Face Life

A former Westminster police detective may face life in prison after a San Bernardino County jury Tuesday rejected his defense that he was in an antidepressant-induced blackout, and legally insane, when he kidnapped and raped a waitress. Anthony Orban testified that he had no memory of the 2010 attack and blamed his psychotic break on a powerful dose of the popular antidepressant Zoloft, which he said had triggered hallucinations and suicidal and homicidal fantasies in the days before the abduction.

A San Bernardino County jury Wednesday rejected a controversial "Zoloft" defense presented by a former Westminster police detective accused of kidnapping and raping a waitress in 2010, finding the defendant guilty of all eight charges. Anthony Nicholas Orban's attorney acknowledged from the outset that his client attacked the woman, but argued that the former detective was rendered mentally "unconscious" by a powerful dose of the prescription antidepressant and was not responsible for his actions.

SAN DIEGO —Two members of a Mexican organized crime group that terrorized border communities were found guilty Wednesday of taking part in the strangling deaths of two men whose bodies were later dissolved in lye and dumped at a ranch outside San Diego. The mens' ruthless tactics were the trademark of a gang that broke off from the drug cartel waging war in Tijuana nearly a decade ago, according to prosecutors. The Palillos, or Toothpicks, came to the San Diego area in 2003 after splitting from the notorious Arellano Felix drug cartel.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague on Wednesday found former Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga guilty of using children as soldiers, the first verdict in the panel's 10-year history. He could face life imprisonment. After a three-year trial, the court convicted Lubanga of recruiting boys and girls younger than 15 as soldiers during a civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002 and 2003. Although his militia was accused of massacres, rapes, torture and ethnic killings by human rights activists and witnesses, the court charged him only with the recruitment and use of children to fight.

Prosecutors in the murder trial of former LAPD Det. Stephanie Lazarus made their closing argument Monday, and Lazarus' attorney delivered much of his, leaving jurors to mull over conflicting interpretations of testimony and evidence on which the detective's fate hinges. Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Nunez led the jury steadily through what he called "the overwhelming evidence of guilt" against Lazarus, who is on trial in the 1986 beating and shooting death of Sherri Rasmussen, the wife of a man Lazarus had dated.

Hollywood arson suspect Harry Burkhart terrorized Los Angeles residents with a four-day rampage over New Year's weekend because he was "motivated by his rage against Americans," prosecutors alleged in court papers filed Wednesday. Burkhart appeared in court briefly to be arraigned on 37 felony counts of arson that could send him to prison for life. He looked disheveled and distracted as jail authorities have him under suicide watch. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Upinder S. Kalra set bail at $2.85 million and agreed to postpone arraignment until Jan. 24 at the request of Burkhart's public defender.

Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum stood back to back in front of a purple backdrop Sunday morning, the Lakers' 7-footers clutching basketballs and smiling as cameras clicked during media day. There was someone missing from the picture. Lamar Odom is on his way to Dallas after being traded to the Mavericks the previous day, leaving Gasol and Bynum as the Lakers' big men of the moment. "That definitely affects us negatively, obviously," Bynum said. "We had the best front line, I'd say, between me, [Odom]

The terrorism trial of the man accused of trying to use a bomb hidden in his underwear to blow up an international flight to Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009 has ended with the Nigerian defendant accepting responsibility but justifying his failed attack on the United States. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab abruptly pleaded guilty to eight felonies Wednesday, halting the trial of the confessed Al Qaeda operative whose attack on a jetliner carrying 279 passengers and 11 crew members embarrassed the Obama administration and led to heightened security at many airports.

A former NFL linebacker was found guilty Thursday of shooting a wealthy Newport Beach businessman to death in a plot to collect on a $1-million life insurance policy. Eric Naposki, a onetime linebacker with the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts, was accused of plotting William McLaughlin's murder with the businessman's fiancee, Nanette Ann Packard, in December 1994. "We've always been hopeful," Jenny McLaughlin, the victim's daughter, told reporters after the verdict.

First of two parts He kept thinking that there had been a mistake, that he'd be out in no time. That the system, set into motion by some misunderstanding or act of malice, would soon correct itself. That was before the detective informed him of the charges, and before the article in the Ventura County Star. "Man held after woman found raped and tortured," read the headline, and there was his name, along with a quote from a police officer: "In 19 years of police work, this has to go down as one of the most brutal attacks I have ever seen.