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Tuesday's Headlines & Surprises: Costa Mesa Fascists Lose!

Posted by R. Scott Moxley in Crime & Sex, Moxley, News Roundups

October 2, 2007 5:55 AM

Permalink | Comments (1)

  • How Did Bren Recently Gain $5 Billion? Those of us who’ve watched the county operate know that Donald Bren’s Irvine Co. gets away with murder in Orange County. Several years ago, I reported that Bren had won public recognition from the Times and Register for donating land to the public at his Newport Coast project. What they didn’t say was that the land was mostly sheer cliff around his McMansions. Far from being generous, Bren’s donation quietly shifted earthquake and fire liability from himself to taxpayers at Newport Coast. Socialism for a billionaire! Now comes Times reporter Christian Berthelsen, who uncovers documents showing that Bren got the county to give him free use of public park land for his housing development in Orange. Bryan Speegle, head of the Resources and Development Management Department, did his job well. He fought the giveaway. His reward? He was fired.
  • Cops Don't Cheat: Federal prosecutors unsealed evidence that the Mafia bribed an FBI agent with “cash, stolen jewelry, hotel rooms, liquor and prostitutes” in exchange for tips, the Associated Press reports. Now ex-agent L. Lindley DeVecchio, 66, denies that he worked for the Columbo crime family for 20 years. But prosecutors claim he aided in murders, bank robberies, wiretappings and provided information about police surveillance of Mafia establishments. If convicted, DeVecchio--free now on $1 million bail--faces a maximum prison sentence of 25 years to life. What is so wrong with a cop hanging out with mobsters? In fact in Orange County, the top dawg--Sheriff Michael S. Carona--has been known to actually embrace, uh, colorful characters with multiple underworld ties.
  • Government Pays Consultants to Tell It What Business Should Do: Deepa Bharath at the Reg reports that the Washington D.C.-based Urban Land Institute is visiting Little Saigon for a $60,000 study on ways to re-market Orange County’s Little Saigon. Westminster city officials who run the area hope that the five-member panel can find ways to attract more tourism and keep younger generation Vietnamese Americans from fleeing. Another consultant hired by the city this year recommended more population diversity, theaters to showcase culture and high-end restaurants, according to Bharath. Hey, Councilman Andy Quach. You’re a conservative Republican. Isn’t free market capitalism supposed to solve the issue without politicians pretending to be business folk? Ayn Rand can't be happy.
  • Aid The Pedophile Enablers, Please: It’s not just Matt Cunningham at OCBlog who thinks the Catholic Church has been unfairly tarnished by all the media coverage of the priest man-boy and man-girl sex scandals that seem to erupt weekly. Three Register readers let off similar steam. William D. Robinson of San Clemente is angry that reporters have written about Bishop Tod Brown’s alleged repeated molestation of a boy, Scott Hicks, in the 1960s. “Giving this unsubstantiated, uncorroborated and unreliable allegation such status, simply because the man has made the allegation, is a pathetic and vile form of journalism,” writes Robinson. T.A. Russell of Newport Beach compared coverage of Brown to the Duke Lacrosse players fiasco. “Shame on you and your editors for your prejudice against the Catholic Church,” he writes. Paul A. Jordan of Placentia says he was an altar boy and he wasn’t molested so molestation charges can’t be true. Jordan is “saddened” not at the coverups and enabling of pedophiles by church officials but rather by newspaper coverage because if the “false impressions” are true “society is seriously endangered by Catholic priests.” Robinson, Russell and Jordan get an extra shot of wine next Sunday!
  • Costa Mesa Fascists Were Boneheads too: In their rush to persecute Benito Acosta for speaking against a government plan to use local cops for immigration patrols, Costa Mesa city officials forgot to swear in the city attorney as a prosecutor. Dan Peelman works at Jones & Mayer when he isn’t playing public servant. The firm likes to represent aggressive police officers and is involved in protecting (at public expense) the soiled image of Sheriff Michael S. Carona following a series of sex scandals. According to a Daily Pilot story today by Alicia Robinson, Superior Court Judge Kelly MacEachern tossed the charges against Acosta because of Peelman’s error. Acosta, 26, says he wants to get on with his life, but we can guess that the shameless Allan Mansoor crew is contemplating an appeal.
 

Comments (1)

  1. Debby Bodkin says:
    October 2, 2007 13:03

    RESPONSE TO AID THE PEDOPHILE ENABLERS...

    OC Register letter writer William Robinson of San Clemente obviously has enough legal background to plead the good 'ol boy network that ignores wrongdoing and sex crimes that destroyed lives because the statute of limitations expired. This ostrich approach to mandated child protection law is only impressive to attorneys protecting sex predator employees in a court of law. In actuality, this is the Church's free ticket to sex abuse without criminal charges.

    Mr. Robinson's letter fails to mention:

    1. Diocese of Orange attorneys, employees and the faithful in the pews, intentionally delayed and failed to report sex crimes that destroyed lives, so that the statute of limitations would expire, granting lifetime immunity to sexual predator/employees supervised by the Diocese of Orange.

    2. Dioicese of Orange attorneys, General Counsel, HR Director and loyal supervisory employees were and continue to be GUARANTEED life-long employment, if they aid and abet the Diocese of Orange in covering up sex abuse allegations reported by a child or family member, before the media reports sex crimes in the news.

    3. With all the attorneys the Diocese of Orange has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to, it is obvious that some type of negligence has taken place. Did any attorney advise Diocese of Orange Bishops, General Counsel and HR Director, that legal conflicts of interest are a violation of the law?

    Mr. Robinson, do you understand that the largest law enforcement agency in Orange Coumty, the OC Sheriff's Department, shares attorneys with the Diocese of Orange?

    Do you believe that an employee of the Diocese of Orange, one with knowledge of sex abuse crimes and/or violations of the Gun Free Schools Act of 2000 reported by a child or parent, is going to report wrongdoing to a law enforcement agency as mandated by law? Think about it....

    Where would the report go? It would go directly to the attorneys simultaneously representing the Diocese of Orange and the OC Sheriff's Department, NO FURTHER.

    Mr. Robinson, do you now understand why the statute of limitations on the sex abuse allegations made against Bishop Brown and many other employees of religious institutions protected by attorneys nationwide, have expired and never prosecuted? It is called OBSTRUCTIONS OF JUSTICE, FAILURES TO REPORT, PERJURY and intefering with due process of the law.

    P.S. Mr. Robinson, are you closely associated with St. Edward's Catholic Church, former priest John Lenihan and Maria Rullo Schinderle, the General Counsel for the Diocese of Orange? I may remember you from St. Edward's.

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