Criminal Records

Amid an aggressive push to bolster its ranks with thousands of new deputies, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department loosened its hiring practices and gave jobs to recruits who in the past would have been rejected, according to a department watchdog report released Thursday. Among those hired were applicants with criminal records, drug and alcohol problems and financial woes. One recruit, for example, had been released from another police agency after using excessive force.

For more than five years, U.S. immigration authorities have touted the success of a national program aimed at arresting and deporting dangerous criminals and fugitives. In frequent early morning raids at homes in Los Angeles and around the country, federal fugitive teams have sought out immigrants with criminal records or outstanding deportation orders. And year after year, the Department of Homeland Security has received congressional support and funds to expand the program.

Two years ago, Calgary real estate executive Ryan Alexander Jenkins was sentenced to 15 months' probation and ordered to complete domestic violence counseling after hitting his then-girlfriend. But Jenkins came to Los Angeles and was selected as a contestant on the VH1 reality show "Megan Wants a Millionaire," on which wealthy men compete for the love of a young woman. Now Jenkins is wanted in the slaying of his ex-wife, model Jasmine Fiore, and "Megan Wants a Millionaire" has been abruptly pulled off the air by VH1. The case raises questions about how a man with a record of domestic violence got onto a show on which the object is to marry a woman.

Phillip Garrido, who was convicted in a 1976 kidnapping and rape, was arrested four years earlier for allegedly drugging and raping a 14-year-old girl near his hometown, police in Antioch, Calif., revealed Thursday for the first time. Garrido was arrested last week on suspicion of kidnapping and raping Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was 11 when she was snatched from her street in South Lake Tahoe in 1991 and was allegedly kept in a hidden backyard warren of sheds and tents for 18 years.

Charles Samuel, the parolee accused of killing Lily Burk, was convicted 22 years ago of another violent robbery that bore a striking similarity to last month's abduction and slaying of the high school senior in downtown Los Angeles, according to court records reviewed by The Times. As in the Burk case, Samuel was accused of kidnapping someone -- this time an elderly man -- and driving in the man's car to an ATM, where he demanded that the man withdraw cash.

James Brian Sliter had every legal right to run for mayor of this gritty little city. But as a registered sex offender, Sliter learned, reality is sometimes different. A week after declaring that he was running for mayor of Wilmer because he was fed up by a local government he claims is sullied by nepotism and corruption, Sliter announced Friday that he was dropping out of the race.

Los Angeles County supervisors continued Tuesday to refuse to release details about 17 employees who worked at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital despite having serious criminal histories or lying about their records. After 16 of the workers were suspended two weeks ago, Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke said one of the employees had been convicted of rape.

California regulators have announced emergency measures to investigate the criminal backgrounds of all registered nurses in the state, days after The Times reported that dozens of nurses had kept their licenses for years despite multiple convictions.

Before Kimberly Haven set out to register voters this month, she checked Baltimore city records to find a neighborhood with a surprising feature: a large number of felons. There, on a litter-strewn street corner, her team ran into Lonnell Burke, who was waiting to catch a bus to a local drug rehab center. With cocaine and armed burglary convictions, Burke assumed he was barred from the polls forever.

At least 19 Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital employees will be fired and 45 others disciplined after a breakdown in vetting allowed scores of people with criminal records to remain on staff even after background checks indicated their past crimes, Los Angeles County officials said Tuesday.