Lying

In these troubled economic times, it's not hard to understand why people might want to protect their life savings by purchasing a hard asset like gold or silver. At least, that's the pitch of Monex, the big Newport Beach investment firm, which bills itself as "America's trusted name in precious metals investments" and assures clients that it's "committed to customer service. " So let's take a look at the experiences of some customers who say their trust in Monex was misplaced.

WASHINGTON - As the Internal Revenue Service's last two directors struggled to provide answers Tuesday about the agency's improper scrutiny of conservative groups, a lawyer for another key IRS official said she would invoke the 5th Amendment rather than answer questions about the screening and why she didn't tell Congress about it. Lois Lerner, director of exempt organizations for the IRS, will assert her right against self-incrimination during her...

Having been born to one of the most famous couples of this century--America's greatest modern writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his talented flapper wife Zelda Sayre--Scottie Fitzgerald was thrust a heavy mantle, particularly as their only child. Add to that the heady cocktail of parental alcoholism, prescription drug abuse, numerous failed suicide attempts and schizophrenia. Talent and tragedy were genetically passed on to Scottie as surely as her blond hair and blue eyes. Until now, very little was known about the Fitzgeralds' daughter beyond her school days.

Los Angeles voters rejected a plan to hike the city's sales tax two months ago, but the battle over that measure lives on in a hotly contested City Council race. In multiple mailers sent to voters in the 13th council district, candidate John Choi and his backers in organized labor contend that Choi's rival, Mitch O'Farrell, supported the layoffs of 500 police officers. In one mailer, a downcast O'Farrell is pictured next to a crime scene and the words: "Votes to cut 500 cops. " Choi and his backers base the claim on O'Farrell's opposition to Proposition A, the March 5 ballot measure that was promoted by city leaders and others as a way to avoid reductions in police staffing.

The Senate voted 33 to 1 Thursday to approve a bill that would give it power to remove any public appointee who falsifies qualifications during confirmation hearings. The bill was introduced by Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) after The Times revealed in December that California State University Chairwoman Marianthi Lansdale of Huntington Beach falsely claimed during her nomination process to have earned an associate of arts degree in 1959 from Long Beach City College.

I remember the show ran on Monday nights and I remember my father loved it. He was the family's biggest fan of "Dragnet." My mother refused to watch, probably on religious grounds, but the rest of us did, every week. "Dragnet" was part of our routine. That took place in Memphis, Tenn., 1953 or '54. We had one of the first TV sets on the block and "Dragnet" was our introduction to California. We saw palm trees growing out of the sidewalks and crooks wearing Hawaiian shirts.

The gray-and-green warehouse in suburban Concord seems an unlikely headquarters for a statewide detective operation, and the fact checkers at work there insist they are not mercilessly probing the lives of California's teenagers. Still, there is an element of hard-boiled sleuthing in the University of California's unusual attempt to ensure that its 98,000 freshman applicants tell the truth about themselves and their extracurricular activities.

Rasheeda Moore, the former model who cooperated with the FBI in setting up Washington Mayor Marion Barry's drug arrest, testified at his trial Wednesday that the two had used cocaine and other drugs "over 100 times." During the three years of a relationship that was also sexual, Moore testified, she and Barry used drugs at all hours and in all places--in hotels, borrowed apartments, government offices, a drug dealer's rooming house and Barry's own home.

In a town where beer is champagne and bratwurst is caviar, the plump, German luncheon link has become embroiled in a bizarre racial dispute that is sizzling hotter this summer than a backyard barbecue. The City Council Friday voted to censure Michael McGee, a flamboyant black alderman who has previously threatened urban guerrilla violence against whites, for his part in a product tampering scare last weekend.

INTRODUCTION * Twenty-one years ago, a child then known as Kyle Sapp told police that he had been the victim of sexual abuse at the McMartin Pre-School in Manhattan Beach. Sapp, who attended the preschool from 1979 to 1980, was 8 when he first talked to authorities in 1984. He and hundreds of other South Bay children made allegations against the family who ran McMartin and against the employees who worked there.

NEW DELHI - At least 58 people were missing and feared dead Tuesday after a boat capsized off Myanmar while residents tried to flee an approaching cyclone, United Nations officials said. The boat was carrying about 100 Rohingya Muslims, many of whom lived in camps in low-lying areas to escape Buddhist-Muslim violence, officials said. The boat apparently ran into rocks off Pauktaw township in the western state Rakhine and sank late Monday as people were evacuating, said Aye Win, spokesman for the U.N. Information Center in Myanmar, based on preliminary information.

A federal magistrate released a friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from jail Monday on strict pretrial conditions that include 24-hour home confinement and $100,000 bail. The friend, Robel Phillipos, a 19-year-old Boston native, is charged with making false statements to the FBI related to the April 15 explosions that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others. After a hearing before Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler, Phillipos quickly left the courthouse in street clothes and a baseball cap, surrounded by family and friends.

WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously agree that Syrians have been exposed to deadly sarin gas in recent weeks, but they are divided over how certain they can be that the Syrian regime is to blame, U.S. and congressional officials said Friday. As the Obama administration weighs how to respond to the use of poison gas, intelligence officials say they are confident that sophisticated tests of tissue and soil samples and other evidence point to sarin. But reactions in the U.S. intelligence community have varied because of the possibility - however small - that the exposure was accidental or caused by rebel fighters or others outside the Syrian government's control, officials said.

Jean Crump made up fabulous fictional deaths. She wasn't a best-selling author or a fabled storyteller, but a mastermind of an elaborate life insurance scam, federal prosecutors say. For the fictional "Jim Davis," Crump created a bogus death certificate, purchased a grave plot and loaded the casket with items to simulate the weight of a corpse. On Tuesday, her tales got her 18 months in federal prison. Even when confronted during her trial with a secret FBI video of a meeting in July 2006 with a doctor, who unbeknownst to her was a federal informant, she continued to lie about her actions, federal prosecutors said.

CAMP PENDLETON - A female Marine was convicted Wednesday of "attempted adultery" and lying to investigators in a case involving allegations of sexual misconduct and alcohol abuse in the enlisted ranks. The Marine, a staff sergeant with 17 years' service, could receive a year in the brig and a bad-conduct discharge when the judge, Lt. Col. Leon Francis, announces the sentence Thursday. She was convicted of attempting "to have sexual intercourse with … a man not her husband," but she was acquitted of adultery.

SAN DIEGO -- A Marine is on trial at Camp Pendleton on charges of committing adultery and then lying to investigators by saying she was drunk and had been raped. Under military law, adultery can lead to a bad-conduct discharge and a year in the brig. Although adultery has long been a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, cases of prosecution are rare, officials said. According to the official charge sheet at the special court martial, the defendant, a staff sergeant, had sex with another staff sergeant at or near Temecula on March 2 of last year.

Why is lying to the Congress such a serious offense but lying to the public isn't? GARY A. ROBB Los Angeles

Why is lying to Congress a crime but Congress lying to the people is not? HAROLD P. HAYES Atascadero

A jury Friday acquitted a Los Angeles police officer and a former officer on charges that they lied about a drunk-driving arrest. After deliberating only a few hours, jurors found Phillip Walters and Craig Allen not guilty of the perjury charges, said Bill Seki, Allen's attorney. Allen also was cleared on an allegation of filing a false police report. The case stemmed from a DUI checkpoint in September 2010, where the two officers were working. The pair were dispatched to assist another officer who had stopped a drunk driving suspect.

That mysterious new dent on the car? Chances are, if the husband did it, he'll take the "wasn't me" route and lie about it. And, of course, the faithful wife will believe him. Insure.com polled 1,000 married adults last month to find out how honest they are about owning up to traffic accidents, traffic tickets, auto insurance matters and more. Someone must have hit my car in the parking lot: When the results for husbands and wives were studied, the poll showed that 42% of the husbands dinged the car and blamed someone else.