Employee Misconduct

Coca-Cola Co. is working to mend relations with one of its biggest customers, Burger King Corp., after conceding that employees undermined a marketing test of Frozen Coke three years ago at one of the fast-food chain's outlets. Steven Heyer, Coke's president and chief operating officer, apologized for the rigging episode in a letter late Tuesday to Brad Blum, Burger King's chief executive.

Ralphs grocery managers have hired back dozens of union workers under false names and Social Security numbers despite an official lockout, according to a union lawsuit filed Friday. The suit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleges that at least 50 to 100 union employees have been covertly rehired by Ralphs. Two locked-out union members, working undercover, told The Times they were coached by store managers to use their children's Social Security numbers to avoid detection.

California health regulators have connected 14 more people affiliated with UCLA Medical Center, including four physicians, to the improper viewing of celebrity medical records, bringing the number of current and former workers apparently implicated in the snooping scandal to 68. The additional violations came to light in a report by the California Department of Public Health, which was sent to the hospital Friday.

Attorneys representing three Riverside Community College administrators charged with defrauding the college's public safety department out of more than $1 million asked a Riverside County judge to dismiss the case Friday, saying no crime was committed.

The warden of a federal prison in San Bernardino County was indicted Wednesday on charges of disclosing confidential information about a pending criminal investigation and then lying to investigators about having done so, authorities said. Scott A. Holencik, warden of a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility in Adelanto, is charged in a six-count indictment, which includes two felony counts of making false statements to investigators, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.

In the summer of 2008, with presidential contenders battling fiercely over the swing state of Nevada, Christopher Edwards was racing to register voters. As the field director of ACORN's Las Vegas office, he brainstormed a way to motivate meagerly paid canvassers: If they turned in 21 or more registration cards in a day, they were each given a $5 bonus. "Hey, it's Las Vegas," Edwards testified Tuesday. "It's blackjack." But Edwards' "blackjack bonuses," which he bragged about to other ACORN offices, broke the law, state prosecutors say. Nevada bars quotas or cash incentives in voter sign-up efforts: Officials fear they could lead to false registrations.

Department of Water and Power officials felt like they had stepped into a scene from "Hogan's Heroes." Pulling aside a tool cabinet in a storage shed at the Scattergood Generating Station in Playa del Rey on March 1, investigators found a strange addition--a hinged, wooden trap door concealing the entrance to a narrow tunnel. Grabbing several flashlights, investigators lowered themselves into the dank shaft and began slithering forward on their bellies.

The Orange County prosecutor who resigned in April amid allegations of illegal office gambling has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the state attorney general's office, his attorney said Thursday. Former Deputy Dist. Atty. Daryl Dworakowski will not face criminal charges in connection with an alleged gambling ring that a onetime co-worker claimed was being run out of a county office, according to his lawyer, Salvatore Ciulla. "This is the end of it as far as Daryl is concerned," Ciulla said.

Three children of top executives in UC Irvine's medical programs have received jobs with the hospital and medical school in recent years, records and interviews show. The son and daughter of medical school dean Dr. Thomas C. Cesario, who also are doctors, and the daughter of the recently resigned chief executive of the Orange hospital, Dr. Ralph Cygan, work for UCI or have worked there. In addition, the hospital has purchased artwork from a gallery owned by the wife of its chief medical officer.

A second employee at the nationally recognized Children's Hospital here has been arrested on suspicion of child molestation, police and hospital officials said Saturday. Christopher Alan Irvin, 32, was arrested Friday and booked on one count of possessing child pornography and two counts of lewd acts on a patient younger than 14 at the hospital. Bail was set at $500,000. Irvin, a registered nurse at the hospital for 18 months, was fired after his arrest, officials said.