Criminal Investigation

A special investigator said Friday that he has asked the attorney general's office to launch a criminal investigation of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori for possible corruption. Jose Ugaz--whom Fujimori appointed to investigate former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos--said he filed the request Thursday with Atty. Gen. Nelly Calderon.

The political crisis buffeting the government of Prime Minister Ehud Barak on Monday began with a sermon by a blue-turbaned rabbi. Ten days ago, before a cheering congregation, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of a powerful ultra-Orthodox movement, compared Israel's leftist, secular education minister to one of the Bible's most hated enemies of the Jewish people. Yossi Sarid, the education minister, should be wiped from the face of the Earth, Yosef told his followers in a sermon.

The Sacramento County Coroner's Department on Monday confirmed that former UCLA football standout Don Rogers died last Friday from a cocaine overdose, which prompted police to launch a criminal investigation to determine how Rogers obtained the drugs that killed him. Sacramento County toxicologist James Beede termed the 5.2 milligrams of cocaine per liter of blood found in Rogers as a "fatal level." An autopsy was conducted Saturday.

County Registrar of Voters Ray J. Ortiz quit his job Wednesday amid a district attorney's criminal investigation of him and his office. Ortiz's resignation came one day after a Superior Court judge released affidavits detailing the investigation that the district attorney had filed in support of search warrants.

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III discussed giving longtime friend E. Robert Wallach a key Justice Department job a week or so before Meese was informed that Wallach had come under criminal investigation in the Wedtech scandal, one of the attorney general's lawyers said today. James Rocap said the slot Meese and Wallach contemplated in the spring of 1987 that Wallach might fill was that of counselor, a position traditionally held by one of the most trusted advisers to an attorney general.

For Gordon Eubanks, the former nuclear submarine officer who is chairman and chief executive of Symantec Corp., it's been a rapid reversal of fortune. Just a few months ago, Symantec was one of the computer software industry's hottest properties, known for an ambitious acquisition strategy (including the 1990 buyout of Santa Monica-based Peter Norton Computing) and a strong record of growth. Eubanks was winning praise from Wall Street for his stern, hard-driving management style.

Allegations of fraud and racketeering in a lawsuit scheduled for trial next week in U. S. District Court in Los Angeles mirror those in a federal criminal investigation of lawyers purportedly involved in an elaborate insurance fraud.

The Orange County district attorney's office says it is considering an investigation that might lead to criminal charges against Newport Beach's Lincoln Mortgage & Loan Co. The state Department of Corporations has already filed a civil lawsuit accusing Lincoln's owner, Kenneth E. Sarvak, of fraud. Assistant Dist. Atty.

A four-year criminal investigation into alleged conflicts of interest, self-dealing and misuse of hundreds of millions of dollars at a state-run insurance company has closed without any charges filed. The State Compensation Insurance Fund disclosed the news in an internal staff memo, released Wednesday. Tom Rowe, State Fund's president, said he was told officially that a task force made up of the California Highway Patrol, the state Department of Insurance and the San Francisco district attorney's office "has completed its investigation of former State Fund employees and directors.

Kirkhill Rubber Co. has been cited for five violations of safety laws and fined $41,000 in connection with the death of an employee earlier this year, state health and safety officials announced Tuesday. John Howard, chief of the California Division of Occupational Health and Safety in San Francisco, said a separate criminal investigation of the Brea manufacturing firm is continuing into the March 5 death of Guadalupe Lopez.