In August 2006, two Orange County men—James McGuinn and Paul Tu—drove together in the carpool lane of the southbound Interstate 405 when a habitual criminal driving a Chevy Blazer rear-ended them at 35 mph. Though damage was minimal to McGuinn’s Ford Explorer, Jamar Wendell Rivers—the Chevy driver—fled, weaving through dense, morning traffic. McGuinn tailed Rivers from the scene while Tu, the passenger, called the California Highway Patrol. A shirtless, heavily tattooed Rivers eventually took the Magnolia Street exit, turned into a BJ’s Pizza parking lot, jumped out of his car, ran up to McGuinn’s window, yanked on the locked door, pounded his fist and yelled, “You motherfucking asshole. What the fuck are you doing? I’m going to fucking kill you.” A startled McGuinn turned to Tu and said, “We’ve got to get out of here!” He quickly backed his car away and Rivers made his second escape attempt. Cops immediately nabbed him. Rivers explained that he’d been in a hurry to get his nagging girlfriend to her work.

At trial, the 25-year-old Los Angeles County man admitted that he’d been upset because McGuinn tailed him but tried this argument: the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guaranteed his free speech rights to utter his words. He also said his threats were obviously empty because he hadn’t been carrying weapons. After a five-day trial, a jury convicted Rivers for making criminal threats, attempting to dissuade witnesses from reporting a crime, hit-and-run and driving on a suspended license. Unrepentant, he took his First Amendment argument to a California Court of Appeal in Santa Ana. Led by Acting Presiding Justice William W. Bedsworth, the court recently issued a terse rejection of the defense theory. Bedsworth determined that the two victims had indeed been terrorized. For a less than a minute of stupidity, Rivers won a free trip to a California prison. It’ll be his home for six years and four months.

(Wednesdays at OCWeekly.com discover the depths of human depravity in Orange County, California.)

-- R. Scott Moxley/ OC Weekly

California's Supreme Court yesterday reversed a lower court's finding that a Santa Barbara County prosecutor should have been disqualified in the sensational Jesse James Hollywood (pictured, upper left) murder trial after forming a partnership with a movie director.

Veteran deputy district attorney Ronald Zonen confided in and loaned his official files to Nick Cassavetes in 2003 so that the filmmaker could write what eventually became Alpha Dog starring Justin Timberlake, Sharon Stone and Bruce Willis. The film made $15.1 million at the box office and was featured on cable networks. But Zonen's goal was not monetary—he had no financial interest in the film. He cooperated only to help publicize the crime and apprehend Hollywood, who'd fled the country after the bizarre kidnapping and murder of 15-year-old Nicholas "Nick" Markowitz.

Two years later, authorities captured Hollywood in Brazil and returned him to California for trial, where he claimed Zonen's arrangement with the movie maker had been illegal and that the prosecutor should recuse himself. A superior court judge didn't agree with Hollywood, but an appellate court panel did—fretting that they didn't want to "embolden other prosecutors to assist the media in the public vilification of a defendant in a case which is yet to be tried . . . . Prosecutors should try their cases in courtrooms, not in the newspapers, television or in the movies. To say that Zonen went too far is an understatement."

Supreme Court justices agreed that Zonen's acts may have been "distasteful" but did not violate Hollywood's right to a fair trial. "The trial court concluded Zonen was only convening his honest assessments of a fugitive defendant to Cassavetes and others in the hope their subsequent portrayal would lead to the fugitive's capture," the justices wrote in an 18-page opinion. "This was not an abuse of discretion."

The ruling might have an impact Orange County prosecutors who have charged a group of people with the sensational 2004 murder of a retired couple at sea. Thomas and Jackie Hawks were bound, tied to an anchor and dropped into the Pacific Ocean somewhere off Southern California during an attempt to steal the expensive boat. Skylar Deleon, a former actor (pictured, lower left), awaits a trial that has garnered interest from local reporters, book authors, network news shows and Los Angeles filmmakers. In 2006, Deleon's wife, Jennifer, was found guilty on two counts of first degree murder for the crime after just four hours of jury deliberation.

-- R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly

Believing his girlfriend of five months engaged in affairs with other men, Rodney Lyn Oglesby worked himself into an October 2005 tizzy. It didn’t help that one night after Karen Corbin’s shift at Wal-Mart she refused to return to the couple’s home, a room at the Crest Motel on seedy West Lincoln in Anaheim. Corbin’s act of defiance was understandable. A calm Oglesby had called her at work to say that her gray and white striped, three-month-old kitten had hissed at him and, in retaliation, he’d broken the kitten’s neck.

(Later, the killing would lead to the following priceless exchange in court between a prosecutor and Anaheim police officer Cheryl Lynn Murphy: Prosecutor: Did you find the cat inside the Dumpster? Murphy: Yes. Prosecutor: Can you describe what the cat looked like? Murphy: It looked dead.)

When Corbin arrived home the next morning by bus, Oglesby decided he knew the reason for her absence. She’d stayed away to sleep with another man, he insisted. He also described how he’d shaken her kitten to death and left its corpse to grow cold on the floor before tossing it, and its toys, in the trash.

“He was angry,” Corbin testified. “He was mad. He tore up the room.”

A frightened Corbin went to the motel manager’s office hoping he’d call police. He said no. That’s when 5-foot-6, 181-pound Oglesby showed up, ordered her back to their room and began pulling her by the arm in the parking lot. She sat down on the ground. Oglesby pretended to walk away, spun around and kicked her in her left eye. The blow was so powerful it fractured her face bone and caused severe bleeding. He then dragged her by her hair, tearing out huge clumps, repeatedly punched her face and called her a bitch.

The lunchtime scene prompted several bystanders to call 911. One, a neighbor named Cisco, ran to Corbin’s rescue and said, “That’s enough!” Oglesby responded by accusing Cisco of sleeping with his girlfriend too, cursed more and attempted to flee responding police on a bicycle.

During court proceedings, Oglesby—sent to Alabama prisons twice in the 1990s for committing felonies, including burglary—employed the insanity defense. He has a “a significant and severe organic impairment in his brain,” declared his court-appointed lawyer. But after multiple psychiatric evaluations (at public expense), Judge Gary Paer ruled the 42-year-old competent enough to face charges. Oglesby accepted a plea deal. For multiple acts of stupidity including domestic violence and cruelty to an animal, he’s spending six years in a California prison.

(Every Wednesday at OCWeekly.com, discover the depths of human depravity in Orange County, California.)

-- R. Scott Moxley

What 5-foot-3, 180-pound Gustavo Palmas Reyes of Anaheim lacks in English-speaking skills he makes up for in nerve. The construction worker arrived home drunk one night in July 2005 and beat his live-in girlfriend. She had made the mistake of cooking him dinner when he wasn’t hungry. Annoyed, the 42-year-old then left to drink alcohol and eat fried chicken with friends. Later that night, he came home to the couple’s one-bedroom apartment near Disneyland, where he stripped, molested and raped his girlfriend’s mute, developmentally disabled 12-year-old daughter. Caught in the act by the little girl’s horrified uncle, Reyes declared he’d gotten “vengeance” against his girlfriend. When police arrived, Reyes tried to blame the consumption of 13 beers and, perhaps sensing he wasn’t winning sympathy, finally suggested that he'd mounted the girl only to save her from an alleged epileptic seizure. The tale might have had a slight chance if his DNA hadn’t been found in the girl’s vagina. “Well, I’ve touched her,” he told a police detective the next day. “I’m not saying that I haven’t. But she likes me like you wouldn’t believe, that’s why I regret this.” He also declared himself “a normal person,” cried, noted his otherwise-clean criminal record, begged for “forgiveness” and suggested counseling as punishment. Police and prosecutors weren’t impressed. Based on their work, an Orange County jury convicted Reyes, who has a wife and kids in Mexico, on three felony counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a minor. For an hour's worth of stupidity, he won a free trip to a California prison. It’ll be his home for a decade.

(Every Wednesday at OCWeekly.com discover the depths of human depravity in Orange County, California.)

-- R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly

For Buena Park's James Ochoa, the indescribable agony of spending 16 months locked in the Orange County Jail and a California prison for crimes he did not commit is a bit less painful today.

This afternoon, a state board in Sacramento voted 3 to 0 to award Ochoa nearly $30,000 in compensation in one of the final chapters of a bizarre law enforcement case. (Witnesses at the scene say board member Rosario Marin, a member of the governor's cabinet, argued against the payment but must have recorded a favorable vote to join State Controller John Chiang and San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos. California law permits wrongfully imprisoned people to apply for a $100-per-day fee for time spent in prison. Time in county lockup doesn't count.

"It's like a miracle," Ochoa lawyer Scott Borthwick said immediately after the hearing. "Every step of the way James had been screwed by government authorities. Finally, this board stood up and did the right thing."

In 2005, police arrested and prosecutors charged Ochoa—then 20 years old—for a robbery/carjacking near a Buena Park nightclub. A pre-trial article in the Weekly demonstrated numerous gaping holes in the government's case, and yet law enforcement officers refused to drop it. Most significantly, DNA evidence left at the scene of the crime did not match Ochoa. There were also substantial questions surrounding the competence and integrity of a police dog handler. In the middle of the trial, Superior Court Judge Robert Fitzgerald pressured Ochoa to accept a two-year prison deal by threatening to send him away for the rest of his life if a jury found him guilty. Over Borthwick's objections, Ochoa took the deal. Justice arrived 16 months after the ordeal began when crime lab officials matched the DNA from the crime to a prisoner sitting in the Los Angeles County Jail. Fitzgerald quickly released Ochoa from prison.

Earlier this year, the Weekly revealed that prior to trial prosecutors had asked the crime lab to alter its findings that Ochoa was excluded as a source of the DNA. You can read that story here.

The Innocence Project, by famed defense lawyers Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld, features the case on its website.

Ochoa's civil rights lawsuit is set for trial in federal court on May 20 in the Ronald Reagan Federal Court Building.

--R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly

Horny males across Orange County are weeping with news that a man made off with a vibrating plastic replica of porn star Jenna Jameson's vagina (retail price: $250) from Fullerton's Erogenous Zone on April 15.

Respectable news organizations only opaquely refer to what exactly did the booty bandit pilfer, but we're not one of them! Click after the jump for the stolen goods.

WARNING: This is done only to help the Fullerton Police Department recover said stolen goods and is in no way an endorsement of Jameson (pictured here with boyfriend and Huntington Beach UFW legend Tito Ortiz)--we're more of a Gianna Michaels type of guy, anyway.

Who says there aren't any single men in Orange County? According to WhosYourCity.com, the area stretching from Long Beach to Santa Ana has a whopping 89,459 more single men than women. Holla!

This is in sharp contrast to New York and Northern New Jersey who list 210,820 more single women than men.

So come on ladies, why not get all purdied up and wrangle yourself a man this weekend. Lets make those New York bitches jealous. Westside!

A grand jury report and numerous articles have detailed the barbaric system of jailhouse (in)justice administered by the deputies at Theo Lacy jail. Pretty much everyone involved acknowledges that deputies routinely condoned, authorized, facilitated, ordered, and/or ignored the beating of inmates by designated inmate gang leaders. Inmate John Chamberlain died after such a beating. So why the hell have no deputies been charged with so much as a misdemeanor for this outrage?

To be fair, District Attorney Tony Rackauckas has offered a straight answer to this question, at least in regard to Chamberlain's death: He didn't think he had enough to make such charges stick.

"If we could have proven a case that any member of the sheriff’s department, from the lowest ranking to the top of the department, was criminally responsible for the death of Mr. Chamberlain," Rackauckas said, "there is no question that indictments would have been issued.” Five deputies named in the grand jury report were put on paid leave, one deputy has been fired and two high-ranking OCSD officials lost their jobs over the scandal.

But still, no indictments. So if a jail guard gets popped for a felony for killing a cat before any criminal charges are brought against a deputy for the routine, callous brutalizing of human beings, I hope you'll all join me in a gut-wrenching paroxysm of moral revulsion and ironic eye-rolling.

And I love cats!

Looks like Acting Sheriff Jack Anderson has a ways to go before "dignity, honor and respect" are restored to his department.

Clutching a package of velvet lace to his chest, Bootlicker elbowed by an elderly lady to get first in the checkout line at Michaels arts and crafts shop. Time was of the essence. Thirty minutes earlier, the Orange County District Attorney’s office had released its “Investigative Report” on the beating death of an inmate in November 2006. Bootlicker grabbed the first copy, raced to his pickup truck and, as if God himself granted a special wish, watched as the report fell open to pages 25-26. The Orange County Register columnist, who’d spent his career fetishizing a violence-prone police state under the nom de plume Gordon Dillow, gasped. His spine shot erect. His self-styled “country” brain focused not on sentences but words: “lifeless body,” “protocol,” “the size,” “large scale,” “joint investigation,” “command,” and--oh-my-golly!--“homicide unit.” In his mind’s eye, the word “unit” grew larger and larger and larger until it was the only word he saw. Could a single word engulf a body and pulsate in hot pink? It felt that way. An appreciative Bootlicker closed his eyes, dropped a hand to his loins and imagined buttons popping—exploding in rapid fire, really—from a male motorcycle cop’s uniform shirt. Underneath, a soiled white T-shirt barely masked the officer’s firm nipples. Bootlicker imagined that the angry cop had just used his Billy Club on the face of a disrespectful, young man of color. A part of the Reg columnist suddenly tingled and then he grunted twice. He opened his eyes, sighed and drove to Michaels. A report this special would have to be wrapped in velvet lace.

-- R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly

Wondering about that sorta creepy neighbor who’s still talking about last summer’s SoCal wildfires? The guy who barbecues outdoors a whole lot more than seems normal?

Pretty soon, you should be able to go online and see if he’s among the arsonists registered with Orange County police departments. According to the Department of Justice’s Sex Offender Tracking Program, which also keeps tabs on your everyday pyromaniacs, there are currently 119 in the OC.

Leader of the pack? Santa Ana (home of the Weekly) with 17, followed by Anaheim 15, Fullerton 11 and Costa Mesa 10. The rest: Buena Park 8, Garden Grove 7, Orange 6, Irvine 5, Tustin 3, Cypress, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach and Westminster 2, La Habra, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Placentia, Seal Beach and Stanton 1 each.

Possibly scary number? Orange County Sheriff’s Dept with 23 registered – maybe all on your block. There’s no way of knowing, yet.

Legislation introduced in January by Sen. Jim Battin (R.– La Quinta) seeks to provide public access to all registered arsonists in the state, similar to the Megan’s Law sex offenders database, which is available on the Internet. SB 1130 is being heard in the Senate public safety committee today (April 8).

Last October’s fires, the ones your neighbor gets all breathless about, burned over 500,000 acres, destroyed 1,500 homes and claimed 14 lives. Stay tuned.

According to his colleagues and superiors, the deputy at the center of Orange County's bloodiest jailhouse murder—a man who claims he was watching television when two dozen inmates beat a suspected child molester to death just yards away—is “lazy” and showed a pattern of behavior described by his own department as that of a “bully.”

While supposedly watching guard over the roughly 150 inmates in Theo Lacy's F-West Barracks, where John Chamberlain, a Mission Viejo software engineer arrested for possession of child pornography, was murdered Oct. 5, 2006, his colleagues say, Deputy Kevin Taylor not only routinely watched the tube, but also watched films like “Blackhawk Down” on a portable DVD player and made personal calls or sent text messages on his cell phone.

Transcripts released today from the Orange County Grand Jury's investigation of Chamberlain's murder show that one of the guards who worked with Taylor, Philip Le, felt that Taylor was “lazy.”

As an example of his laziness, Le stated, Taylor wasn't fond of sending injured inmates to the jail's doctors for medical treatment after they'd been beaten up for violating jailhouse rules. That would mean he'd have to fill out paperwork. So instead, Le testified, Taylor would tell a jailhouse “shot-caller” who was in charge of that inmate, to convince the inmate not to report his injuries. The conversation, Le said, would go like this: “Hey this guy is messing up so get him in line; [tell him] You're not hurt...You are fine.”

According to documents released along with Le's testimony, however, Taylor wasn't lazy when it came to using physical force to punish inmates. In a so-called “Use of Force Report,” one of Taylor's superiors detailed an incident that took place in F-West barracks almost a month after Chamberlain's death. Two inmates—they happened to be father and son--standing in line shook hands and appeared to be passing a note to each other. A certain Sgt. Gonzales says he witnessed Taylor approach one of the inmates and say “I'm going to slap you” if the inmate didn't admit he passed a note.
In his report, Taylor says the inmate made a sudden movement, giving him no choice but to slap the inmate. But Sgt. Gonzales' version goes like this “While [the inmate] stood with his hands in his pockets, Deputy Taylor slapped him. [The inmate] then reeled backwards. In an attempt to regain his footing [the inmate] leaned forward and was slapped again.” Gonzales' report was based on what several inmates told him, a story that was corroborated by nearby deputies, who saw the inmate raise his hands only after he had been slapped.

The use of force report also mentions another incident when Taylor “placed an inmate in a stance that caused his legs to be spread into an extreme position (similar to the splits) while he circled the inmate and spoke to him.” The inmate couldn't stand, so he adjusted his feet, at which point “Taylor nudged the inmates leg out again, which caused the inmate to crumple to the ground in apparent pain.” Taylor was verbally reprimanded for this incident.

“In my opinion,” Taylor's superior wrote, “Taylor was 'bullying' the inmate unnecessarily. Prior to that Deputy Taylor had also been reprimanded for his actions during a use of force where he also utilized poor judgment...It appears to me that Deputy Taylor may be displaying a pattern of behavior that warrants closer scrutiny and consideration.”

'I Lit the Fire': Jared Petrovich claims he was just following orders when his words sparked a fatal jailhouse beating; April 3, 2008, By Nick Schou

An Open Letter to DA Tony Rackauckas Regarding the Jailhouse Murder of John Chamberlain; March 13, 2008, By Nick Schou

Tased and Not Confused: To lawyer in OC jailhouse-tasing incident, missing footage is no shocker; May 10, 2007, By Nick Schou

Thanks for the Work! An open letter to District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, Sheriff Mike Carona, and the police chiefs and mayors of every Orange County city except Laguna Niguel; April 4, 2007, By Nick Schou

Blind Spot: For OC jail inmate John Chamberlain, jailhouse justice served as judge, jury—and executioner; March 29, 2007, By Nick Schou

The Trials of Billy Joe, White Supremacist: Gang leader and murder suspect says he was brutalized by jail deputies; February 16, 2006, By R. Scott Moxley

Carona Makeover: Another day, another jail beating in OC; October 6, 2005, By R. Scott Moxley

Justice Takes a Beating: OC court greenlights torture in local jails; August 11, 2005, By R. Scott Moxley

Sources tell OC Weekly that the Orange County Sheriff's Department deputy found dead in a car parked in Aliso Viejo yesterday had been the subject of a sex crimes investigation in the District Attorney's office and may have opted to kill himself rather than face arrest.

Susan Schroeder at the DA's office said she will release a statement today.

If ever a man looked like a sheriff, it’s Jack Anderson. The mustachioed man is tall and husky and, if he wore a cowboy hat, would cast an impressive shadow sitting on a horse.

Of course, the wild—ridiculously wild—west days at the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) should be over. Ex-Sheriff Mike Carona and his evil sidekicks Jo Ann Galisky and Steven Bishop have found their rightful places in society. Carona teeters on the brink of prison if convicted later this year in a bribery/obstruction of justice scheme. Fired or forced out of their assistant sheriff jobs, Galisky and Bishop nowadays can soil only their plain clothes.

Sitting atop the OCSD is acting Sheriff Jack Anderson, a 47-year-old Illinois native who begs reporters not to tie him to . . . (in a Monday interview, he made a dismissive sweeping motion with his right hand, and then said) . . . “the previous sheriff and all of his problems.”

Anderson doesn’t have to be particularly wise to appreciate that Carona and his former inner circle at the department are politically radioactive. And yet—like Galisky, Bishop and ex-assistant sheriffs turned felons George Jaramillo and Don Haidl—Anderson can’t deny the truth: Carona put the stars on his uniform and welcomed him into an arrogant OCSD inner sanctum that prized deceit above all else.

But Jack doesn’t want to be in the Carona box. “I’m not part of all that,” he told me. “That’s the past. It’s unfair to tie me to it. I think I can take this department back to what it should be—a place where people are proud to work and the public can trust.”

What influence does Carona have today? I asked.

“None,” said Anderson. “That’s the way it should be. He is history.”

As evidence, he pointed to a wall near the sheriff’s inner office that once held photographs of a smiling Carona embracing Hollywood celebrities and fellow politicians. “It was all about him, you know?” said Anderson.

He replaced the photographs with a motto etched into the wall: “The men and women of the sheriff’s department are its heart and the institution is greater than any individual.”

Is Anderson merely telling outsiders what he thinks they want to hear? Skeptics say yes. They insist that the department needs a thorough break from Carona and his assistants. And they are none too keen on what they see as behind-the-scenes ties between Anderson and Carona adviser Mike Schroeder.

“Jack is a nice guy, but he’s not the independent leader we need,” said Bill Hunt, the high-ranking deputy whom a pre-indicted Carona fired because he’d challenged him in the 2006 elections. “Jack’s baggage is Carona and Schroeder. They wrecked the department. We’ve got to get beyond these people.”

Hunt, who scored the recent endorsement of the deputies’ union, is one of nearly two dozen applicants hoping to be selected June 3 by the county’s Board of Supervisors. The prize? Head California’s second largest sheriff’s department. Other local candidates include Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Commander Ralph Martin, Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters and Craig Hunter, deputy chief of police in Anaheim.

From Schroeder's perspective, one candidate has zero chance of winning.

"Hunt claims that he is the corruption fighter but ignores the two 800-pound elephants in the room," Schroeder told the Weekly. "The first elephant is that the Attorney General determined that Hunt engaged in a cover-up relating to Don Haidl and George Jaramillo, including the altering of official reports. Mr. Hunt also claims that Anderson is tainted because he was promoted by Carona. This brings us to the second elephant in the room: Hunt was also promoted to all of his management positions by the former sheriff. Hunt may think he is a strong candidate, but with these elephants on his back, no one outside his inner circle seriously regards him as such."

Based on numerous interviews, it appears that Hunt's support is largely from the public. No surprise there. Hunt is the man who finished second against Carona in the last election. But views among members of the Board of Supervisors apparently differ. Depending on who you talk to, the top three local candidates appear to be Walters, Anderson and Martin.

A move by Supervisor Janet Nguyen to conduct a national interview process has had the effect of giving Anderson--once a dark horse, at best--a chance. He's effectively the incumbent now. On a daily basis, he's able to enhance his public image by speaking at crime scenes and issuing reforms. Perhaps more important, he’s got a powerful fan.

Parents of 7th, 8th and 9th grade boys can relax a wee bit more this afternoon. Jeffrey Ray Nielsen--a onetime congressional aide to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and a serial pedophile--is now in custody of the Orange County Sheriff's Department. Superior Court Judge David Thompson sentenced the 37-year-old Nielsen, son of former Fountain Valley Mayor Ben Nielsen, to three years in an as-yet-to-be-named California prison. Read the full story of today's hearing in next week's edition of Moxley Confidential in the Weekly.

Click here for prior coverage of the Nielsen pedophile saga.

-- R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly

Holding a gun with both hands sent sensations racing down his spine to a semi-firm point between his legs. Gordon Dillow wanted to moan—purr, really—like he did in the privacy of his home. But he’d been warned twice before about fondling weapons inside Orange County Register headquarters. There was also the problem of his co-workers: in his mind, a bunch of unapologetic liberals, women, homosexuals, Jews and "gooks."** He knew they didn’t sympathize with the depths of his love for men in uniform, weapons, badges, boots, steel neck collars and cop domination techniques—particularly ones performed on young brown people who haven't yet learned to quickly salute state authority.

Dillow’s memory flashed to the time in the men’s room when he had reached out to another Register employee in hopes of finding an ideological soul mate. The man flushed, called him a “sick douche bag” and stormed out. Weeks later the Pentagon’s PR unit sent Dillow to Iraq under the ruse that he was an independent embedded journalist. Men. Uniforms. Weapons. Heat. Torture. Dead civilians. He felt so blessed he tried to stay indefinitely.

But that was several years ago. Dillow gripped the gun tightly, squeezed his eyelids and recalled his favorite photograph: a smirking, erect Heinrich Himmler, dressed spectacularly in a Nazi uniform and surrounded by shirtless males ready to obey. He sighed and let his mind wonder about the possibility of a master race.

A tingling returned. He rolled his chair over to his office door and quietly locked it shut. Deadline for his next column was 15 minutes away. What could he write about? Cops? Soldiers? Cop/soldiers? A coin flip wouldn’t help.

His eyes searched his office in hopes of sparking an idea. A Donna Summer song played softly in the background. There--partially hidden underneath his prized copy of a My Lai massacre movie (actual footage!) and a stack of photographs he’d secretly taken of men entering an Army recruiting station in Stanton on successive Saturdays--he found inspiration: a Register crime story. I’ll let him tell describe his excitement:

“It happened earlier this month in Irvine,” Dillow wrote for today’s column. “Police were looking for a man suspected of raping an 18-year-old woman in her home. As the cops searched, the fleeing suspect, a 27-year-old L.A. gang member, tried to hide by breaking into another home. Inside, the homeowner, a man who had recently undergone defensive firearms training, heard the commotion, grabbed a handgun and confronted the suspect.”

Men. Uniforms. Gun. Action.

Dillow swiveled repeatedly in his seat, purred and looked over his shoulder. Yes, the office door remained shut. In the distance he heard Tony Saavedra snoring, Frank Mickadeit bragging about his own popularity and Martin Wisckol slowly repeating a series of orders from GOP boss Mike Schroeder. Even for Dillow, those noises were troublesome. He re-focused his attention on the rapist article.

“Well, I don’t have enough space to go into all the Second Amendment arguments,” he wrote. “But to me it’s obvious that a homeowner in Irvine or any other law-abiding citizen has a constitutional right to have a firearm.”

Dillow finished typing and smiled. His left hand dropped to his lap region. Nobody—not a single person on the entire planet—had argued that this homeowner wasn’t legally entitled to possess a gun or use it in self-defense. The 57-year-old columnist marveled at his ability to produce imaginary dilemmas. And get paid! For the first time since the California Supreme Court strengthened police secrecy and lethal force laws, Dillow laughed out loud, packed up and went to CVS to buy more hand lotion.

-- R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly

**In a column, Dillow once admitted "there was a time when I called [Vietnamese] gooks without so much as a second thought." Repentant? Nope. Later, in 1999, he defended--imagine this!--caucasian police officers in Orange County's Little Saigon calling Vietnamese Americans "gooks."

Fridays are always tough in Orange County's Central Courthouse at Santa Ana. That's when the majority of convicted defendants face sentencing. Of course, watching killers, rapists and robbers begin to pay for their crimes isn't tough. It's seeing the indescribable pain of victims and their families who attend the hearings.

Today, jail deputies brought Marvin V. Smith to court a final time. Last December 17, a jury convicted Smith—a wealthy businessman from Cypress—for brutally killing his wife Minnie, a retired Raytheon Corp. executive, and then staging a robbery in hopes of masking the killers' identity. It didn't help Smith's cause when a week after the crime, Cypress police detective Chris McShane discovered more than $200,000 of Minnie's allegedly stolen jewelry in the trunk of a car Smith kept in Los Angeles. Despite the efforts of veteran defense lawyer Jennifer Keller, Deputy District Attorney Michael F. Murray successfully argued that Smith had probably murdered his wife to get her half of the couples' $5.5 million fortune.

With two deputies at his side, Smith strutted into Superior Court Judge Daniel McNerney's packed courtroom wearing not only handcuffs, a nice sweater and slacks, but also a smile. It's incredibly bad manners for a convicted defendant to smile at his sentencing hearing. Then again, Smith's a 72-year-old cold blooded killer. And there's a history of bad manners here. On the night of Minnie's murder, Smith talked cheerfully to police about his affection for a woman later identified by law enforcement as one of Smith's numerous mistresses.

I've been covering courts off and on for 22 years, and today will be a day I'll always remember. Murray played a two-minute DVD created by Bennie Thomas, Minnie's son from a previous marriage. It contained dozens of family photos of what was obviously a happy, peaceful woman. In the background, a song played with lyrics that included, “Momma, you know I love you.'' There were tears and crying and sniffing in the public seating section. Judge McNerney and his bailiff, both red-faced, looked touched too.

Smith--represented in court by Kay Rackauckas, ex-wife to District Attorney Tony Rackauckas--showed no emotion. He rested his face on his right hand, looked away and closed his eyes. What thoughts go through a man's head when he's been convicted of killing his wife, leaving her bloody, beaten body nude for police to find? Denial? Twisted satisfaction?

Thomas, a 41-year-old Los Angeles County probation officer and former New Mexico State football star, addressed McNerney, confessed that he had had thoughts early in the case of getting revenge against his ex-stepfather, but said he eventually learned to leave fate in God's hands. “My mother was a giving, loving, considerate person,” he said. “Since this, I understand why some people commit suicide. They don't want to feel the pain.”

With his hands tightly gripping the podium and tears pouring down his face, Thomas concluded, “He deserves the death penalty.”

Bridgette Latham told McNerney that her aunt “epitomized beauty, grace, style and class.”

“Nobody could dislike her,” Latham said. “We won't ever hear that soft, delicate voice again. This [murder] is the ultimate deception and betrayal of our family.”

But Dr. Brenda C. Smith--a Pasadena-based physician specializing in Obstetrics & Gynecology and Smith's daughter—wasn't willing to concede that her father is a killer.

“I know that he is a victim,” said Smith. “My father is innocent. If I thought for one nanosecond that my father had anything to do with Minnie's death, I would not be beside him. But I told him to hold his head high today because he hasn't done anything wrong. We know that one day he will be vindicated of this.”

McNerney then sentenced Smith to a prison term of 25 years to life. The defense has 60 days to appeal. A restitution hearing was set for May 2.

Afterwards, a Smith trial juror who'd attended the hearing said she felt “some closure now.”

“It's just awful what happened to Minnie,” she said. “I'm so sorry for what the family has gone through.”

Click here to see "Lady Killer," the Weekly's December 2007 cover story on the trial.

-- R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly

Sid Landau admitted to sexually abusing ten kids during his child-molesting "career" (do they have vocational schools for that?), crimes for which he has served his time - that and then some. Yesterday saw the start of the third trial to determine whether or not the Orange County District Attorney's Office will release Landau to his sister's custody. Last arrested in 1999, Landau served the maximum time for his parole violation, but was transferred to Atascadero State Mental Hospital rather than released when the DA's office petitioned to qualify Landau as a Sexually Violent Predator, or SVP.

After serving seven years of his initial 15-year sentence, Landau was released to a society which hounded him from residence to residence, making him the Meghan's Law Poster Boy.

Landau's parole violations include pushing a photographer, possessing a photograph of his grand-nephews and failure to meet with a parole officer. Also, he had in his possession some teddy bears with yarmulkes. Teddy Ruxpinsteins, if you will. For such a well-known sex-offender, there can be no true release, no genuine freedom anymore. Not in today's information-rich, paranoia-ridden world. Just ask Gordon Dill-hole over at the Register.

In Landau's case, his most recent trial took four weeks. And after the jury deadlocked 8-4 against releasing him, the judge in the case ordered yet another trial to be held. It's a cycle that could be repeated for years and years.And yet, as D.A. spokeswoman Susan Schroeder puts it, "What alternative do we have? We can't just let a dangerous child molester get out. We can't take that chance."

So yes, maybe in some situations it wouldn't be fair to keep a guy locked up after he has served his time.But when it comes to sexually violent predators, it wouldn't be fair to their potential victims to do anything else.

Incidentally, the first trial resulted in an 11-1 deadlock in favor of releasing Landau. Perhaps the third trial's the charm? Dillow is concerned about the potential victims of sexually violent predators and seems to be advocating the prolonged imprisonment of not just them, but even those suspected of being capable of violent sexual predation. Frat boys, beware and stay off the Goldschlager.

In May 2006, OC Weekly broke the news that then-Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona had allowed fellow con man Joseph M. Medawar to film the county's top secret anti-terrorism training procedures three years earlier. (See "Department of Homeland Stupidity.") A native of Lebanon, Medawar used the footage and personal endorsements from Carona and Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Skipped Vietnam combat duty, pictured), to bilk more than $5.5 million from unsuspecting Republicans and religious conservatives. Medawar claimed the money would fund a new television series called DHS, but the FBI discovered the cash had been diverted to personal use including a $40,000-a-month Beverly Hills mansion. (Rohrabacher grabbed $23,000 of the loot under the pretense that Medawar, 46, paid him for a decades old, worthless script.) Since then, Carona's been indicted in a separate bribery scam, Rohrabacher continues babbling about whatever and Medawar's gone to prison. But last week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the con man's punishment. Federal sentencing guidelines called for Medawar to get 57 to 71 months in prison. Los Angeles-based U.S. Judge Manuel L. Real, an LBJ appointee of dubious ethics and temperament, had ignored the cries of 50 victims and—without explanation—given Medawar a light 366-day sentence. The appellate justices told Real to try again.

-- R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly

On Feb. 29 in this blog, R. Scott Moxley foresaw an "upcoming unflattering grand jury report" on the jailhouse murder of John Derek Chamberlain. Chamberlain was beat to death by inmates while Deputy Kevin Taylor, the on-duty officer, allegedly failed to notice the prolonged beating because he was watching baseball on television. Taylor also allegedly informed inmates that Chamberlain, arrested on child pornography charges, was in fact a child molester, and that inmates might receive special privileges if Chamberlain should happen to find himself beaten to a pulp.

Well, the report's out. And unflattering is an understatement. The Grand Jury took particular issue with the Sheriff's Department demanding to investigate the murder on their own, rather than letting District Attorney Tony Rackauckus's office investigate, which protocol does not necessarily demand but certainly encourages.

Kudos to the Register for managing to include some meaty quotes this time. Especially with the future of Orange County at stake.

"Since its written adoption in 1985, this investigative protocol has been honored, without fail, in 129 out of 130 custodial deaths, including four custodial homicides," the grand jurors wrote in their letter. "The only deviation in the more than 20-year history of this protocol occurred on the night of October 5, 2006 in the sheriff's department's handling of John Chamberlain's murder investigation."

"It may never be known what, if any, impact this action had on the results of the homicide investigation," the letter continues. "Clearly, however, it was this conduct … which necessitated the impaneling of the Special Criminal Grand Jury and its ensuing nine month long investigation."

Grand jurors also implored the Sheriff's Department, the Board of Supervisors and the public to review all of the evidence collected during nine months of testimony. "The future course of the Sheriff's Department and the County depend on it," the letter concludes.

The county is still abuzz about the failed jewelry heist at the Shops at Mission Viejo that left an idiot in a bad wig dead and the Orange County Sheriff Department investigating its own since two deputies shot the guy. Given that Kirk Christian Knight (just one letter removed from KKK!) fired at the deputies, this latest death under OCSD watch is much more justified than, say, the John Chamberlain affair. But what's been the strangest development so far is the visibility of acting sheriff Jack Anderson. The Caronie (h/t to Steve Greenhut) is openly jonesing to permanently assume leadership over the fifth-largest sheriff's department in the U.S.A. by embarking on moves that are good but still tainted because, hey: Anderson's a Caronie. And to let the county know who he is, he addressed news cameras on Sunday instead of usual sheriff spinner Jim Amormino, and gave an in-depth interview to the Orange County Register yesterday, continuing his predecessor's proud tradition of hogging the spotlight when the men in green come out looking like the heroes they're supposed to be. And when not? We shall see...

Over at the Orange County Register, ace reporter Peggy Lowe writes tonight on Orange County Sheriff's Department blog news that two of indicted ex-Sheriff Mike Carona's Yes Folks (YF) quit today: assistant sheriffs Jo Ann Galisky and Steve Bishop.

Somehow the third and final major YFer embarrassment, Acting Sheriff Jack Anderson, remains . . . sitting atop the massive police agency, repeatedly uttering four words: "I am the sheriff' and waiting, nervously, for guidance from Carona/GOP operative Mike Schroeder.

Can the public and the honest people at OCSD ever get decent leadership? I ask this to you, Janet Nguyen.

Today's developments prefaced an upcoming unflattering grand jury report on the brutal killing of a man in pre-trial custody in October 2006. The Carona-Galisky-Bishop lie, oops, line was that a deputy standing feet away from the lethal beating (that lasted, perhaps, 20 minutes) suffers from severe ADD. They proposed that he remained clueless to the gory killing because, drum roll, he was too busy watching TV.

According to the new public employee union contract, jail deputies are required to work only during regularly scheduled TV commercials and not at all during sporting events or the airing of porno.

There's good news though. Galisky--who recently hired a criminal defense lawyer (no, really!)--won't join the unemployment line. She's announced that she will head a new private detective firm with Carona and Bishop: Blatant Liar, Screw Em & Duh, LLP.

They'll specialize in sexual harassment, illegal eavesdropping, misuse of public property and unnecessary government employee travel abroad cases. Galisky's focus? Evidence elimination and grand jury preparation tactics.

The ultra-trustworthy Full Disclosure Network reports that other notables are set to participate in the firm too. Don Haidl will supply employee perks--free boats, cash and Bible-based pep talks, but only if he gets to wear a Blatant Liar, Screw Em & Duh badge. Thanks to a grant from a mysterious individual with mysterious interests, Brian Sun and something like nine other Jones Day lawyers will work as, uhhh, "free" employees. Incarcerated Las Vegas titty bar owner Rick Rizzolo and ex-federal prosecutor Wayne Gross, a Carona apologist, have already signed on as clients. Meanwhile, Reg columnist Frank Mickadeit--who lives with Gross!?!?!--is waiting for final instructions from Schroeder before he writes a flattering column on Galisky's new business.

-- R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly

Isn't the anonymous sap taking a beating over his defense of Diocese of Orange statutory rapists but another anonymous coward: ocman18, one of the Orange County Register's many nuts. Yesterday, ocman18 left a cryptic remark on a tragic story involving a Korean woman who was mugged by some Latina pendeja:

Hopefully the media will give this case more attention then other cases of late where the so called victim added to their own demise. This lady is a true victim.

What was he referring to? The horrible murder of Arthur Carmona. On the Reg's Carmona coverage, ocman18 left something so insensitive that it's no longer there. I wish I wrote it down, but instead, we only have its memory in someone else's thoughtful critique:

ocman18,

Progress...not perfection. We all have our demons.

Many other commentators also rightfully tore the idiot a new one. Hey ocman18: you're such a big boy in the Reg's echo chamber--howzabout paying our readers a visit sometime, eh?

Wall Street rogue or just opportunistic, minor-league thief, there’s such a thing as setting your sights too high. There’s also setting them too low. . .like WAY too low.

Fullerton police are reporting that a computer hard drive, stolen from Systematic Automation Inc., a local data processing outfit, contains the names, addresses, birth dates and Social Security numbers of 3,500 people.

Not residents of upscale, bazillionaire Villa Park, mind you. Not even Anaheim Hills, Irvine, San Clemente, Yorba Linda or even Orange. No. What vanished was the personal info on. . .city school employees in Modesto.

Modesto, fer chrissake. City school employees.

Modesto - the city with the highest car-theft-per-capita rate in the entire U.S. in ‘05 and ’06. (Dropping to a most-reasonable fifth in 2007. . .you just know the Chamber of Commerce trumpeted THAT accomplishment.) The city with some of the worst air quality in the nation, surpassing even L.A.

Modesto - the city commonly known until the 1930s as the "Filth Capital of California" due to the abundance of saloons, brothels, opium houses and "wild west" atmosphere. A city where there are still only two kinds of music – country and western (see below).

Modesto - the city whose greatest claim to fame is that, uh, Harve Presnell was born there. The city where a McMansion is a late-model ultra-wide.

Good luck scamming a few bucks with those dummied-up IDs, pal. What’s the next target? Fast-food workers in Buena Park?

(*Daryle Singletary, "I'm Living Up to Her Low Expectations.")

Sometime on Saturday, according to the OC Register, Greg Haidl will be released from prison.

He is being released early because he was given automatic credit for good time and work time while in prison and for the time he served in the Orange County Jail before his sentencing, according to Bill Sessa, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections.

How heartwarming to know that our Department of Corrections and/or Rehabilitation gives sex offenders an incentive to play nice-pervert in prison.
The comments on the Register article are less than welcoming - the citizens of San Clemente have even been warned to monitor the Meghan's Law website.

For the planet's finest coverage of how Haidl and his coevals gang-raped an unconscious girl with a Snapple bottle, a pool cue and a lit cigarette, we look to none other than our own R. Scott Moxley - see the catalog BY CLICKING HERE.

Also: READ ABOUT GREG GOING TO PRISON.

Nick Schou's "Just a Random Female," which recounted the harrowing tale of the 1986 murder of Robbin Brandley at Saddleback College and the subsequent search for her killer, will be included in the 2008 edition of The Best American Crime Reporting anthology. This book has in the past featured articles from such publications as Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ and New York magazine.

If you haven't read Nick's story yet, you should. But do yourself a favor: Make sure you're somewhere well-lit, and with lots of people around. In addition to being a heartbreaking tale of a family's loss and a page-turning police procedural, this story is absolutely terrifying.

Last year, I sat in a booth at Original Mike's in Santa Ana and listened to Assistant Sheriff Jo Ann Galisky explain--quite logically, in her mind--that jail deputies in Orange County have never used excessive force because jail deputies always behave. Why? Because, Galisky assured me, deputies are the good guys, and folks in custody are bad guys. The expression on her face revealed a frustration that I didn't buy from her cookie-cutter position. After all, I'd seen gory pictures of what groups of deputies had done to handcuffed inmates: punctured eyeballs, crushed testicles, shattered wrists and cracked skulls. Besides, my sources--including honest, emotionally mature guards--provided me information about how a few of their colleagues routinely craved violence. Galisky and I agreed to disagree about what was unacceptable violence.

So today brings important news that's hardly a shocker: Paul Pringle at the Los Angeles Times writes, "Videos show use of force at OC Jail." Here's the opening of the A1 article:

Orange County sheriff's deputies repeatedly shocked a handcuffed prisoner with a Taser, even after he had been strapped into a restraint chair, slammed him onto the floor with a 'knee drop' and appeared to hit him in the head while he sat passively on a bench, jail video show.

The grainy but graphic images from 2006 show Matthew Fleuret, 24, being put into a holding cell at Orange County Jail and held on the floor by at least five deputies, one of whom pulls Fleuret's arms back and sharply up toward his head while others repeatedly shock him with a Taser over a period of about 13 minutes. Fleuret's lawyer says he was hit 11 times with a stun gun during the incident.

Pringle obtained a copy of an internal sheriff's report on the incident. Are you seated? Deputies claimed they were forced to attack Fleuret because of their sadistic nature. Oh, Jo Ann, put that yellow high