Harassment

A police officer seeking revenge against a former girlfriend hacked into the woman's e-mail account, assumed her identity at an online dating service and contacted 70 men, inviting some of them for rendezvous at the woman's home, Suffolk County prosecutors charged Monday in a 197-count indictment. Investigators declined to identify the woman, whom they said discovered the scheme when strangers began appearing at her house, claiming she had solicited their visits via Match.

Aum cult: An article in Sunday's Section A about the daughters of Shoko Asahara, leader of Japan's Aum Supreme Truth cult, failed to mention that the women agreed to the interview on the condition that pseudonyms be used because of their fear of harassment.

A jury Wednesday awarded more than $1.5 million to a former Los Angeles prosecutor who said City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo and other supervisors retaliated against her for reporting mistakes and misconduct by other attorneys. In addition to the award of $1,525,938 to Lynn Magnandonovan, the city could also be on the hook for her legal fees, which are expected to exceed $2 million, said Samuel J. Wells, one of her attorneys. "This was an indictment of the city attorney's office," he said.

Ruth Malhotra went to court last month for the right to be intolerant. Malhotra says her Christian faith compels her to speak out against homosexuality. But the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she's a senior, bans speech that puts down others because of their sexual orientation. Malhotra sees that as an unacceptable infringement on her right to religious expression. So she's demanding that Georgia Tech revoke its tolerance policy.

A saleswoman who was spanked in front of her coworkers as part of what her employer said was a camaraderie-building exercise sat quietly in a courtroom Wednesday as lawyers gave closing arguments at her civil trial. Janet Orlando, 53, is seeking at least $1.2 million in damages for the embarrassment she said she suffered during the spanking at the hands of her employer, Alarm One, an Anaheim-based security-alarm system company. Alarm One employed 300 people at the time.

Jordan Downs is a close-knit community where parking lots double as playgrounds for swarms of rambunctious kids, grown men call older women "auntie," and neighbors trust one another enough to wander in and out of each other's unlocked homes.

With planned rallies and a boycott for immigrant rights just days away, rumors are spreading throughout California that \o7la migra \f7is conducting sweeps at bus stops, schools and work sites. The reports of random arrests by immigration agents have caused fear among many illegal immigrants and prompted them to stay close to home. Some said they believe authorities are trying to discourage participation on Monday.

In the throes of a rancorous divorce from a now-dead multimillionaire, Jude Green remembers the day five years ago when a sullen stranger confronted her outside a Santa Monica dog groomer where she'd taken her Shih Tzu for a trim. Arms folded, eyes behind dark glasses, he had blocked her car with his and stood nearby, striking a menacing pose without uttering a word. Then he followed her to a nearby coffee shop, again boxing in her vehicle. At the time, Green thought he "was just some jerk."

The Los Angeles City Council has decided to pay $225,000 to settle a lawsuit by a veteran LAPD officer who alleged he was retaliated against for raising concerns about other officers' conduct in connection with a federal consent decree. The settlement ends a 2-year-old lawsuit by Officer Reggie Dickenson, who alleged that department supervisors refused to listen when he questioned whether some officers were falsifying the racial data that the consent decree requires for traffic-stop reports.

Las Flores Middle School teacher Elsie Cathy Rodriguez's friendship with a 13-year-old student started off routinely enough, in an after-school club preparing kids to run the Los Angeles Marathon. Her relationship with the southern Orange County boy eventually became closer, however, and included rendezvous in an apartment complex hot tub, conversations about sex and hundreds of cellphone text messages, according to investigators for the Orange County Sheriff's Department.