Arrests Orange County

Three people were killed and two injured Sunday when a driver suspected of being under the influence of alcohol drove a 1993 Ford Explorer off a freeway offramp and into a tree in San Juan Capistrano, authorities said. California Highway Patrol investigators said three passengers, two men and one woman, died instantly, and the driver and a fourth passenger were taken to Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo in critical condition.

Dennis Rodman was arrested early Saturday after he allegedly kept police from investigating a possible code violation at his seaside restaurant by refusing to open the locked entry door. The former NBA player was taken into custody at 3:15 a.m., booked into the Newport Beach jail, and released, said Newport Beach Police Sgt. Neal Harvey. Officers stopped at the restaurant and tried to enter after seeing numerous cars in the parking lot at 2:40 a.m.

An alleged Mexican Mafia gang member indicted on federal racketeering charges has been arrested after spending five months as a fugitive. Sammy (Negro) Villalba, 28, was arrested Monday at the Fireside Inn in Buena Park by members of the Gangster Apprehension Team, a task force of FBI agents and local police that targeted the Mexican Mafia during a two-year investigation, authorities said.

A 17-year-old girl recounted Thursday how she pretended to flirt with a UC Irvine student, chatting with him on the Internet about punk rock and agreeing to meet at a shopping mall, where police arrested him on suspicion of raping her friend. Elizabeth, a high school senior from Huntington Beach, said she contacted the suspect online Sunday, three days after the man allegedly enticed her 15-year-old friend via the Internet into a date that authorities say ended in a brutal attack.

The way detectives see it, Dr. Kenneth C. Stahl was a man who became snared in a deadly double-double cross. For months, they said, he had meticulously planned the murder of his wife. He left no detail to chance, from the romantic dinner to the impromptu ride later that night along a remote stretch of Ortega Highway, where two hired killers were supposed to meet the couple and carry out the hit. But something went wrong.

Sen Nguyen lived a mother's nightmare. Her 13-year-old daughter, Phuong Nguyen, was near death this week after two bullets allegedly fired by a reputed gang member at the Westminster Mall struck her in the back. "Doctors kept telling me at first there might not be any hope for her, and I was afraid every time the phone rang," Nguyen said Friday. "But I came in to see her (Thursday afternoon), and she opened her eyes to look at me. That's when I knew she will live."

A tip from a family member led to the arrests Sunday of three Indiana suspects in a cross-country crime spree that left four, possibly five people dead, authorities said Wednesday. Police learned that the fugitives were in Orange County after suspect Tracy Lynn Holland, 21, placed a series of desperate phone calls to her cousin and grandmother in Indiana.

Police have arrested three Indiana residents on suspicion of killing four homosexual men in two states, authorities said Monday. Two of the suspects were arrested Sunday morning by a San Clemente police SWAT team at a Greyhound bus station when the pair went to pick up a Western Union money order. Three hours later, the SWAT team and Laguna Beach police arrested the third suspect at a South Laguna home. The three are suspected of killing three men near Fulton, Miss., on Jan.

In a bizarre plot tailor-made for tabloid television, a twin faces charges that she conspired to kill her sister in order to assume her identity. The case involves Jeen and Sunny Han, who were "the evil twin and good twin," said Irvine Police Lt. Tom Hume. Jeen, 22, characterized by Hume as the "evil twin," faces arraignment Friday in Orange County Municipal Court on an array of charges, including conspiracy to commit murder, robbery and false imprisonment.

A man was stabbed in the chest several times at his home Thursday by four teen-agers whom he had befriended, police said. Three suspects were arrested late Thursday, Lt. Robert Lennert said. One remains at large. Stephen Symington, 37, had met them recently and let them into his apartment on Thunder Run about noon Thursday. Shortly afterward, the youths began attacking him with a knife and a baseball bat, Irvine Police Sgt. Phil Povey said. They also ransacked his apartment, police said.

A couple who posed as police officers and targeted Latino dayworkers in more than 30 robberies were arrested over the weekend at a Stanton restaurant, sheriff's officials said Monday. Deputies said they found cash, a loaded weapon, wigs and police paraphernalia that included a fake badge and a "Police" T-shirt when they arrested David Gilmore Bingham, 27, and Amber Michelle Vanhorn, 33, both of Stanton.

Four suspects have been arrested in connection with the murder of a 17-year-old whose body was dumped in a Los Alamitos business park, police said Friday. Being held at Orange County Jail on suspicion of murder or accessory to murder are Richard Ramirez, 40, and Stanley Dean Cruz, 35, both of Hawaiian Gardens; Javen Anthony Cervantes, 27, of Lakewood; and Edward Wills Ramirez, 27, of Cypress.

Garden Grove police Sunday arrested three men suspected of robbing a Blockbuster Video employee as she tried to deposit the store's receipts at the ATM of a local bank. Police Sgt. Ben Lux said the suspects confronted the employee at 9:56 a.m. at the Wells Fargo Bank branch at Harbor and Garden Grove boulevards. Witnesses told police the suspects grabbed the money and took off in a Plymouth Neon.

A wanted parolee who led police on a circuitous, high-speed car chase before barricading himself in a La Habra condominium surrendered quietly to police early Saturday, authorities said. Edward Wills Ramirez, 27, of Cypress was arrested on suspicion of violating his parole just after 1 a.m.--roughly six hours after he was confronted at an Anaheim mobile home park by investigators who wanted to question him about another crime.

Fire investigators arrested a Buena Park man Saturday morning after he set fire to his single-bedroom apartment in an aborted suicide attempt, according to the Orange County Fire Authority. Tenant Marlon Alvarez reportedly told investigators that he set fire to his small "granny flat" about 10:30 a.m., according to Orange County Fire Capt. Stephen Miller.

Hoping to end mounting gang violence in Anaheim, a task force of local police and immigration officials arrested seven alleged gang members Thursday during an early-morning raid. Anaheim detectives asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service to help after determining that four of the suspects had been deported for other crimes but reentered the country illegally, police officials said.

An Orange County sheriff's deputy was killed early Saturday when a gunman sprayed his cruiser with dozens of bullets in an apparent ambush outside a Lake Forest convenience store. Deputy Brad Riches, 34, is the first Orange County deputy fatally shot while on patrol since 1958.

A former gang leader who authored the peace treaty recently signed by rival Orange County gangs was arrested Friday by federal drug agents as part of a major ongoing investigation involving narcotics and money laundering. The DEA declined to discuss the case, but sources familiar with the investigation confirmed that Art Romo, 30, of Santa Ana was among those being held on suspicion of money laundering.

A 16-year-old Costa Mesa boy was arrested Thursday on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon after a gardener was shot in the back with a BB gun, police said. The teen was visiting a friend in Irvine when the pair saw the gardener working in a nearby yard just before 2 p.m., Irvine Police Lt. Tom Hume said. The Costa Mesa boy fired at the man at close range, he said. The 41-year-old man was taken to a nearby clinic for treatment.

An Orange County man was arrested late Thursday on charges of defrauding lenders out of $1 million in a mortgage scheme involving upscale homes in the Nellie Gail Ranch section of Laguna Hills. Randy Anthony Abalos, 43, was released on bail Friday. He will be arraigned Sept. 4 in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana on three counts of wire fraud and one count of mortgage fraud. The federal indictment contends that Abalos obtained mortgage loans in his own name using false income information.