Drug Trafficking Orange County

Reputed underworld figure Robert (Fat Bobby) Paduano, accused of trying to take over the Newport Beach drug trade, pleaded guilty Monday to 43 felony counts of residential robberies, extortion, conspiracy to sell cocaine and false imprisonment. As part of an agreement with county prosecutors, Paduano was sentenced to eight years in state prison. Paduano's guilty plea came after a lively and unusual exchange between the defendant and Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher J. Evans.

A Santa Ana jail guard accused of smuggling drugs into the city jail surrendered to authorities Tuesday and pleaded not guilty to drug charges. Michelle V. Rodriguez, 25, faces a maximum sentence of six years in prison if convicted on all five felony counts, which include furnishing drugs to prisoners. Her attorney, Charles E. Frisco Jr., said Tuesday that Rodriguez never took drugs into the jail and that prosecutors are relying on the word of inmates.

Orange County authorities have been secretly manufacturing rock cocaine for Santa Ana police to sell in undercover operations targeting small-time drug buyers in several neighborhoods, including the area near Willard Intermediate school. The practice is considered extremely risky by many law enforcement officials, including police in Los Angeles and San Diego. But Santa Ana police have sought special court orders in the last 18 months to make hundreds of sales, Police Chief Paul M.

Police have arrested three Los Alamitos High School students for allegedly supplying classmates with prescription painkillers. Officials believe some of those pills caused three students to pass out in class Wednesday morning. A 17-year-old Cypress boy was arrested Wednesday and booked on suspicion of distributing a controlled substance, Los Alamitos Police Capt. Todd Mattern said.

Local street gangs are making dangerous inroads into Anaheim's illegal drug trade, fueling fears that commonplace battles for turf could soon explode into more violent wars for profit, authorities said this week. "What we are starting to see now is something that happens in larger cities and what we hoped we wouldn't see here," said Police Sgt. Craig Hunter, assigned to the department's Gang Enforcement Unit. "The gangs are starting to deal drugs. Soon, you're going to start seeing wars."

A Cypress man who masterminded one of the world's biggest marijuana-trafficking rings was convicted in federal court Thursday of arranging to smuggle at least 34 tons of the drug by boat from Southeast Asia. William E. Uhler, 40, was convicted of federal charges stemming from the drug smuggling business that he operated from bases in Hawaii and Orange County between 1984 and 1988.

The second Orange County defendant to be convicted under the controversial "three strikes" law is a 36-year-old woman with a history that includes robberies, burglaries and fraud and dates back to 1978--when she was charged with murder but later acquitted. An Orange County Superior Court jury found Joyce Demyers and co-defendant Rhonda Blakely guilty on Oct. 3 of a felony cocaine sale, stemming from a June arrest at an Anaheim motel, according to court records.

Ending an eight-month sting operation, authorities in Orange County and Massachusetts arrested six men suspected of arranging a $7-million cocaine deal with undercover officers, the FBI said Wednesday. The Tuesday night sting included a member of a Medellin, Colombia, drug cartel, who was in the United States to oversee the cocaine transaction, said Linus Danilevicius, special agent for the FBI's Santa Ana office.

An El Toro marine sergeant and his wife, accused of smuggling and selling hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal steroids, ran an operation much like a "health food store," advertising the drugs in leaflets as though they were expensive "vitamins," federal officials said Thursday. Gunnery Sgt. Matthew J. Sigloch, 37, and Rene M.

Capping a four-month investigation, federal authorities announced Friday the arrest of a ring of suspected drug dealers who allegedly imported hundreds of pounds of cocaine through Santa Ana and promised to bring in thousands more. The arrests were made two months after 90 kilograms of high-grade Colombian cocaine was passed to undercover agents in Santa Ana, which is considered one of the country's most active distribution points for illegal drugs, officials said.

An Orange County man and two others are to be arraigned today on federal charges of laundering nearly $1 million in proceeds from drug trafficking after an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service. James Earl Johnson, 58, of Tustin and two Riverside residents--Patrick Jerome Dennis, 35, and Vickie Elaine Dennis, 30--were charged in a 17-count indictment announced Monday by the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.

The president of the Orange County Hells Angels' chapter pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal drug-trafficking charges, admitting his role in an elaborate drug ring that smuggled methamphetamine in shipments of Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Howard Coones, a 45-year-old Garden Grove resident, pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply and distribute ephedrine--the raw material used in the production of methamphetamine.

Former Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Bryan Ray Kazarian has pleaded guilty to a federal drug-trafficking conspiracy charge, according to court documents unsealed Monday that shed some light on a drug case long shrouded in secrecy. Eight of Kazarian's co-defendants also have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from their roles in an elaborate drug-smuggling ring that produced and distributed methamphetamine and cocaine.

A Newport Beach teacher's aide who police say tried to recruit teenagers into a citywide drug ring has been arrested on suspicion of drug sales. Carl Alfred Johnson, 22, a part-time teacher's aide at Newport Harbor High School, is suspected of selling marijuana to students a dozen times, mostly at parks but at least once on a high school campus, said Sgt. Mike McDermott, spokesman for the Newport Beach Police Department.

A small army of police and FBI agents swooped down on a troubled neighborhood Wednesday after securing indictments against more than 100 suspected drug and weapons dealers, capping a seven-month investigation into several notorious gangs. Police described the sweep, the biggest in Orange County history, as an all-out push to clean up an area seemingly impervious to recent drops in crime.

Police shot and killed a suspected drug dealer after he ran from officers and then appeared to reach for a gun in his waistband, authorities said Sunday. Police subsequently determined that Michael Scott Coolidge, 35, of Huntington Beach was unarmed, Westminster police said. "He crouched, turned and squatted," Lt. Mike Schliskey said. "He was stooped down with his hand in his waistband. The officer obviously thought he had a gun or he wouldn't have fired."

Two men arrested by Fullerton and Anaheim police with 125 kilograms of cocaine face up to 31 years in prison after a jury this week found them guilty of drug possession. Agapito Valdivia Ruvalcaba, 40, of Guadalajara, Mexico, and David Perez, 54, of Corona, were arrested in the 400 block of Porter Avenue on Nov. 7, just after they unloaded 40 kilograms of cocaine from a van parked in a driveway into the trunk of a car, said Jeffrey Ferguson, a deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case.

A former Orange County Municipal Court judge who fled the state after being indicted on cocaine charges has been captured at a luxury dude ranch in Montana, where he was known as "Uncle Al," federal authorities reported Wednesday. Alan A. Plaia, 48, a judge from 1979 to 1983, was taken into custody late Tuesday night by the Gallatin County Sheriff's Drug Task Force, which had received a tip that someone at the Big Sky Resort near Bozeman was trying to obtain false identification.

Laguna Beach resident Brynn Garrett Downey, 46, was sentenced to more than two years in prison Tuesday for distributing more than nine tons of marijuana from 1993 to 1996, according to the U.S. attorney's office. As part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, the defendant will turn over nearly $2 million worth of Nazi memorabilia he bought with the drug money.

In one of Buena Park's biggest marijuana busts in half a decade, police said they seized $635,000 worth of the drug, as well as several weapons and $60,000 in cash. Seven people were questioned Tuesday and Wednesday in connection with the bust, officials said, but no names were released while the investigation continued. "We are looking into the possibility that this is part of a bigger operation," said Sgt. Ken Coovert, public information officer for the Buena Park Police Department.