Man on trial in Christmas Eve sex assault

SANTA ANA – Opening statements are scheduled to begin Thursday in the trial of a Santa Ana man accused of sexually assaulting an 8-year-old female relative on Christmas Eve while family members were sleeping.

Jorge Miguel Gallegos, 38, of Santa Ana, faces a possible maximum sentence of life in state prison if convicted of the attack, which was interrupted when Gallegos’ wife walked into the kitchen where the assault occurred, prosecutors say.

Jorge Miguel Gallegos’ booking photo.

COURTESY OF ORANGE COUNTY D.A. OFFICE

Gallegos is charged with three felony counts of lewd acts on a child younger than 14, and dissuading a witness from reporting a crime.

He also faces sentencing enhancement allegations for substantial sexual conduct with a child, according to a news release from the District Attorney’s office.

The sexual assault occurred at about 11 p.m. Dec. 24, 2009.

After Gallegos’ wife walked into the kitchen and witnessed the molestation, he ripped the telephone from the wall and threatened her not to tell anyone about the sexual assault, prosecutors say. He then fled to a friend’s house.

Gallegos’ wife called 911 and Santa Ana Police officers arrested Gallegos a short time later.

An investigation revealed that Gallegos allegedly attacked the same girl in his home between September and December 2009 – an assault that went unreported, according to the D.A.’s office.

 

2 injured during explosion at golf shop

SANTA ANA – Two men suffered minor injuries during a small explosion at Roger Dunn Golf Shops Thursday morning, authorities said.

The fire was reported shortly before 9 a.m. at the golf shop at 1421 Village Way near the 55, Santa Ana Fire Capt. Ben Gonzales.

Firefighters made their way on to the roof as they responded to a fire at Roger Dunn Golf Shop on Village Way in Santa Ana, Thursday morning.

Mark Rightmire, The Orange County Register

MORE PHOTOS »

The men were working on an electrical panel when a small explosion, which resulted in a small fire, knocked them back, he said.

“(The men) were not unconscious, but they received minor burns to face and head,” Gonzales said.

Firefighters quickly doused the fire, which was contained to the electrical room, in about 15 minutes.

Shop employees were in the shop, but did not suffer injuries. They were waiting outside the shop when firefighters arrived, Gonzales said.

Southern California Edison was inspecting the electrical panel to make sure it was safe.

The cause of the fire was under investigation. A damage estimate was not immediately available.

 

Woman convicted in huge ID theft ring

SANTA ANA – A U.S. District judge has found guilty the wife of a key player in one of the largest I.D. theft schemes in Southern California with dozens of victims from Orange County and millions of dollars in losses.

Kristine Ogandzhanyan was convicted Wednesday after a bench trial in Judge David Carter’s courtroom of one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, two counts of attempted bank fraud, and four of aggravated I.D. theft, prosecutors said. She was acquitted of two attempted bank fraud counts.

A U.S. District judge has found guilty the wife of a key player in one of the largest I.D. theft schemes in Southern California with dozens of victims from Orange County and millions of dollars in losses in federal court.

Carter commented the trial educated the court, saying he was “astounded by the sophistication” of the group, prosecutors said.

Last week Carter found her husband, Arman “Horse” Sharopetrosian and another member of the conspiracy, Keren Markosian, all from the Glendale area, guilty of several similar counts.

A federal jury heard testimony in co-defendant Artush Margaryan’s case and found him guilty of similar charges, also in Carter’s court.

Margaryan was the only one of the defendants who opted for a jury trial, while Carter weighed the evidence against the other three.

The defendants face a possible 30 years in federal prison for each count of fraud, 30 years for each count of conspiracy and a mandatory two years on each identity theft charge at their Aug. 6 sentencing by Carter, said Joseph McNally and Martin Estrada, assistant U.S. attorneys who prosecuted the case.

At the sentencing, defense attorneys expect to argue there were no actual losses due to their clients’ actions because they became part of a fraud scheme in 2009, already well under way since 2005.

Prosecutors laid out for jurors what they said were the roles of the defendants:

Sharopetrosian approached low-paid tellers and call center workers for security information on account holders in exchange for money, Ogandzhanyan forged the checks, Markosian deposited the checks into accounts set up in third party names, many of them Armenians who had left the country, and Margaryan as the “one guy in the case who’s caught red handed with the checks.”

For the approximate six-year duration of the fraudulent scheme, defendants conspired to cause at least $8 million in losses, with victims in Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernardino counties, as well as in Arizona, Texas and Nevada, prosecutors said.

There were no losses after the Armenians joined in the summer of 2009 the scheme initiated by African Americans, prosecutors said. But sentencing in federal court is also about intended losses and among other factors the judge will take that into consideration along with any criminal histories of the defendants.

The defendants did everything they could to bypass bank security systems to drain the accounts of victims, many of them unsuspecting seniors whose sense of security was violated, McNally said in his opening statement.

According to the government’s trial memo, as early as 2005, the defendants and co-conspirators used bank insiders to execute a sophisticated fraud scheme throughout Southern California, targeting individual bank accounts by obtaining confidential information.

 

FONTANA: Mentone man arrested in sexting case

Explicit photos and text messages to two girls has landed a 37-year-old Mentone man in jail on suspicion of sex-related charges, according to Fontana police and jail records.

Brian John Ross was arrested at 5:35 p.m. Thursday at Sierra and Merrill Avenues in Fontana and booked for investigation of contacting a minor and arranging to meet with a minor via the Internet for the purpose of having sex, jail records show. His bail is $50,000.

The crimes began March 13 when a 10-year-old Fontana girl received a text message from a man who later identified himself as Brian who said he was 38, police said in a written statement.

Brian sent (the girl) a facial shot along with a photo of him exposed, according to the statement.

“Brian asked (the girl) to send him pictures of herself,” according to the statement.

Similar text messages were sent to the girl’s 13-year-old cousin from Redlands.

The next morning, the Fontana girl told her teacher of the situation, prompting notification of school and city police. After officers brought the girls to police headquarters, arrangements were made for a meeting between Brian and the girls at a local restaurant.

“Undercover officers were aware of the situation and, when Brian showed up, he was taken into custody,” according to the statement. “According to investigators, the suspect would randomly text phone numbers until someone responded.”

Police recommend that parents talk to their children about the dangers of unknown callers, text messages and other electronic communications.

 

MENIFEE: Man denies cruelty in Chihuahua death

A Menifee man accused of killing a neighbor’s Chihuahua with a golf club pleaded not guilty this morning to felony animal cruelty.

Larry Edward Jaurequi, 58, who was released from jail on bond shortly after his Jan. 26 arrest, appeared briefly in a Riverside courtroom to enter his plea. He left quickly without commenting.

Barbara Hitchman, the owner of the dog, was in court with a small group of supporters. She declined to comment.

Hitchman has previously said that her 8-year-old Chihuahua, Lily, and her poodle mix, Benji, got loose Jan. 26 from her home in a 55-and-older gated community. She said that by the time she realized the dogs were gone and went looking for them, it was too late.

Hitchman said she arrived to find Jaurequi walking back to his house and Lily, fatally injured, in the street.

Riverside County sheriff’s officials said the dogs were running near Summitrose Drive and High Ridge Circle when Jaurequi came out of his garage, walked into the street carrying a golf club and struck the Chihuahua for no apparent reason.

Witnesses told deputies he hit the dog as if driving a golf ball off its tee, sending the animal flying through the air, sheriff’s officials said.

The dog died the next morning at an animal hospital.

Follow Sarah Burge on Twitter: @sarahkburge

 

Stockton’s Poor Mired In Violence After Police Cuts, Recession

STOCKTON, Calif. –- Last year, Pablo Cano put to rest 12 murder victims, the most he’s handled in four decades as an undertaker in this troubled city. Many of the dead were still in their teens.

No homicides have come his way so far this year, but in late February he buried a 16-year-old shot in the head, this time in an apparent accident. The job, he says, wears on him.

“I’m so tired of burying these young kids who barely have a chance to start their lives,” says Cano, 70.

Some people grimly joke that the wave of Stockton murders — which hit an all-time high of 58 in 2011 — must be good for Cano’s bottom line. That’s hardly the case. Often the families of victims can scrape together only a few hundred dollars even after turning to friends and neighbors for help. He sometimes offers steep discounts so he doesn’t have to turn them away.

“In the last year, I’ve had to help a lot more people. They just don’t have the money,” he says. “They have tamale sales. I’ve had some pay for the balance with two car washes.”

Stockton, a city of nearly 300,000 with a heavily agricultural economy, saw home construction soar during the housing frenzy that swept through here and the rest of the country several years ago, and became a foreclosure epicenter when the boom turned to bust. The pain of the housing and economic meltdown feels more apparent here, if only because Stockton has long been home to deep pockets of poverty and rampant street crime.

It is hardly alone in its struggles.

Despite clear success reining in crime nationally in recent decades, pockets of extremely high crime rates can still be found in almost every American city. These areas, virtually without exception, are populated by people at the very bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.

“You’re not going to find a lot of homicide in high-income or even middle-income neighborhoods,” says Alfred Blumstein, a criminologist at Carnegie Mellon University. “The bulk of the action is in these poor neighborhoods.”

With a median income just two-thirds of the California average, Stockton has struggled for decades with some of the state’s highest crime rates. Public safety improved during the flush years of the housing boom, and in 2008, homicides fell to just 24, the lowest level in nearly 30 years. But those gains quickly slipped away with the collapse of the housing market and the recession.

To plug gaping deficits, the city council slashed the police department budget, shrinking the size of the force and cutting the pay and benefits of officers who remained. Stockton dismantled a narcotics force, scaled back community policing efforts — and killings soared. Eight murders in January and February in 2012 put Stockton on pace to break the 2011 homicide record.

 

Missouri Campground Deaths May Be Murder-Suicide: Woman, 3 Children Killed

BOURBON, Mo. — The weekend killings of a woman and three children at a campground and resort in eastern Missouri was being investigated Sunday as a possible triple murder-suicide.

Crawford County Sheriff Randy Martin told broadcaster KSDK that investigators believe the shootings happened Saturday morning in a remote area along a gravel road at the Blue Springs Ranch & Resort and that the bodies had been there for “hours” when a guest found them about 1 p.m. Each victim sustained one gunshot wound, and a handgun was found close to the bodies, he said.

Asked if he believes the woman shot the three children and then herself, Martin told the station, “We don’t know for sure, but it kind of appears it could be that way. But again the investigation is still kind of early.”

He added that investigators weren’t seeking any suspects.

Martin said the victims weren’t guests at the facility, which is south of Bourbon and about 80 miles southwest of St. Louis. Although the woman’s vehicle was found in the vicinity and there was identification with her body, Martin declined to identify the victims or their relationship to one another. He said only that they weren’t from the Crawford County area.

A woman who answered the phone at the sheriff’s department told The Associated Press he wouldn’t be back in the office until Monday.

A business manager at the Blue Springs Ranch & Resort told the AP there would be no comment from the facility until authorities release more information. The resort on the Meramec River has campsites, cabins, trail riding and other activities.

 

Christina Lopez, Oregon Mom, Allegedly Watched Her Underage Daughter Strip

In December, Christina Lopez complained to police that her 17-year-old daughter was stripping.

Now, the 42-year-old Oregon woman faces charges because surveillance video allegedly shows her watching the girl dance at the Playhouse Cabaret in Salem, according to Fox 12.

Nicole Madril told the TV station that her mother was unaware that she had been stripping until that day, and had come because she was sick and needed money for food.

“A couple hours later, she called the police,” said Madril. “She was like, ‘You can’t work there.’ She said, ‘You can’t do this,’ and I said, ‘You can’t tell me what to do.'”

KVAL reports that police were suspicious of the mother’s story, but acknowledge that she was the first person to tell authorities that her daughter was stripping at the club, though she never admitting going there to watch.

The club has been fined $6,500, according to ABCNews.com.

Lopez faces one count of using a child in display of sexually explicit content.

 

Simone Farrow, Swimsuit Model Accused Of Drug Dealing, Arrested In Australia After Skipping Bail

A successful bikini model also accused of international drug dealing was caught in Australia last week.

Simone Farrow, who once posed for Ed Hardy’s swimsuit line and was featured in Penthouse magazine, was on the run after skipping out on $150,000 bail that was paid in February by two friends.

The 37-year-old blonde’s troubles began in 2009 in Hollywood where Drug Enforcement Administration officials raided her apartment, claiming to find evidence that she masterminded an international crystal meth ring

Australian cops busted the fugitive model again last Wednesday. Farrow’s hideout on the Australia’s Gold Coast was described as a “cheap hotel” by theSunday Telegraph.

CHECK OUT FACEBOOK PHOTOS OF SIMONE FARROW AKA SIMONE STARR

She was extradited by flight to Sydney where she arrived crying. She told reporters that she was on the lam because her life was in danger.

“The only reason I’ve done this is because someone was trying to murder me,” Farrow said, adding that she’s had “relationships with numerous underworld figures.”

“I wasn’t trying to flee the country at all,” she said. “I was trying to protect myself from being killed or harmed.”

Authorities claim she used 19 aliases and concealed meth in packages of bath salts that were shipped Down Under from the U.S.

One member of the supposed trafficking network committed suicide in California after being contacted by U.S. investigators, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

 

Police arrest man in connection with 50 burglaries

HUNTINGTON BEACH – A Westminster man suspected in at least 50 Orange County burglaries was arrested this week after detectives tied him to a break-in at a Huntington Beach surf shop, police said.

Dylan Geofferson Haddock, 51, is facing felony counts of burglary, possession of a controlled substance, possession of a firearm by a felon and possession of a deadly weapon, as well as a count of misdemeanor burglary, according to Orange County Superior Court records.

Ryan Marie Murphy, 32, arrested with Haddock, is facing a felony count of receiving stolen property, court records show.

Both men pleaded not guilty to the charges at their arraignments Thursday.

Officers on Sunday morning responded to the Huntington Beach Surf and Sport shop in the 100 block of Main Street after an employee arriving for work discovered that someone had shattered a window and stolen $11,000 worth of watches, wallets and cash, according to Huntington Beach police release.

Detectives identified Haddock, a parolee who had previously served prison time for commercial burglaries in 2009, as a suspect in the surf shop break-in.

Investigators on Tuesday carried out a parole search at Haddock’s Westminster home.

Haddock was not at the residence at the time, police said, but the search turned up several stolen watches from stores in Costa Mesa, as well as property from the surf shop.

Later in the day, detectives saw Haddock and Murphy in the parking lot of an Extended Stay America hotel in the 4800 block of Birch Street in Newport Beach.

The two were taken into custody, and a search of a hotel room turned up stolen watches, narcotics and a loaded firearm, police said.

Investigators suspect Haddock is responsible for at least 10 burglaries in Huntington Beach since November, as well as 40 additional burglaries across the county.

Police are asking anyone with information about the burglaries to call 714-536-5949.