Last week, the Orange County Grand Jury came to a remarkable conclusion: OC is a cesspool of corrupt government, and something needs to be done about it. It was remarkable not so much for its findings (where had the Grand Jury previously gotten its information from--OC Metro?) but for advocating for change. Of course, the usual suspects began blathering--Supervisor Todd Spitzer enthusiastically agreed and tried to take the idea as his own, John Moorlach emphatically laughed, while the District Attorney's office said there was little political corruption in OC, and whatever little there is they're on it and can you please not bring up Mike Carona?

The Grand Jury's report was the subject of my latest "Orange County Line" commentary for KCRW-FM 89.9.

More »

A January 2010 day began well for Orange County's 21-year-old Aaron Michael Laythorpe, who took his girlfriend and their baby on an enjoyable beer-drinking trip to a Fashion Island restaurant in Newport Beach.More »

At this very moment, Orange County's Joseph Coronado Martinez is sitting in a California prison and he's immensely frustrated, in part, because he's not attracted to his neighbors.
More »

To commit his serial sex crimes against a little girl, David Alan Goddard arranged the perfect setting.

While his wife worked long hours as a nurse, Goddard worked out of their Newport Beach home as a stock broker and insisted on home schooling "T.B.," the 12-year-old girl adopted by his mother-in-law.

Schooling quickly evolved into a disgusting nightmare for T.B.

More »

You might not know it by looking at him, but George Clebert Nails lived in various Buena Park motels, drank beer to excess, smoked methamphetamine and liked to beat the hell out of his girlfriend, Rhonda.

After the couple spent a glorious, highly intoxicated Fourth of July 2009 holiday, Rhonda did the improbable. Somehow she decided she'd tired of Nails and wanted to leave. I'm guessing that she might not have been happy that in a fit of rage he'd broken one of her fingers.

But Nails was having too much fun and didn't want the party to end.

More »

At the age of 18 in 1984, Orange County's Ray Michael Blackmore couldn't control his penis.

Blackmore stood outside a 16-year-old girl's bedroom window one night, reached inside, tried to yank off her shirt and failed.

While the girl called a 911 operator for help, he climbed through a kitchen window, knocked her down and began beating her in the head before her father intervened.

The crimes landed him in prison for two years.

In 1988, Blackmore agreed to pay a prostitute $100 for sex but once they got inside a motel room, he refused and applied force to the woman's broken ankle until she let him rape and sodomize her.

More »

​If Costa Mesa's Miguel Angel Andrade is right, he might be the most abused good daddy in Orange County history.

Andrade says his two young daughters fabricated that he routinely sexually assaulted them as revenge because he forced them to do their homework and wouldn't let them go outside to play.

He claims his only mistake was leaving his pornographic film collection where the girls could find it.

But an April 2010, Orange County jury didn't buy the story and sided with prosecutors.

More »

​Beginning at the age of 11 and for the next four years, Jaime Rodriguez Rivera's daughter served as a sex slave in Orange County.

But, incredibly, that's not the most alarming fact.

The frail, skinny girl knew her serial rapist well.

He is her father.

More »

Lake: Can't leave his California prison cell alive until 2360

​While they enjoy Anaheim's world famous theme park, Disneyland visitors no longer must worry that their hotel rooms will be burglarized by relentless, serial thief John Lake.

Lake, who insisted on representing himself at his jury trial, is now living in a prison and he's not happy about his treatment by the Orange County criminal justice system--especially the impact of the state's Three Strikes law.

He believes his 350-year prison sentence is excessive.

More »

​Jose Raul Pineda claims that his massive prison sentence is unfair following an Orange County trial that found him guilty of 20 sex offenses against his nieces.

Pineda admits that when alone with the elementary school girls he liked to touch them, but he disputes that anyone could know his touching accompanied lewd and lascivious thoughts.

His position is that only he can know if he had dirty thoughts and because he said he didn't, then that's that -- he can't be guilty of committing sex crimes.

More »