Adelanto Ca

The police chief of the fast-growing Mojave Desert city of Adelanto was arrested Tuesday and charged with 36 felony counts of embezzling more than $30,000 in drug investigation and canine operation funds. Philip Genaway, 53, pleaded not guilty to the charges after being booked at San Bernardino County Jail. Genaway, arrested at his home, was released on his own recognizance pending an Oct. 28 pretrial hearing.

The warden of a federal prison in San Bernardino County was indicted Wednesday on charges of disclosing confidential information about a pending criminal investigation and then lying to investigators about having done so, authorities said. Scott A. Holencik, warden of a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility in Adelanto, is charged in a six-count indictment, which includes two felony counts of making false statements to investigators, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.

A former Adelanto City Council member who resigned after questions of her citizenship status were raised two years ago now faces deportation for voting in the 2004 presidential election. Cuban-born Zoila Meyer surrendered to the San Bernardino County office of the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday and was arrested on charges of violating immigration laws.

The head of Adelanto's animal control office has been charged with multiple counts of animal cruelty after investigators said he systematically drowned dozens of kittens over four months last year. Kevin Murphy, 36, was charged Monday with six counts of killing, maiming and abusing animals and faces up to six years in prison if he is convicted.

Just days after the Adelanto city manager fired the police chief, the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department appointed a temporary commander to run the agency while the City Council debates whether the sheriff should take over in the small Mojave Desert town. The upheaval comes as the city of 18,000 tries to recover from a series of recent police scandals, including a 1994 case in which two officers beat a confession out of one man and forced another to lick his blood off a booking room floor.

A man suspected of trying to steal metal was injured when he apparently attempted to cut a 12,000-volt copper wire at a defunct casino, officials said. The incident Tuesday blew out transformers and caused brush fires and power outages.

As civic assets go, airports rank right up there with garbage dumps and jails: Society needs them, but these are not facilities the average mayor highlights in the annual state-of-the-city address. Bureaucrats call them LULUs: large, unwanted land-uses. So what is one to make of Adelanto? This scrappy little burg in the high desert north of San Bernardino is defying logic by wooing, of all things, a commercial airport. And not just any airport.

Robert W. Wilson is at it again, three decades after he began campaigning to expand legalized gambling in California. Operating from a Studio City storefront, the 65-year-old great-grandfather has launched another statewide drive for a ballot initiative that would authorize full-scale casinos in the Mojave Desert city of Adelanto.

It seemed a marriage made in gamblers' heaven: Robert W. Wilson and Adelanto, California's eccentric never-say-die casino promoter and this desert city open to most any moneymaking scheme, to prisons, dumps and--why not?--Wilson's plan to turn it into another Las Vegas. But three months after Wilson renewed his campaign to legalize full-scale gambling in the San Bernardino County community, the marriage has collapsed in bitter divorce.

With crowded jails forcing law enforcement officials to release about a hundred felons per day, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to lease a private jail in Adelanto that will hold up to 800 inmates. However, some county officials complained that the lease would not solve a long-term problem: The county is growing so fast that it will need to make room for 3,000 more prisoners by 2010.

A former Adelanto City Council member who resigned after questions of her citizenship status were raised two years ago now faces deportation for voting in the 2004 presidential election. Cuban-born Zoila Meyer surrendered to the San Bernardino County office of the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday and was arrested on charges of violating immigration laws.

The Adelanto Little League could always count on sparklers and Piccolo Petes as money-makers during its annual Fourth of July fundraiser. But the San Bernardino County district attorney's office alleges that Adelanto Mayor Jim Nehmens and his wife, Kelly, used the fireworks sales to line their own pockets. They were arrested Tuesday, each charged with three counts of grand theft by embezzlement. If convicted, they could each face nine years in prison.

A man suspected of trying to steal metal was injured when he apparently attempted to cut a 12,000-volt copper wire at a defunct casino, officials said. The incident Tuesday blew out transformers and caused brush fires and power outages.

A newly elected Adelanto councilwoman resigned after authorities determined she was not a U.S. citizen and therefore ineligible to hold elected office, investigators from the San Bernardino County district attorney's office said Friday. Councilwoman Zoila Meyer resigned Wednesday, telling her council colleagues that she was leaving her post for personal reasons. She signed candidacy papers Aug. 3, declaring under penalty of perjury that she was a U.S. citizen.

With crowded jails forcing law enforcement officials to release about a hundred felons per day, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to lease a private jail in Adelanto that will hold up to 800 inmates. However, some county officials complained that the lease would not solve a long-term problem: The county is growing so fast that it will need to make room for 3,000 more prisoners by 2010.

Just days after the Adelanto city manager fired the police chief, the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department appointed a temporary commander to run the agency while the City Council debates whether the sheriff should take over in the small Mojave Desert town. The upheaval comes as the city of 18,000 tries to recover from a series of recent police scandals, including a 1994 case in which two officers beat a confession out of one man and forced another to lick his blood off a booking room floor.

The head of Adelanto's animal control office has been charged with multiple counts of animal cruelty after investigators said he systematically drowned dozens of kittens over four months last year. Kevin Murphy, 36, was charged Monday with six counts of killing, maiming and abusing animals and faces up to six years in prison if he is convicted.

A newly elected Adelanto councilwoman resigned after authorities determined she was not a U.S. citizen and therefore ineligible to hold elected office, investigators from the San Bernardino County district attorney's office said Friday. Councilwoman Zoila Meyer resigned Wednesday, telling her council colleagues that she was leaving her post for personal reasons. She signed candidacy papers Aug. 3, declaring under penalty of perjury that she was a U.S. citizen.

It seemed a marriage made in gamblers' heaven: Robert W. Wilson and Adelanto, California's eccentric never-say-die casino promoter and this desert city open to most any moneymaking scheme, to prisons, dumps and--why not?--Wilson's plan to turn it into another Las Vegas. But three months after Wilson renewed his campaign to legalize full-scale gambling in the San Bernardino County community, the marriage has collapsed in bitter divorce.

Robert W. Wilson is at it again, three decades after he began campaigning to expand legalized gambling in California. Operating from a Studio City storefront, the 65-year-old great-grandfather has launched another statewide drive for a ballot initiative that would authorize full-scale casinos in the Mojave Desert city of Adelanto.