Bail

Michelle Knight, the longest-held of three women kidnapped and imprisoned in a Cleveland house for years, was discharged Friday from the hospital where she had been cared for after her ordeal. Reportedly in good spirits, Knight left MetroHealth Medical Center on the same day state officials announced that DNA testing had established that Ariel Castro, being held on kidnapping and rape charges, was the father of the 6-year-old girl born to another of the imprisoned women. Like her fellow captives, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, Knight asked for privacy.

A Perris middle school teacher arrested for allegedly trying to seduce a minor is free on bail, Riverside County jail records show. Jeffrey Rightmire, 41, of Murrieta, was arrested Tuesday by police after he allegedly sent harmful material by text and the Internet with the intent to seduce a minor, a Riverside County Sheriff's Department statement said. A spokesman for the Val Verde Unified School District said two students alerted school officials Monday that a girl was allegedly involved with a teacher on campus, according to a report in the Riverside Press-Enterprise.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the newest member of the Senate Banking Committee, waited patiently for her first chance to question top financial regulators at a recent hearing on Capitol Hill. When her turn finally came after 90 minutes, Warren quickly showed she wouldn't be following the custom that a freshman senator be seen and not heard. After some pleasantries, the longtime consumer advocate and Wall Street critic lit into the heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Cathedral City Mayor Pro Tem Charles F. Vasquez, who was arrested and charged with stealing public funds, has been released from an Indio jail on $50,000 bail, officials said. The Riverside County district attorney's office alleged he used a program for computer purchases to buy MasterCard gift cards and other personal items. Vasquez, 52, was charged with three felony counts of misappropriation of public funds in excess of $2,000. The councilman was arrested at his Cathedral City home Monday about 9 p.m. by D.A. investigators.

An Anaheim man who fled to Montana after allegedly killing his wife and then confessed in a letter to a newspaper columnist was ordered held without bail Wednesday by an Orange County judge. David Lee Schoenecker, 48, is accused of fatally shooting his 40-year-old wife, Gail, at their Anaheim Hills home on May 5. Municipal Judge Kazuharu Makino in Fullerton revoked the $500,000 bond that had been set after Schoenecker's return Tuesday night from Missoula, Mont., and ordered the suspect held until a May 31 arraignment.

A judge Tuesday reduced the bail for the son of former California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and three other co-defendants in the alleged murder of a San Diego college student to $1 million each. Brad Patton, lawyer for Esteban Nunez, said the family will be able to meet the bail requirements. Nunez, 19, was expected to be released from jail in San Diego by late Tuesday night. Judge David Szumowski reduced the bail over the protest of Deputy Dist. Atty. Jill DiCarlo, who said it should remain at the $2 million set last week when Nunez and the three co-defendants were arraigned.

A bondsman posted bail for the mother of a missing toddler and said he hoped her release would help lead investigators to the girl, officials said. Casey Anthony, 22, has been in the Orange County jail in lieu of $500,200 bail since mid-July. Police say she lied to them and didn't report her 3-year-old daughter, Caylee, missing for more than a month. She faces charges of child neglect, making false statements and obstructing an investigation. A group from a California bail bonds company flew to Florida to help local bondsman Albert Estes, who shares the same surety group, post the bond.

As detectives pieced together the 2008 slaying of a young Santa Monica woman, they came to a chilling conclusion: She had been calling police for help when the killer snatched the phone from her hands and hung up. Prosecutors unveiled the eerie account of the 911 call and other details from the March 2008 killing that has attracted national attention during secret grand jury proceedings against Kelly Soo Park, the woman arrested in June this year...

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block, in response to a federal court directive to control jail crowding, said Wednesday he will begin immediately releasing about 1,200 pretrial inmates being held on bail of $2,500 or less. Block, whose department runs the county's jails, pledged to release more inmates if necessary by shortening sentences of those convicted of minor crimes. "I am not about to place myself or county government in a position where they can be cited for contempt," he said.

Once again Michael Ramirez misses the mark with his editorial cartoon of Northwest Airlines mechanics parachuting from an aircraft (Opinion, Aug. 23). May I suggest you cut his salary by 25%, in the hope that he will bail out of The Times? NEIL SYMONDS Newbury Park

The son of Hollywood great Clark Gable was free on bail Wednesday following his arrest for allegedly driving under the influence and hitting several cars in Malibu, jail records show. John Clark Gable, 52, was arrested about 3 p.m. Tuesday after he allegedly hit a vehicle near the Malibu Pier and eventually crashed his Ford Raptor into six parked cars in the 21300 block of Pacific Coast Highway, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said. There were no reported injuries. A witness told KTLA-TV that Gable fell as he exited the vehicle for police.

A man described as a secondary suspect in last week's kidnapping and sexual assault of a 10-year-old Northridge girl has been arrested, Los Angeles police said Monday. Daniel Martinez, 29, of West Hills was taken into custody in Northridge early Sunday and booked on suspicion of kidnapping. He was being held in lieu of $1-million bail. Even as the arrest was announced, LAPD Robbery-Homicide investigators continued to search for the prime suspect, identified over the weekend as Tobias Dustin Summers.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has denied a defense request to lower the $3-million bail for a Rowland Heights physician charged with second-degree murder in the overdose deaths of three patients. Hsiu-Ying "Lisa" Tseng, 43, has been in jail for a year awaiting trial on charges that she recklessly prescribed powerful painkillers to young patients seeking to abuse drugs. In a 23-page bail motion, Tseng's attorneys described the effects of her incarceration on her sons, one of whom started elementary school while his mother was in the county's lockup.

Los Angeles County Assessor John Noguez, who has been in jail since his October arrest on two dozen corruption charges, finally made bail on Friday. Noguez is accused of taking $185,000 in bribes from Ramin Salari, a prominent property tax consultant and generous Noguez campaign fundraiser. In return for the cash, Noguez is alleged to have lowered property tax bills for some of Salari's wealthy clients. Both Noguez and Salari pleaded not guilty following their Oct. 17 arrest, and have vigorously denied any wrongdoing.

A Carpinteria youth pastor is accused of raping two teenage girls he met through his church work, authorities said Thursday. Louis Joseph Bristol, 28, is being held at Santa Barbara County Jail in lieu of $2-million bail, according to a news release from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office. Authorities said the girls, both juveniles, received "inappropriate" texts and photos from Bristol this year and in 2012. He raped each of them in vacant rooms at the Holiday Inn Express where he worked as an assistant manager, according to the release.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- After a roller-coaster four-day bail hearing, Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius was granted bail Friday ahead of his murder trial after Chief Magistrate Desmond Nair ruled there was no risk he would flee to escape justice. In a major victory for the Pistorius camp, Nair said that the state's case was not so watertight as to preclude releasing the athlete. The judge said the state also failed to show that Pistorius was a flight risk, and that while the athlete had a history of aggressive behavior, the state failed to show he was likely to commit violence or interfere with state witnesses if released.

A Perris middle school teacher arrested for allegedly trying to seduce a minor is free on bail, Riverside County jail records show. Jeffrey Rightmire, 41, of Murrieta, was arrested Tuesday by police after he allegedly sent harmful material by text and the Internet with the intent to seduce a minor, a Riverside County Sheriff's Department statement said. A spokesman for the Val Verde Unified School District said two students alerted school officials Monday that a girl was allegedly involved with a teacher on campus, according to a report in the Riverside Press-Enterprise.

I am writing to take issue with the (May 3) article "Federal Courts in San Diego Tough on Bail" by Alan Abrahamson, which presents a misleading picture of the bail practices in this district by selectively presenting only some of the statistics. The article claims it is harder to get out on bail in this district than any other district in the country, but relies exclusively on statistics about defendants who do not make monetary bail at their first court appearance. The story then claims that these "statistics explain why the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center . . . is packed."

PRETORIA, South Africa - Prosecutors on Wednesday unveiled what seemed damning testimony against Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius, who is accused of murdering his girlfriend. But as the day wore on, the defense savaged the state's case, portraying the investigation as bumbling and shoddy. Laying out what is likely to be the basis of their case, prosecutors said at Pistorius' bail hearing that a witness heard what sounded like a quarrel shortly before model Reeva Steenkamp was fatally shot the night of Feb. 13. Another neighbor heard a shot, a woman's scream, then more gunshots, they said.

Two men charged with killing a Chicago teenager who has become the face of that city's growing problem with gun violence were ordered held without bail on Tuesday. The pair, Michael Ward, 18, and Kenneth Williams, 28, are charged with first-degree murder in the Jan. 29 death of Hadiya Pendleton. The girl was shot days after the 15-year-old majorette and honor student had performed at President Obama's inauguration in Washington. First Lady Michelle Obama was among the dignitaries who attended the teen's funeral over the weekend.