Father arrested in hospital after crash that killed daughter

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – A 30-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter and drunken driving after an accident that killed his 5-year-old daughter and injured three of his other children Saturday night in San Juan Capistrano, Orange County Sheriff’s officials said.

Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Jeff Hallock said Antolin Brito, 30, of San Juan Capistrano, was arrested Saturday night in his hospital bed at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana.

Brito’s daughter, 5-year-old Yuliana Brito, was killed and two other daughters, 11 and 2, and one son, 8, were taken to area hospitals.

Capt. Paul Satras of the Orange County Fire Authority said Brito was driving on Junipero Serra Road approaching Camino Capistrano where Junipero Serra ends about 6:53 p.m. His vehicle kept going straight, through the parking lot of a senior-living home and over an embankment, coming to rest in some rocks in a small creek.

Satras said OCFA personnel tried to resuscitate Yuliana, but she was pronounced dead at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo shortly after the crash.

Staff writer Fred Swegles contributed to this report.

source: http://www.ocregister.com

BY CHRISTOPHER EARLEY / ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Capistrano killings: Money not motive in shooting, D.A. says

Homicide detail investigator Justin Montano answers questions for the media during a news conference Friday after Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens announced the arrest of 19-year old Ashton Sachs on suspicion of killing his parents, Brad and Andra Sachs, on Feb. 9 in their San Juan Capistrano home.
KEN STEINHARDT, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

SANTA ANA – Prosecutors said money was not a motive for a 19-year-old charged with sneaking into his parents’ multimillion-dollar home and killing them as they slept.

The parents, Bradford and Andra Sachs, owned several properties across the country and were involved with multiple tech and green companies. When they were found shot dead in their bedroom last month, homicide investigators began digging into their business dealings for a possible lead.

A month after their deaths, their second-oldest child appeared in an orange jail jumpsuit via video in a jailhouse courtroom, charged with the murder of his parents and attempted murder of two of his siblings.

The suspect’s 8-year-old brother, according to the district attorney, was shot and paralyzed.

The sister was uninjured.

“I can tell you one thing, it’s not financially motivated,” said Deputy District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh.

Ashton Sachs spoke little in his first court hearing Monday. He said, “Yes, sir,” to confirm his name and date of birth.

When the judge asked if he could afford to pay a lawyer, he shook his head and said, “No.”

Sachs was arrested Thursday, nearly a month after homicide investigators found few clues and leads to a suspected killer.

Justin Montano, the lead investigators with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, described the case as a “true whodunit” until last week, when a lead pointed authorities to Sachs.

Court records show that the San Juan Capistrano couple’s business dealings often landed them in court in lawsuits, and Montano said investigators found several people who “did not like” the couple.

Detectives found no signs of forced entry in the San Juan Capistrano home on Peppertree Bend, a three-story house valued at more than $3.5 million.

Business dealings and money seemed to play a key role as investigators looked into the lives of the wealthy couple, but a lead last week pointed investigators in a different direction.

“This was not something that happened on the spur of the moment or in the heat of passion,” Baytieh said.

Ashton Sachs had been living with his parents, but moved out last fall, officials said.

He was living in Seattle, but drove more than 1,100 miles down to San Juan Capistrano just before the killings, Baytieh said.

The prosecutor said Sachs entered the family home in the middle of the night and, “brutally, absolutely brutally” shot Bradford Hans Sachs, 57, and Andra Sachs, 54.

He is accused of then shooting his 8-year-old brother in his bedroom and shot, and missed, his 17-year-old sister.

No one inside the home recognized the shooter, and Ashton Sachs fled before deputies arrived, Baytieh said.

Sachs then caught a flight back to the Seattle area, Baytieh said.

“The absolutely sad thing about this case is, we all like to go to sleep at night thinking parents will not hurt their children, and children will not hurt their parents,” Baytieh said.

Beyond two speeding tickets in Orange County and Washington state, Ashton Sachs doesn’t appear to have a criminal record.

About two weeks after the killings, the suspect and his older brother filed paperwork in San Diego County asking to be named guardians of their underage siblings and the Sachses’ estate – including the injured 8-year-old boy.

The suspect was taken into custody in San Diego, where he and his siblings were planning on settling, officials said.

Law enforcement officials said they spoke with him extensively in San Diego and Orange County, but would not comment on what Sachs said.

Ashton Sachs is expected to appear back in court April 4.

BY SALVADOR HERNANDEZ AND ERIC HARTLEY /   ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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What was behind killings of San Juan Capistrano couple?

Andra Sachs and Brad Sachs were divorced in 2000 and were also partners in Plug In Solutions in San Juan Capistrano. They were the man and woman found dead in their home early Sunday morning, sheriff’s officials confirmed Monday. They are shown here in a 2010 file photo.
FILE PHOTO: PAUL BERSEBACH, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

A man and woman found dead inside a sprawling San Juan Capistrano house were identified by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department on Monday as once-married entrepreneurs who headed up several embattled companies.

No suspects have been identified in the deaths of Bradford Hans Sachs, 57, and Andra Resa Sachs, 54, a couple with five children who filed for divorce 14 years ago but continued to live and conduct business together. Their 8-year-old son was found seriously injured inside the home but was expected to survive.

Few details have emerged about what happened at the house on Peppertree Bend just before 2 a.m. Sunday, when someone inside called 911. No arrests had been made, and investigators with the Sheriff’s Department asked the public for any information connected to the crime.

Detectives believe the double homicide was an isolated incident but are investigating whether it was a random attack or a targeted killing, Lt. Jeff Hallock said.

Investigators are looking into the couple’s past, their slew of business and property dealings, and a flurry of lawsuits dating to the 1990s. Those include a complicated 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals case involving a now-defunct dot-com business that family members say earned the couple millions.

Court records show Brad and Andra Sachs had been married but filed for divorce in 1999. Despite the legal split, the two continued to work together, and neighbors said they shared the 8,874-square-foot house valued at $3.8 million.

The couple was dogged by a series of court disputes including a lawsuit against their Plug In Solutions company by a woman who said she paid nearly $11,000 for a power conversion kit that functioned for six months before causing her car battery to leak a “toxic smell,” according to the Orange County Superior Court claim.

Brad Sachs told the woman he’d fixed the problem, but the kit later ignited and burned her 2009 Toyota Prius, according to the lawsuit, which was settled outside of court.

The Sachses founded an Internet service provider called Flashcom in the late 1990s. A decadelong court dispute stems from a $9 million transfer that company officials made while trying to remove Andra Sachs from the board of directors, according to court documents.

“I just know that they had the ability to make money,” said Sachs’ father, Hal Sachs, in a phone interview from his home in Lebanon, Mo. “It seems like they would go someplace and look up something and say, ‘Oh, this is a nice place to buy property,’ and the next thing I would know, they’re talking about the property they bought in Maui or wherever.”

Sachs said he last spoke to his son last week, on Brad’s 57th birthday. Nothing seemed amiss. He said Andra got Brad a bicycle that could catch waves on the water, “and he was stoked.”

The couple obtained a business license in 2009 for a property management company called Ashby Enterprises. The company has been the target of lawsuits, including an ongoing breach-of-contract case filed by a disgruntled tenant in 2011.

They also opened an electric-car facility in San Juan Capistrano called Jungle Motors. They continued to own the building there, which is the target of a Superior Court lawsuit that says the couple failed to repair the roof, which is alleged to have led to Mill Enterprises’ office being destroyed in a rainstorm in December 2010.

Joshua Engle, an Anaheim lawyer representing Mill Enterprises, declined to comment when reached Monday.

Chris Knuth opened Star Motors in the building in 2011. He said he saw the Sachses regularly and described them Monday as a normal couple who supported his business and celebrated his success.

“They seemed like everybody else,” he said. He learned of their deaths over the weekend.

“It’s very scary,” Knuth said.

Hal Sachs said the couple had two sons in college and two girls, in addition to the 8-year-old boy.

BY MEGHANN CUNIFF AND SALVADOR HERNANDEZ /   ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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

 

Two adults killed, child injured in San Juan Capistrano home

Orange County sheriff’s investigators outside the home on Peppertree Bend in San Juan Capistrano on Sunday morning. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department responded with its mobile command unit to what officials said were two bodies found at a home.
DAVID BRO, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – A man and woman were killed and an 8-year-old boy injured early Sunday at an upscale San Juan Capistrano home, and investigators have not yet identified a suspect.

Sheriff’s officials would not identify the victims but said someone called 911 from inside the home in the 32000 block of Peppertree Bend about 1:52 a.m.

The boy was transported to Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo with serious injuries but is expected to survive, said Capt. Steve Concialdi, spokesman for Orange County Fire Authority.

Lt. Jeff Hallock, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, said investigators are looking at all aspects of the victims’ lives as they search for clues about whether someone targeted them or entered the home at random.

Hallock declined to release details about the victims or the nature of their injuries, citing the ongoing investigation.

Neighbor Patty Bonin said a couple live in the home and owned a business in San Juan and had dogs and “lots of kids.”

According to FBI crime statistics, the last homicide in San Juan Capistrano was in 2011. There were two that year, according to the statistics.

The cul-de-sac in the northwest area between Golden Lantern and Del Obispo streets is one of the city’s most exclusive neighborhoods, with about 15 homes worth millions of dollars.

Crime tape blocked the street in front of the home for most of Sunday as homicide detectives combed the area for clues. A judge signed a search warrant that allowed them access about 1:30 p.m. Investigators estimated the home to be about 16,000 square feet.

Curious onlookers questioned how such a crime could occur on such a quiet street.

“This is exactly why people move here, to get away from that,” said Charis Burrett, who lives in San Juan with her husband, Luke. “It’s shocking. It’s why you get an alarm and batten down the hatches.”

BY MEGHANN M. CUNIFF /   ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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

 

D.A.: Drunk groom hurt bride in DUI crash

SANTA ANA – Christopher Paul Shore got married, got drunk and got behind the wheel, a prosecutor told an Orange County jury Tuesday.

“He did so at his own peril,” Deputy District Attorney Marc Caress said in his opening statement of Shore’s felony drunk driving trial. “And when he did, he got into an accident and his wife was injured.”

Shore, 46, was driving in his SUV with more than the legal limit of alcohol in his system on his wedding day on July 7, 2011, Caress said. Shore then suddenly veered across four lanes of traffic on the I-5 in San Juan Capistrano, across the shoulder and down a dirt embankment until he crashed into a tree.

His new bride of about seven hours, Tina Wilson Shore, suffered serious injuries in the crash, Caress said.

Shore, of Laguna Niguel, has four prior DUI convictions on his record.

He now faces a six-year prison sentence if the jury in Superior Court Judge Carla Singer’s courtroom convicts him of felony drunk driving with injuries and a penalty enhancement of causing great bodily injuries.

Deputy Public Defender Richard Cheung acknowledged in his opening statement that his client got married on the spur of the moment at the county courthouse in Laguna Niguel on July 7, and then dined with his new wife at BJ’s Restaurant before meeting some friends at a local pub called Mugs Away for a few celebratory drinks.

But Cheung insisted that Tina Shore did not suffer great bodily injury in the solo car crash. He said she was transported to a hospital and had stitches near her eyebrow. But, Cheung said, the bride was not admitted to the hospital and was released that same day.

“She had no head trauma and no neck trauma,” Cheung said. “She will tell you that she didn’t feel she was seriously injured.”

The great bodily injury penalty enhancement adds three years to Shore’s potential prison sentence if he is convicted of the felony drunk driving.

 

Officials: Suicidal teenager talked down from roof

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – Deputies taking a report for a missing child scrambled to the roof of the home Sunday night after receiving a call from neighbors that the teen was on the roof with a noose around her neck.

The incident occurred after 6 p.m., said Lt. Roland Chacon, while deputies were at the home speaking to a mother about her possibly runaway teenage daughter. The mother told deputies the girl was 14 years old and possibly suicidal.

The deputies were taking the report in the 29000 block of Edgewood Road when neighbors observed the girl on the roof of the home at 6:02 p.m., Chacon said.

Deputies rushed up to the roof and more deputies were summoned. The girl had a rope around her neck and was dangling her feet over the edge, he said.

Two deputies tried to speak with the girl but she was unresponsive, Chacon said.

The deputies edged their way slowly toward the girl and were able to subdue her by 6:30 p.m., he said.

The girl was taken to Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo for a psychological evaluation, Chacon said.

 

Like to sleep in your car? Not in Rancho

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA – Anyone found sleeping in their vehicle on city property could face a fine of $1,000 or six months in jail.

The City Council in Wednesday voted 4-1 to pass an ordinance that the city’s Chief of Police Lt. Brian Schmutz said will give his deputies greater control in responding to ‘suspicious person in car’ calls.

Schmutz told the council in the last year his department has responded to 330 calls for such service. At least a couple dozen have been found to be “sleeping in cars” calls, he said. Others, he said, residents voiced concerned about people doing drugs in their vehicles or casing a neighborhood.

Schmutz said he asked the council to take a look at this law after doing an analysis of training needs and patrol schedule for his deputies.

“One tool used to enforce neighborhood safety would be this ordinance,” Schmutz said.

He also pointed to cities such as Lake Forest, Aliso Viejo, Mission Viejo Tustin, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente Laguna Niguel, Costa Mesa and Irvine, who already have the law on their books. In some cases, the laws are more stringently enforced allowing no sleeping in cars at any time, he added.

Schmutz also cited an arrest of a man found sleeping in his car last year near a school zone. In this case, the man arrested for possession of a loaded firearm. During their investigation deputies also found police insignia and handcuffs. Later, the located the keys for the handcuffs in the man’s socks, Schmutz said.

The ordinance, which will go to a second reading on March 14 to allow for more public input, would prohibit anyone from sleeping in a car, trailer, camper or tent traveler parked on a city maintained street or alley between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. It will not be enforced on private property. If passed then it will go into effect 30 days later.

Councilman Jesse Petrilla said he was not in favor of the law citing safety concerns such as a tired driver.

“When the 241 Toll Road is complete travelers may be passing through from as far away as San Diego,” he said. If they feel they may fall asleep, this could be dangerous. If someone is down on their luck, I believe the last thing they need is a $1,000 fine or six months in jail.”

“I believe in private property rights and limited government,” he said. “This goes a little bit farther than I feel comfortable with.”

The council discussed issues regarding a tired driver and homelessness as well as the possibility of an intoxicated driver.

Schmutz pointed out that homeless people could still sleep at other locations such as commercial centers, restaurants or camp grounds. He pointed out that someone sleeping in their car in a neighborhood would not be fair to residents and reminded the council there are no bathroom facilities in such a case. He also added that a sleeping person is vulnerable when sleeping in public.

As far as motorists sleeping off a hangover, Schmutz said a person can still be arrested for DUI if they are found behind the wheel with keys in their car, even if they’re asleep.

“Our City Council is committed to providing every possible tool to our police department to ensure the streets and neighborhoods of Rancho Santa Margarita always remain the safest in the state of California, Mayor Tony Beall said.

 

Officials: Prior claims against teacher caught JSerra unaware

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – Officials at JSerra Catholic High School say they did not know that a Spanish teacher arrested and charged with seven felony counts of lewd conduct with a 14-year-old female student had years earlier been suspended from a job at a public high school in Los Angeles County after claims of inappropriate behavior.

An external committee is investigating JSerra’s handling of Ricardo Aldana’s case, including the circumstances of his hiring.

This photo of Ricardo Aldana is on a Facebook page called “Aldana Inspired Me,” put together by his supporters.

MORE PHOTOS »

Aldana had taught Spanish and coached soccer at Hawthorne High School in the Centinela Valley Union High School District until Feb. 5, 2003, when district officials became aware of “allegations of misconduct and/or inappropriate behavior” and placed him on paid administrative leave, according to a memo from Assistant Superintendent Sonja Davis. The memo does not detail the allegations.

District authorities began an investigation, but Carly Dadson, attorney for the school district, said she could not comment because there is an ongoing criminal investigation.

The Centinela Valley school board voted against retaining Aldana about a month after the district’s investigation was launched, according to a letter to Aldana signed by then-Superintendent Julian Lopez. The letter did not provide a reason, saying only that the decision was “not based on any current or anticipated financial difficulties.” Aldana, a probationary employee, eventually would have been eligible for a permanent contract.

JSerra hired Aldana about two years after he left Hawthorne High.

JSerra spokesman Bill Rams said the private school was unaware of the Hawthorne investigation and Aldana’s suspension.

“Had we known, we wouldn’t have hired him,” Rams said.

Aldana’s attorney, Michael Molfetta, said he was aware of the Hawthorne case but emphasized that no criminal charges had been filed.

“If they had found something, they would have pressed charges,” Molfetta said.

Aldana, 37, was arrested Dec. 14 near his Dana Point home in the case involving the 14-year-old girl and quickly fired by JSerra, where he also coached soccer and volleyball.

At the time, school President and Chief Executive Frank Talarico – who has since left to become CEO ofGoodwill of Orange County – called for an external investigation of the school’s handling of the incident, including Aldana’s hiring. A committee including retired Orange County Superior Court Judge Pamela Iles and former Newport Beach City Attorney Dennis O’Neil is expected to file a report in the next couple of weeks, said Tim Busch, president of the JSerra board of directors.

“The information I have says the school conducted itself appropriately,” Busch said.

Neither Rams nor Busch would comment in detail about the hiring process. Rams said Aldana was current on his Live Scan fingerprints and had an unblemished record at JSerra before his arrest. Live Scan is used in criminal background checks for job applicants. It allows digitally scanned fingerprints and related information to be submitted electronically to the California Department of Justice.

An online job application for a faculty position at JSerra asks applicants to disclose whether they have ever been suspended, dismissed or asked to resign from any job. It also asks applicants whether they have ever been accused of child abuse or child sexual abuse. It also requests a list of references from past teaching jobs.

Prosecutors allege Aldana drove the girl, whom he met at school, to his apartment and engaged in unlawful sexual acts with her. Aldana pleaded not guilty Jan. 30. He faces a possible seven years in state prison if convicted.