Irvine couple mourned at crash site

Debby Rodriguez, left, gives Tami Crowell a hug during a curbside memorial to her parents, Richard and Sharon Crowell, who were struck and killed while walking to the gym on Eastwood in Irvine Tuesday morning.
KEVIN SULLIVAN, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

IRVINE – Over 100 childhood friends, family members and longtime neighbors gathered Friday on an Irvine sidewalk where a married couple was struck by a car and killed.

Rick Crowell, 65, and Sharon Crowell, 61, were hit by a car on Eastwood on Tuesday morning. Sharon was found beneath the wreckage and was declared dead on the scene by paramedics. Rick was transported to a hospital but died a short time later, officials said.

“My mom was my best friend,” said Tami Crowell, the couple’s daughter, at Friday evening’s vigil. “So, not only did I lose my mother, I lost my best friend, too.”

Tami stood next to her brother Casey as neighbors and friends shared memories of their parents. Many who attended the vigil described Rick as friendly man who volunteered his time with youth football leagues and always greeted everyone, “even if he didn’t know them,” Tami said.

“They were as sweet as can be,” said Bill Tasher, who said he knew Rick for over 20 years growing up in El Segundo. “They loved living here and taking advantage of the peace and tranquility of the neighborhood.”

Friends at the vigil said Rick and Sharon were on their way to the Custom Bodies Fitness gym when the crash occurred. Employees at the gym said police officers came in that morning with the couple’s gym badges to try to identify them.

Authorities said a 17-year-old on his way to school veered onto a walkway lined with bushes. His car struck the couple before coming to a stop against a retaining wall and a tree. He stayed on the scene and cooperated with police after the crash. There are no charges pending against the boy, the Irvine Police Department said.

Several people at the vigil said the boy was a Northwood High School student on his way to school. He wasn’t at school the day after the crash, said M’Lis Fox, whose daughter goes to school with the boy. High school students at the vigil said Advanced Placement testing was scheduled for the day of the fatal crash.

A weeklong fundraiser for the couple’s family will be held starting Monday at Northwood Pizza. A percentage of the proceeds will go to the family, which plans to use it for a memorial near where the couple was killed.

Source: www.ocregister.com

By LAUREN STEUSSY/ ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Ex-officer gets probation in rape trial after plea

James Roberts, a former Huntington Beach Police Department officer, who was accused of sexually abusing his ex-wife and ex-girlfriend, listened during opening statements of his trial in Santa Ana. His trial ended abruptly Tuesday with majority of the charges against him dismissed.
EUGENE GARCIA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SANTA ANA – The trial of a former Huntington Beach police officer accused of sexually and physically abusing his ex-wife and former girlfriend ended abruptly Tuesday with most of the charges dismissed.

James Roberts, 36, was charged with 20 felony counts, including rape, sodomy by force, criminal threats, false imprisonment and aggravated assault. If convicted, he faced life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Instead, he pleaded guilty before Orange County Superior Court Judge Patrick Donahue to felony vandalism and one count of misdemeanor domestic battery with corporal injury, which together carry a maximum term of four years in prison. Donahue, who had let the jury go home early Tuesday afternoon so the lawyers could work out an agreement, suspended the prison term, ordering Roberts to serve five years of probation and meet conditions that include completion of a 52-week batterers-treatment program.

The plea agreement between the prosecutor and the defense came after several days of testimony, including that of Roberts’ former wife, who had been on the stand about a day and a half.

County Deputy District Attorney John Christl told Donahue that he could not prove the remaining counts beyond a reasonable doubt.

“(After a) review of the evidence and the testimony elicited in the course of the trial, the prosecution feels we have proof problems, and we are unable to proceed,” Christl said afterward.

As he left the courthouse with Roberts, defense attorney John Barnett said the resolution reached was fair “after all the evidence was laid out.”

Roberts “is relieved to put the prosecution and the potential exposure behind him,” Barnett said.

Roberts’ former wife made a tearful plea to Donahue before the sentencing, saying that she “strongly disagreed” with the plea and that the two domestic-violence counts should have remained felonies. Another domestic-battery charge was among those dismissed.

“What James has done to our son has been extremely damaging,” she said, urging Roberts get counseling and apologize to her, their son and her family.

Donahue will dismiss the jury Wednesday.

Source: www.ocregister.com

By VIK JOLLY/ ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Authorities identify man found in water off Newport Beach

NEWPORT BEACH – Authorities have identified a man whose body was found in the water at a Newport Beach jetty.

Orange County coroner’s office officials Monday evening said Pedro Ruiz, 82, of Costa Mesa is the man who was found in the water at the base of the 40th Street jetty about 2:30 p.m. Sunday.

Officers responding to reports of a dead man on the rocks at the water line pulled Ruiz onto shore.

Ruiz was fully clothed and appeared to have been in the water for only a short period, a police statement said.

The coroner’s office estimates that Ruiz died about 1:30 p.m.

Authorities are awaiting the results of an autopsy scheduled for later this week to determine the official cause of Ruiz’s death.

Police say there were no obvious signs of trauma on Ruiz’s body, leading them to say that foul play is not suspected.

Police are asking anyone with information to contact Newport Beach police Detective Garrett Fitzgerald at 949-644-3797.

Source: www.ocregister.com

By SEAN EMERY/ ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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H.B. moves toward fine for underage-drinking hosts

Parents in Huntington Beach could face a fine if caught serving alcohol to minors. The city is believed to be the third in Orange County to adopt a social hosting ordinance. SETH PERLMAN, AP

HUNTINGTON BEACH Parents can now be held responsible if they are caught serving alcohol to minors at parties.

This new rule on the city’s books passed 5-2 at the City Council meeting on Tuesday with council members Matthew Harper and Jill Hardy dissenting. The new rule will apply a $250 fine for violators.

Mission Viejo was the first city to adopt this rule in 2008 and Laguna Beach jumped on board in December.

“This is one of those that is really easy to vote in favor of and it looks real good,” Hardy said. “To stand up and oppose it is very brave, I think. I’m going to get accused of not listening to the parents … or not thinking of the children… but it’s just too easy for me to come up with how it goes bad.”

Councilman Joe Carchio, who brought the item to the council, said teens and parents are “begging for this”.

“Alcohol is the leading (substance) that creates problems that lead to drugs and so forth,” he said. “These people came from the PTA and expressed their concern and wanted this because they need to have it in place because this is where the kids start.”

The social hosting ordinance will be added to the city’s “loud parties” ordinance, which allows Huntington Beach to collect a fee for having the police respond to gatherings that are receiving noise complaints.

The city’s law will combine the state “contributing to delinquency” law and civil liability for “social hosting” into one law that will serve as a tool for the police department to deter under age drinking.

Police can either charge a flat $250 fee for the violation or they can apply an itemized fee that could include things such as salaries of the officers when responding to parties, the cost of equipment and the cost of any medical treatment if a police officer is injured, the ordinance says.

“This speaks in plain language about the nature of the problem and it gives the police officer tools that we don’t have now,” said Police Chief Kenneth Small said. “This adds a civil citation process … which is a much easier and simpler way for the police department to address it.”

Hardy said she was concerned that parents could be wrongfully accused of hosting a party.

As a teacher, she said she hears how students go out of their way to hide things from their parents. She gave the example of teens watching movies in a home while the parents are upstairs and one teen sneaking in alcohol without the adults knowing.

“What if one kid gets sick and then they call their parents … and that parent flips out and calls the police?” Hardy said. “The potential for a parent being accused of hosting when they aren’t just seems too strong here.”

The law will have some exemptions, including allowing alcohol for religious activities or skipping a citation if it is determine the host of the party took “reasonable steps to prevent underage drinking,” the law says.

The ordinance will come back for a second reading at a future meeting before going into effect.

Source: www.ocregister.com

By JAIMEE LYNN FLETCHER/ ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Fear holds Dorner target hostage

Husband and wife Los Angeles Police Department officers Phil and Emada Tingirides were part of a press conference about what it was like being on the hit list of former LAPD officer Christopher Dorner at the LAPD Police Administration Building in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday morning. Later in the day the two gave a sit-down interview with Register reporter Tony Saavedra.
ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Phil Tingirides – one of Christopher Dorner’s main targets – says he now knows the meaning of fear, the kind that creeps up in your voice, the kind that sends you to the family garage to cry in private.

And that has made him a better servant of the neighborhoods he serves in Watts, says Tingirides, who hunkered down for nearly a week with his family at their home in Irvine – close to where Dorner killed his first two victims.

“It does give a sense of the real fear that the community I serve faces daily,” he said Tuesday at a news conference at LAPD headquarters.

By his side – at the conference and in a subsequent interview – was his wife, Emada, 42, a sergeant in the department.

As Dorner rained violence for six days in Southern California, Phil and Emada Tingirides put on a brave face for their six children – ages 10 to 24 – trying to downplay the danger while police officers with guns kept guard outside. After the first day, they kept the television and radio off to keep from scaring the children. But sometimes the news broke through.

“There was such an overwhelming feeling of fear, we were putting on our strong face and watching our kids go through this. That was a very emotional thing to go through,” said Phil Tingirides, 54. “I felt the fear of the reality of what he had done and what he could do to our family.”

What Dorner is alleged to have done is kill the daughter of his former attorney and her boyfriend on Feb. 3, apparently in retaliation for his 2008 dismissal from the department for making false accusations against a training officer. The morning after Irvine police named him as a suspect, police say, Dorner stepped up his rampage, killing a Riverside police officer, and also killed a San Bernardino County deputy on Feb. 12 in a raging gunfight before dying in a Big Bear cabin set aflame by tear-gas canisters.

In an 11,000-word “manifesto,” Dorner threatened violence on the LAPD officials he blamed for his firing. Phil Tingirides was named by Dorner as the chairman of the review board that recommended to the chief that his firing be upheld.

Dorner wrote that Tingirides was friends with his training officer and should have been removed from the three-member Board of Rights for having a conflict of interest. In an interview, Tingirides said that with his 33-year tenure, it’s hard to serve on a review panel without knowing someone involved in the proceedings.

The board’s conclusion was upheld in Superior Court and in appellate court. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck announced Tuesday that criminal defense attorney Gerald Chaleff, who helped investigate the department’s role in the 1992 riots, has been asked to re-examine Dorner’s dismissal. Beck said it probably would take several months before the investigation is completed and becomes public.

Phil Tingirides said he invites the scrutiny, “confident that nothing was inappropriate.”

“Never, ever, did I think somebody would go to this extent in their rage over the decision that was handed out,” Tingirides said.

Emada Tingirides, an African American woman, held herself as proof that there is little if any racism in the LAPD – despite Dorner’s claims that the department hasn’t changed since the Rodney King days. A veteran of nearly 18 years, Emada Tingirides said, “I know in my heart it’s not true.”

However, she understands how some people can feel empathy for Dorner. “Everybody’s sense of reality is different,” she said. “There are going to be people that understand the struggles of Christopher Dorner. … I don’t understand the empathy people have for people who planned out and murdered children. (But) my heart goes out to Christopher Dorner’s mother. He’s her child.”

Emada Tingirides said she first learned of Dorner’s threats on Feb. 6, when Irvine named him a suspect in the killings of Monica Quan, 28, and Keith Lawrence, 27. She was driving a patrol vehicle when Phil telephoned.

“There was this fear in his voice,” she remembered. “I literally stopped my vehicle because I could hear the fear in my husband’s voice.” She initially thought one of their children had died.

Phil wanted her to take a helicopter home. “I don’t do helicopters,” she said.

She learned of Dorner’s writings and wondered, “How could a man who has given so much of his soul … to this department become a target for a man who spent less than 100 days?”

They rounded up their children – some in different households – to be in one location so they could be better protected. Then they tried to explain.

“We told them there was a crazy man trying to do really bad things to all the captains in the department,” Emada Tingirides said.

But the children began getting snippets of the real story. They realized, as Chief Beck put it, “Dorner did a lot of homework that no doubt included physical surveillance.”

They tried to pass the time by playing board games and watching DVDs. (“I didn’t know Adam Sandler had so many movies,” Phil Tingirides quipped.)

And they left the home on occasion to go to youth sporting events, taking with them their LAPD bodyguards. Neighbors brought cookies for the bodyguards. Irvine police brought pizza. The community had put a protective arm around the family.

In the early days of the manhunt, some friends suggested fleeing Irvine.

Said Phil Tingirides: “We had offers, come on up to Big Bear.”

Meanwhile, Beck announced that officers involved in the shooting of two newspaper carriers mistaken for Dorner had been taken off duty, pending an investigation. He added that resolution of the $1 million reward for information leading to Dorner’s capture situation was complicated and was still being studied. Beck said he wanted the money to be paid out.

Source: www.ocregister.com

By TONY SAAVEDRA/ ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Off-duty officer arrested after fight outside Tustin sushi bar

TUSTIN – An off-duty police officer and another man were arrested Monday after Tustin police responded to reports of a man with a firearm during a fight at a sushi bar, authorities said.

A reported assault at RA Sushi in The District shopping center led to a fight involving two groups of customers that spilled into a common area outside the business and resulted in one person drawing a weapon, Tustin police Lt. Paul Garaven said.

Police found two men, Roy Edward Rush and Paul Edward Mosley, and took them into custody.

Mosley, who authorities say is a Los Angeles Police Department officer who was off-duty at the time of the fight, was believed to be the man with the firearm, Garaven said.

Investigators believe Rush and Mosley are acquaintances who got into a fight with another group of people.

Garaven said the members of the other group were found but not arrested.

There was no indication of shots being fired during the fight, and no injuries were reported.

Mosley, 42, was arrested on suspicion of brandishing a weapon and battery. Rush, 36, was arrested on suspicion of battery.

Source: www.ocregister.com

By SEAN EMERY/ ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Servite teacher arrested on suspicion of lewd conduct

Irvine police arrested a high school teacher Saturday, alleging he lured boys into sending him sexually explicit photos through a fake Facebook page.

Zachary Reeder, 30, of Orange was arrested on suspicion of lewd conduct with a child, possession and distribution of child pornography, and child annoyance.

Police say he posed as a young female on Facebook and persuaded boys to send him personal photos. He did not, however, appear to have physical contact with the victims, police said.

Reeder may have chosen boys he met as a social science teacher at Servite High in Anaheim, police said. He taught there since fall 2008, a police statement said. Before that, he taught history at Capistrano Valley Christian High School. He has coached baseball at Beckman High School in Irvine for four seasons.

Servite released a statement Sunday saying Reeder has been terminated.

Reeder is due in court Monday for a bail hearing, police said. He is being held at the Theo Lacy Facility in Orange.

Staff writer Dan Albano contributed to this report.

Source: www.ocregister.com

By MIKE REICHER / ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Ponzi scheme operator faces trial on O.C. charges

Gerard Cellette booking photo.
COURTESY OF THE ORANGE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE

SANTA ANA – Prosecutors have charged a Minnesota man in connection with what they call a $200 million nationwide Ponzi scheme with at least 55 victims in Orange County.

Gerard Frank Cellette, 48, of Anoka County, is charged with 116 felony counts, including 46 counts of selling unregistered securities and 43 counts of money laundering, plus sentencing enhancements and allegations. If convicted, he faces a possible 104 years in prison.

He has been convicted in Minnesota for defrauding victims there and is serving a six-year prison sentence in that case, the O.C. District Attorney’s Office said.

Between 2005 and 2009, more than $150 million of the total Cellette is accused of receiving came from investors in California, most of whom were from Orange County.

Cellette’s Orange County victims allegedly lost more than $21 million in the Ponzi scheme that prosecutors say is the largest to be prosecuted in county history. Nationwide, the loss was more than $53 million, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

Cellette spent the stolen money on luxury items including cars, jets, and multiple homes with features such as a go-cart track, bowling alley, and ’50s-style malt shop, the District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.

The defendant, who was extradited from Minnesota to Orange County on Monday, carried out crimes without entering California, prosecutors said.

Cellette promised investors returns of up to 15 percent on fake printing projects while he owned and operated Minnesota Print Services Inc. out of his Minnesota home, according to prosecutors.

The release alleges that Cellette operated a Ponzi scheme across the country, including in his home state and in California, Georgia, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii and Illinois.

The scheme unraveled when three Orange County investors became suspicious and confronted Cellette, prosecutors said.

Source: www.ocregister.com

By VIK JOLLY/ THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Husband arrested in 2004 Westminster killing

Photo of Ariet Girgis, 55 yrs., slain in her home on Sept. 29, 2004.
COURTESY OF FAMILY

WESTMINSTER – The husband of a woman who was stabbed to death and nearly decapitated nine years ago was arrested over the weekend in connection with the cold-case killing.

After developing additional leads, Westminster police said they arrested Magdi Girgis, who was convicted in February 2005 of beating his wife, Ariet Girgis, a victim of what police called an apparent contract killing.

Police have not released further details surrounding the arrest. A press conference at the Westminster Police Department is scheduled at 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Online court records show that a Magdi Girgis, 60, was arrested Sunday and remains in custody Monday. A Tuesday court date was scheduled.

The brutal murder happened about 3:40 a.m. on September 29, 2004, when Ariet Girgis was home with her 17-year-old son, Ryan. Two men tied up the teen in his closet, one guarding him while the other killed his mother, police said.

A few minutes later, Ryan heard a car drive away and was able to break free and call police, police added.

Police said the intruders slashed Ariet Girgis’ throat, nearly decapitating her.

According to online court records, Magdi Girgis was sentenced to five years of formal probation and one year in jail for his guilty plea in February 2005 of spousal battery and attempting to dissuade a witness.

Ariet Girgis had complained in court that her husband violated a court order to stay away from her and that he threatened her in an attempt to get the charge dropped.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Kevin Haskins said the slashing death of Ariet Girgis and the domestic-violence case were two unrelated events, according to previous City News Service report.

Additional arrests in the case are imminent, and a total of $55,000 in reward money is still being offered, police said.

Source: www.ocregister.com

By ALEJANDRA MOLINA/ THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Death-penalty trials make a comeback in O.C.

Jason Balcom
PAUL BERSEBACH, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

“You are a cancer on society,” Superior Court Judge William Froeberg said in November 2011 as he handed down the death penalty to a killer who gunned down a Tustin home improvement store manager.

That was the last time that an Orange County judge was tasked with the ultimate sentencing decision: the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

No death sentences were issued in 2012, making it the first year since 2007 when no one was sent to death row from Orange County.

It is one of the longest spells without a death sentence here since the death penalty was re-established in California in 1978.

That’s about to change.

Prosecuting and defense attorneys on Monday will deliver opening statements in the death-penalty re-trial of convicted rapist Jason Michael Balcom.

It will be the first of what could be a record 10 death-penalty trials in Orange County in 2013.

“We had several death-penalty cases ready for trial last year,” said Assistant District Attorney Dan Wagner, the head of the prosecution’s homicide team. “But the defense in several cases found ways to stretch things out and get continuances to see what happened with Proposition 34.”

In November, California voters affirmed the death penalty by rejecting Prop. 34 by a large margin. Opponents of the death penalty placed the measure on the ballot, saying that the death penalty is too expensive to maintain.

Had voters approved the measure, the maximum allowable sentence would have been life in prison without the possibility of parole, eliminating the need for a death-penalty trial. The measure also would have required that the death sentences conferred on 61 Orange County killers on death row would have reverted to life without parole.

“Absolutely, a number of trials got pushed back last year to see if Proposition 34 passed,” agreed Denise Gragg, director of the alternate defender’s office, “Why spend the money for a death-penalty trial if a death sentence would no longer be an option?”

But now – with the death penalty sustained by voters – Orange County judges are juggling their trial calendars to make sure they have time allotted for potential penalty-phase evidence, and court authorities are pondering how many jurors should be summoned to serve on death-penalty cases.

Death-penalty trials often require more jurors than other murder trials. That’s because the potential jury pool is first screened to make sure would-be jurors can serve on a longer trial without it being a hardship, and then to eliminate candidates who have too strident a view for or against the ultimate punishment.

For example, Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno brought in 240 would-be jurors to his 11th-floor courtroom earlier this month for consideration in the penalty-phase retrial of Balcom, the convicted rapist charged with murdering a Costa Mesa housewife. Through a lengthy process, those 240 candidates have been winnowed down to a panel of 12 plus a few alternates.

And three floors down, Superior Court Judge Richard Toohey last week brought in nearly 250 potential jurors to his courtroom to fill out questionnaires for consideration in the death-penalty trial of Waymon Livingston, who is charged with murder during a sexual assault and a series of rapes. Opening statements in his case could come as early as Thursday.

By comparison, a non-death penalty jury trial usually requires about 80 prospects.

Death sentences statewide also have been down for the past two years in the run-up to the Prop. 34 ballot decision, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Judges sent 29 killers to death row in 2009 and 2010, but just 10 in 2011 and 12 last year, according to the CDCR website.

The spate of death-penalty trials in Orange County this year starts with People v. Balcom.

He was convicted last year of the special-circumstances murder of Costa Mesa housewife Malinda Gibbons in 1988.

Gibbons was 22 and pregnant when she and her husband, Kent, moved to Costa Mesa from a small town in Utah after he took a job here as an engineer. Three days after they moved in, Kent Gibbons returned home from work and found the semi-nude body of his wife in their bedroom. She had been bound with his belt and neckties, gagged and stabbed once in the chest. The intruder also robbed her of her wedding ring, watch, purse and a calculator.

Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy asked for the death penalty for Balcom, arguing the cruel nature of the slaying, Balcom’s violent criminal history and the impact the slaying had on Gibbons’ family warranted the maximum penalty. Deputy Public Defender Dolores Yost asked for a life-without-parole sentence, saying that Balcom was the product of an unstable upbringing by his mother, a mentally ill, self-absorbed, needy and manipulative woman who later committed suicide.

The Orange County jury in the first penalty phase in 2012 hung at 10-2 in favor of a death sentence, prompting a mistrial and setting the stage for the first death-penalty trial of 2013.

People v. Balcom represents the type of case, Wagner said, that demands a death-penalty prosecution.

“That was the decision of the voters in Proposition 34,” he said. “They wanted us to continue to seek the death penalty where appropriate.

“Even if it’s 20 years … before we start to carry out death penalties in California again, we should continue to look evil in the face and denounce it as loud as we possibly can,” Wagner said.

He said he is aware that no one has been executed in California since January 2006, and that there is a moratorium on executions while a Marin County judge considers whether lethal injection is cruel and unusual. He also acknowledged that only 13 killers have been put to death in California, including two from Orange County, since the death penalty was re-established in 1978.

But he insists that there should be a death penalty for those killers who demonstrate “maximum depravity and ultimate wickedness” with their crimes.

After Balcom, the other nine defendants who could face a death-penalty trial in 2013 are:

•Waymon Livingston: Charged with of strangling and raping a Sacramento woman in an Anaheim motel room in September 2007, four rapes and one assault between 2005 and 2007 after he was linked to the crimes through DNA. He is also scheduled to tried later on a separate murder charge involving a woman in a Costa Mesa motel in 2007..

•Iftekhar Murtaza: Charged with abducting and murdering his ex-girlfriend’s father, Jayprakash Dhanak, and her sister, Karishma Dhanak, in 2007 before setting their bodies on fire. Scheduled trial date: March 18.

•Daniel Patrick Wozniak: Charged with murdering a friend, Army veteran Samuel Herr, in 2010 after luring him to a community theater during a bizarre robbery attempt, and killing Herr’s friend Juri “Julie” Kibuishi, in an even more bizarre shooting designed to confuse Costa Mesa police in Herr’s case. Pre-trial hearing Feb. 15 with trial date expected later in the year.

•Scott Evans DeKraai: Charged with multiple murders in the shooting deaths of eight people, including his ex-wife, at a Seal Beach beauty salon on Oct. 12, 2011. He was indicted on eight counts of special-circumstances murder in January 2012. Trial date: March 25, but likely to be rescheduled for later in the year.

•Richard Raymond Ramirez: He is not the “night stalker,” but he has spent most of the past 30 years on death row after he was convicted of raping and murdering a woman in an alley behind a Garden Grove bar in 1983. But that death sentence was reversed on appeal. Prosecutors will seek a second death penalty beginning March 22.

•Itzcoatl Ocampo: The ex-Marine is charged with the serial murders of a mother and son in Yorba Linda and the unprovoked stabbing deaths of four homeless men in north Orange County in 2011 and 2012. Scheduled trial date: May 20.

•Anthony Wade: Charged with raping and torturing an Anaheim widow before stabbing her with a kitchen knife in 2010, and then stealing her car and trying to use one of her credit cards at a grocery store. Tentative trial date: Aug. 5.

•Hilbert Piniel Thomas: Charged in connection with the robbery-shooting deaths of a Stanton mobile-home salesman, Matthew Francis Scott, and his secretary, Elizabeth Ann Palmer, who were both shot in the back of the head. Scheduled trial date: Sept. 27.

•Pasqual Loera: Charged with murdering a Westminster couple after posing as a buyer for their Infiniti in 2010. Authorities said he stole the sedan, drove to Nevada, accidentally shot himself in the foot and drove into a ditch. Scheduled pre-trial hearing: Feb. 1, trial expected later in the year.

Source: www.ocregister.com

By LARRY WELBORN/ THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

If you are charged with a crime, contact an experienced Orange County Bail Bondsman to assist you in any bail situation.