Orange County

Olympic sprint champion Florence Griffith Joyner died after suffering an epileptic seizure, according to autopsy results released Thursday, and her family and friends say they hope the findings will put to rest rumors that drug use contributed to her death. Griffith Joyner died last month in her sleep at age 38. Her husband, Al Joyner, bitterly criticized those who suggested that she took performance-enhancing drugs.

Attorneys for a man charged with killing eight people in a Seal Beach salon three years ago have accused Orange County prosecutors and sheriff's deputies of running an unconstitutional jailhouse informant operation that ensnared their client and other inmates. Scott Dekraai's public defenders say that the district attorney's office oversaw an "unchecked and lawless custodial informant program" which resulted in systemic constitutional violations and kept defense attorneys in the dark about the so-called jailhouse snitches.

In addition to Constitution Week, Cyber Security Awareness Month and Wear Red for Women Day, Harvey Milk Day will now be officially recognized in Orange County. The decision marks a reversal for Orange County supervisors, who twice previously refused to set aside a day to honor the birthday of the slain gay rights activist, who was a supervisor in San Francisco when he was gunned down in 1978. Supervisors voted Tuesday to adopt a yearly list of proclamations that included Harvey Milk Day. Supervisor Shawn Nelson, who helped activists get the day on the list of more than 90 proclamations, said he understands that the recognition is symbolic.

Santa Ana's longtime mayor is under investigation for his relationship with an auto parts business owner, to whom the mayor sold a piece of downtown property and then voted in favor of giving the auto parts store an exclusive city contract. As part of his real estate transaction, Mayor Miguel Pulido also purchased a Westminster home from the auto parts business owner for about $230,000 below fair market value, according to property records. Pulido later sold the home for a $197,000 profit.

The FBI has been brought in to help investigate a cache of explosives — grenades, blasting caps and fuse igniters — found in a backpack under a bridge in Placentia on Monday. Orange County bomb squad officials were brought in after the backpack was discovered about 8:50 a.m. Monday by people working in a drainage ditch, Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said. After cordoning off the area, bomb technicians detonated the contents of the backpack, including six grenades, blasting caps, fuse igniters and blasting powder.

She was beaten and stomped to death in the early morning hours outside a Santa Ana nightclub amid a group of fellow Vietnamese Americans. Some of her friends may have seen who knocked the 23-year-old Huntington Beach woman to the ground or who kicked her in the head as a crowd encircled them. Some may hold the clues that could bring Kim Pham's killers to justice. But as Santa Ana police detectives try to make sense of the melee that led to her death, the investigation is running into a wall of silence.

In a conservative Orange County town, where the strawberry fields were still plentiful and the population solidly white, Danh's Pharmacy stood out when it opened its doors after the Vietnam War came to an end. Yet the business was just the beginning in a small Orange County city that would quickly balloon into a bustling immigrant community. When Danh N. Quach chose to set up shop in 1978 in Westminster, he knew just one Vietnamese doctor - the same man who agreed to co-sign a loan for him. PHOTOS: Little Saigon turns 25 Now, as Little Saigon celebrates its 25th anniversary - a date marked not by the arrival of refugees, but by the state erecting a freeway offramp sign - Quach's shop stands as a landmark in the largest Vietnamese cultural district outside the country itself.

The organization that tracks hate crimes and racial intolerance in Orange County is at risk of having its county funding gutted, a money-saving move that some say could unravel 41 years of hard work in a county that has grown increasingly diverse. A county supervisor is proposing a two-thirds reduction in the money given to the Orange County Human Relations Commission, which leaders say could cripple the group's effectiveness in handling potentially volatile situations. It was the commission, supporters say, that stepped in to calm an angry city when a homeless man died after a violent confrontation with police at a downtown Fullerton transit center.

Orange County's top official resigned Thursday amid criticism of how government leaders handled allegations that a public works executive sexually assaulted multiple women over an eight-year span. After an hours-long closed session, Supervisor John Moorlach emerged to announce Chief Executive Tom Mauk's resignation, effective Aug. 3. It's the latest in a series of departures from county government since Santa Ana City Councilman Carlos Bustamante was charged with 12 felonies and four misdemeanors in connection with the alleged battery and sexual assault of seven of his subordinates.

A man and a woman who allegedly forced a 14-year-old runaway to walk the streets near Knott's Berry Farm as a prostitute have been charged under a recently approved law that toughens penalties for human trafficking. Under the new law, Chuncey Tarae Garcia, 33, could face life in prison if convicted of human trafficking of a minor by force or fear. He and Cierra Melissa Robinson, 27, Garcia's alleged accomplice, are in the first wave of people in California and the first in Orange County to be charged with human trafficking since the state's adoption of Proposition 35. Garcia is accused of being a pimp and teaming with Robinson, who prosecutors say worked for him as his highest-ranking prostitute.

Orange County has loosened requirements for carrying concealed weapons in public following a pro-gun ruling last week by a federal appeals court, officials said Thursday. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2 to 1 that California counties may no longer require residents who want to carry concealed firearms to demonstrate special, individualized needs for protection. The court majority said law-abiding residents have a 2nd Amendment right to bear a gun in public.

 One of the motivations for the creation of the Open Division was to help schools that haven't won championships get the opportunity to compete for a title, and that seems likley. In 1AA, with five schools moved to the Open Division, it clears the way for Rancho Cucamonga (23-4) to make a big run in the bottom half of the bracket as the No. 2 seed. Two of the Cougars' four losses were to Etiwanda. They have top players in guard Victor Joseph and 6-foot-5 forward Daylan Lawrence.

The love letters started appearing after Valentine's Day, taped to the windows of a small cottage on the main drag on Balboa Island. In one note, a woman tells of meeting her future husband after her car broke down on the Balboa Island Ferry and had to be pushed off the boat and onto a neighborhood street. "Just then, I was flagged down by a cute boy on his balcony offering to give me some assistance," Summer Brees wrote. Within a couple of years, the two were married, and 28 years later they've raised a family on the island.

Jury selection begins Tuesday in a discrimination case in which three Latino police officers contend they were routinely passed over for promotions and two of them were given the "dead end" job of patrolling a local mall. The three Westminster officers maintain that despite years of service and numerous awards their careers have languished as non-Latino officers have been promoted and given prestigious assignments in the predominantly Asian city. "These three Latino officers dedicate their lives, put their lives on the line and have been outstanding officers and they've been denied opportunities, at every turn, to move up the ranks," said Victor Viramontes, an attorney representing the officers.

Newport Beach has agreed to a nearly $1-million settlement with three former officers who claim they were victims of a corrupt and retaliatory police department that passed them over for promotions by using tests designed to favor hand-picked candidates. Two of the ex-officers said a pair of past police chiefs and a former city administrator engaged in favoritism, and the third said he was demoted when he complained about the promotion practices. Former police lieutenants Craig Frizzell and Steve Shulman will each receive about $425,000 in the settlement.

SAN DIEGO - Above the water line, the Point Loma wharf at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography is impressive: large, high-tech ships dock there before cruising off to research sea life and climate conditions around the world. The skyline of downtown San Diego skyscrapers looms across the bay. Underwater, however, is a much less glamorous view of the concrete pier and wharf, with rotten and broken pilings, exposed rebar and dangling wooden supports. It is a glimpse, scientists say, of the worrisome decay that could threaten their efforts to better understand tsunamis, seismic faults and the effect of pollution on fish.

A former Bay Area politician and the estranged wife of the state treasurer - who has struggled publicly with substance-abuse problems that led her to resign earlier this year - faces criminal charges in Orange County after being arrested on drug charges. Nadia Lockyer, an Alameda County supervisor until April, was arrested by police in Orange on Aug. 28, after law enforcement received a tip that she was in possession of drugs, said Farrah Emami, a spokeswoman for the Orange County district attorney's office.

Orange County officials illegally diverted $73.5 million from local schools and colleges and used the money to balance their budget and cover day-to-day expenses, state officials alleged in a lawsuit filed Thursday. The lawsuit, filed in Orange County Superior Court, contends that it was unconstitutional for the county to grab the funds, which should be spent on cash-strapped local schools and state community colleges. The money fight erupted last year, when Orange County lost $48 million in vehicle license fees and redirected tax funds to the county that were supposed to go to schools.

Police have arrested an 41-year-old Anaheim woman on suspicion of operating a brothel in one the city's motels. Ramona Judith Mora Garcia is accused of enlisting a 33-year-old woman and a 38-year-old woman as prostitutes in late 2013 and early 2014. The Anaheim Police Department contacted her through a sexually suggestive ad Garcia had placed in a magazine, according to the Orange County district attorney's office. Authorities said Garcia would place such ads, arrange for customers to meet with the two women for sex and then demand half the money they were paid.

Re "Errors could hurt college bound," Feb. 10 Such a simple word as "errors" diminishes the severity of purposely concealing grave misconduct by college applicants. The 11 Orange County students recently expelled from their high school over the cheating scandal in which they took part likely knew that what they were doing was wrong. Any college or university that wishes to keep the public's respect must have a standard policy of discarding any application deemed dishonest. Merely urging students who have cheated to "come clean quickly" is hardly enough.