 2009, at 9:00 a.m. in Department C-30, Central Justice Center, Santa Ana.

Probolsky: Let's blame OC Weekly!

​Desiree Mouzoon, the Orange County Republican fundraiser salaciously tied to disgraced ex-state assemblyman Mike Duvall in a Wednesday KCBS-KCAL report, has finally spoken.

Well, not exactly.

Mouzoon apparently has hired Jones Day--the law firm that unsuccessfully defended dirty ex-Sheriff Mike Carona for his crimes in office--to threaten local news outlets which mention the report that the woman had been caught in a "compromising position" with Duvall.

In a letter to Art Pedroza, editor of Orange Juice blog, lawyer Thomas R. Malcolm asserted that the KCBS report is "absolutely false and [has] caused irreparable harm" to Mouzoon. Malcolm, a heavyweight in local political/legal circles, demanded that Pedroza "immediately" remove his blog post from the Internet or he would be "aggressively" attacked in future litigation.

Pedroza--a feisty blogger who attempts to keep officials with both major political parties honest--told me tonight that he removed his original blog entry and then wrote a new posting about Malcolm's threat.

A joint September KCBS/OC Weekly probe caught Duvall, the powerful vice chairman of a state utilities committee graphically bragging about having sex with a Sempra Energy lobbyist. An outraged Assembly Speaker Karen Bass immediately removed him from his committee assignments. Shortly thereafter, Duvall--a self-described Christian conservative who had strenuously claimed gay marriage would wreck family values--resigned his seat.

In an October 21 follow-up investigation that had nothing to do with the Weekly, KCBS reporter Dave Lopez, a hard-charging, award-winning veteran of 37 years, reported that he'd discovered that Duvall's indiscretions may have extended to Mouzoon. At a Tuesday political fundraiser in Fullerton, Lopez confronted her with the allegation because she is now working for Linda Ackerman, a candidate seeking to replace Duvall. (Ackerman has made sexual ethics an issue in the campaign.) Mouzoon refused to answer any questions.  

Despite the blatantly obvious source of the report, Mouzoon's allies--which include boyfriend and local Republican Party pollster Adam Probolsky, a longtime Carona apologist--spent today attacking me and the Weekly in an shamelessly deceitful and misguided effort to discredit Lopez's story.

--R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly

Mike Duvall spread more than the word of God

​Until recently, Irvine-based Republican fundraiser Desiree Mouzoon prominently listed a testimonial on her business website from Mike Duvall. Why not? Until recently, Duvall had been an Orange County state assemblyman who served as vice chairman of a powerful legislative utilities committee and worked in the California GOP's leadership. 

​A Long Beach man and a Santa Ana street gang have been implicated in an alleged Medicare fraud schemes that resulted in approximately $25 million in fraudulent bills to the Medicare program, various federal authorities announced this morning.

In all, 18 defendants, most of whom reside in the Los Angeles area, have been charged in five indictments for allegedly participating in the fraud schemes, announced Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Lanny A. Breuer, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California George S. Cardona and Daniel R. Levinson, Inspector General of the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS).

Michael Martinez, 30, of Long Beach, and six other defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud and for making false statements to the government.  Martinez, the alleged ring leader, is accused of recruiting relatives and individuals linked to the Santa Ana-based Brook Street Gang to act as straw owners for four fraudulent medical equipment companies.

If convicted, Martinez faces a maximum sentence of 75 years in federal prison.

​In a remarkable opinion issued today with potential Orange County implications, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit blasted the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for committing "highly objectionable," "tainted," "reckless," "misleading" and "illegal" conduct in a 2005 attempt to seize more than $186,400 from a legally compliant Southern California medical marijuana distributorship.

Flickr user theskywatcher

​In a move that will likely increase President Obama's favorable rating even here in conservative Orange County, Attorney General Eric Holder ordered federal drug agents to stop prosecuting cases involving medical marijuana users and providers who obey state laws legalizing the drug for medical purposes. In other words, if you've got a doctor's license and a state medical marijuana ID card, you're not going to get fucked with by the feds.

It's about time: California voters overwhelmingly voted to pass Proposition 215, legalizing marijuana for medical purposes back in November 1996, but both the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton and the Republican usurpation of George Bush refused to acknowledge the new law.  (Local cops also refused to acknowledge it, especially here in OC, where the first patients and caregivers to try to establish cannabis collectives, as spelled out in Prop 215, were set up on bogus drug charges and thrown in prison.

Now, thanks to a series of court cases ordering police to return confiscated cannabis, as well as legislation ordering counties to create ID programs for legitimate pot smokers, local law enforcement authorities have no choice but to obey the law. And the feds? Well, let's just say  Obama and his handpicked attorney general apparently believe the DEA has bigger fish to fry, according to an AP story today.

Scroll down to just below this photo for the latest news...

Click to enlarge.

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First the bad news: Despite hopes that the Orange County District Attorney's Office would have come to its senses and drop the charges by now, the bizarre case of the People vs.  Brenice Lee Smith, continued to crawl forward today. In a hearing this morning before Judge Thomas M. Goethals, Smith pleaded not guilty to the 40 year old indictment that brought down the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, and which is now responsible for Smith being in jail. Meanwhile, the DA's office asked for a week to review a defense motion to reduce bail from $1.1 million to $50,000, which might allow Smith to get out of jail sometime soon. The next hearing in the case will be on October 23, by which time Smith will have spent nearly a month behind bars. DA Hicks told the judge he expected the trial, which will be scheduled on the 23rd, to last "at least" a month.

Now the good news:  In a brief interview outside the courtroom following the hearing today, Hicks made a point of saying that his investigation into the charges against Smith is still continuing, and an important part of that investigation will be determining what Smith has been doing with his life for the past 40 years--see below for some answers on that--and "what his prospects are" after getting out of jail. Supposing that Smith really was living at a monastery as a Buddhist monk in Nepal and isn't really the Kingpin of Kathmandu, the DA seems to be saying that would work in Smith's favor. Although Hicks said that dropping the charges against Smith wasn't something he's considering, he did allow that, rather than being determined to see this case go to trial, he's just looking for a "fair resolution."

Check out next Thursday's OC Weekly for a print story about Smith and check Navel Gazing  next Friday for the latest courtroom drama.

Will Billy Joe's Suck Up to Prison Gang Work?

​In what may have been acclaimed homicide prosecutor Ebrahim Baytieh's easiest conviction, a jury this afternoon found Billy Joe Johnson--the notorious, wide-eyed and lisping Costa Mesa white supremacist--guilty in the 2002 conspiracy to execute a fellow pro-Hitler gangster who committed an apparently unforgivable sin: talking to Fox News.

Today's relatively rapid decision likely was not a surprise to Johnson, who previously took sole credit for killing Scott Miller in Anaheim in a ridiculously obvious effort to score points with two other Public Enemy Number One (PEN1) thugs, Jacob Rump and Michael Lamb, who faced trial for Miller's killing. Johnson's taxpayer-funded defense lawyer, the ever-sweating Michael Molfetta, had no choice but to concede his client's guilt.

Baytieh--who in the past gained courthouse respect for his tireless pursuit of Vietnamese hoodlums--now has convicted Rump, Lamb and Johnson in Miller's brutal ambush murder. Rump, a dim-witted drug addict with a fondness for Nazi symbols, is serving a life in prison sentence. Lamb, once a promising baseball player from Dana Point and the man who pulled the trigger on Miller, lives on California's death row in San Quentin State Prison.

According to Baytieh, Johnson--already in prison for the next half century because of a gory Huntington Beach hammer murder--confessed to solely killing Miller in hopes of winning PEN1 prison protection from the Aryan Brotherhood (AB), who allegedly authorized his execution years ago for not following AB instructions in prison.

The current jury--which is heavily dominated by middle-aged white men--will next decide if Johnson, a 46-year-old former Nazi Low Rider, should join Lamb in the traffic-jam lineup for state-sponsored execution.

Count on Johnson, who openly drools at female jurors when they enter the courtroom, to continue to assist in his own demise.

--R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly

Arthur Carmona R.I.P.

​When he died at the hands of a hit-and run driver early last year, Arthur Carmona was still hard at work trying to help people like him who had been convicted of crimes they didn't commit, and whose problems didn't end when, miracle of miracles, the justice system finally corrected itself and declared them innocent. Now, nearly two years after Carmona's tragic death and almost a decade after he walked out of prison a free man, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger has finally signed a bill that will make it much easier for wrongfully convicted individuals to get justice.

Arnie had already vetoed previous versions of the bill, but last night he signed into law AB316, which was written by Jose Solorio, (D-Santa Ana), and which passed the legislature with a unanimous vote and only one abstention, OC's very own Mike Duvall (R-Drippy), who apparently had bigger problems to deal with at the time.

​On March 31, 2008, Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue won an unprecedented legal victory over the FBI in his years-old lawsuit to force the agency to hand over everything it has on the mysterious death of his brother, former Westminster resident Kenneth Trentadue. That day, the US District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma ruled that Trentadue and other family members had suffered severe emotional distress as a result of Kenneth's bizarre death at the Federal Transfer Center near Oklahoma City, which prison officials claimed was a suicide by hanging--a claim rather at odds with the bruises, footprints and other obvious marks of a brutal jailhouse beating. 

No, not that kind of fish fry.

​Congratulations, Orange County! Some of your residents were among today's arrestees in the largest cyber crime case of its kind.

"Operation Phish Phry," the first joint cyber investigation between Egyptian law enforcement authorities and United States officials, netted the most defendants ever charged in a cyber crime case, turning up domestic suspects in Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and San Diego counties, elsewhere in California, Nevada, and North Carolina.