Indictments

After winning a City Council seat last year on a campaign of transparency and accountability, Steve Di Memmo said he quickly found himself the outsider in a clique of clubby officials who shared long-standing ties and mutual interests. But he didn't realize just how far outside he was until Thursday, when he learned he was the sole San Jacinto city councilman not facing felony indictments. The news left him torn. "These people have not been found guilty of anything yet," he said repeatedly over coffee in San Jacinto on Friday.

Three college football players were indicted Monday on charges of raping an unconscious woman during a party at a Tustin hotel in July. Santa Ana College football players Michael A. Clemmons, 19, of Tustin; Luster M. Lewis, 20, of Irvine; and John P. Foster, 22, of Seaside, are accused of sexually assaulting an 18-year-old woman while she was unconscious and intoxicated. Foster is being held on $100,000 bail. Clemmons and Lewis have posted bail in that amount and are free awaiting trial.

Actor-comedian Faizon Love was charged Monday in connection with an incident in which he allegedly punched a man outside the Standard Hotel in West Hollywood last month. Deputy Dist. Atty. Roberto Rubalcava said Love, 40, was charged with one count of felony assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury. Love allegedly got into a verbal altercation Jan. 7 with a group outside the hotel and then allegedly assaulted a man, punching him twice. Love was not arrested at the time.

Zimbabwean police no longer plan treason charges against a longtime opposition politician appointed to the unity government, the lawmaker's party said. The Movement for Democratic Change party reported earlier that police said Roy Bennett, the party's nominee to be deputy agriculture minister, would be accused of treason, which carries the death penalty. The party said police decided on a weapons charge instead. Police have been unavailable for comment since Bennett's arrest Friday.

Federal authorities on Tuesday unsealed an indictment charging more than three dozen alleged members and associates of the notorious 18th Street gang with racketeering and murder, including the death of a 3-week-old baby. The indictment also accused a Covina attorney of being an intermediary between the gang and an imprisoned member of the Mexican Mafia. -- Scott Glover

The day after a grand jury indicted a Texas Supreme Court justice on arson-related charges, the district attorney here had the case dismissed, arguing there was insufficient evidence to move forward. The unusual action Friday by Harris County Dist. Atty. Chuck Rosenthal in the case against Justice David Medina and his wife outraged two members of the grand jury, who called it a blatant example of politics trumping justice. Both Medina and Rosenthal are Republicans.

A bizarre legal battle was effectively ended Tuesday when a judge ruled that a grand jury that had indicted a Texas Supreme Court justice over the prosecutor's objections was operating with improperly filed paperwork, the justice's attorney and the grand jury foreman said. The mistake, made when the Harris County district attorney's office extended the grand jury's term in November, invalidated all indictments issued after that, District Judge Jim Wallace ruled.

A man accused of killing a mentally disabled man with a baseball bat was ordered Friday to stand trial. Jason Ryan Verador, 28, is charged with murder in the May 2007 death of 41-year-old James McKinney. Video from a security camera showed McKinney being struck from behind and falling to the ground. He died five days later of head injuries. Police linked Verador to the crime after a witness recognized the suspect when the video was played on TV. Police Det. John Shafia testified that Verador took him into his home and led police to a storage area where they found an aluminum bat. Officers also found clothing in the home that matched the clothing seen on the suspect in the security video, Shafia said.

A Spanish judge Wednesday indicted 40 Rwandan army officers on charges of mass murder and crimes against humanity in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwanda genocide, asserting a concept of justice championed by his nation known as "universal jurisdiction." Judge Fernando Andreu of Spain's National Court said he also had sufficient evidence to implicate current Rwandan President Paul Kagame in a long string of reprisal massacres after he and his forces seized power, ending the genocide.

The Pentagon announced Monday that it was seeking the death penalty against alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and five other men, in a move that will probably ensure that the controversial military commissions at the Guantanamo Bay prison live on into the next presidential administration.