Pleas

Former Mongols motorcycle gang leader Ruben "Doc" Cavazos faces up to life in prison after pleading guilty to a single racketeering charge among 86 counts accusing gang members of murder, assault, robbery and drug-trafficking, court documents show. The plea deal between Cavazos and the U.S.

Three men have pleaded guilty to making false statements to Internal Revenue Service agents during an investigation and face up to five years in prison and a minimum fine of $250,000 each, a local IRS official said Wednesday. Benhour Hatanian, Tsion Hatanian and Nissan Golshirazian recently entered pleas in federal court in Los Angeles, said Debra D. King, special agent in charge for the Los Angeles Field Office, IRS Criminal Investigation. According to their signed guilty pleas, the men admitted they had falsely told IRS agents that they had not given U.S. currency to an individual to place in a foreign bank account.

A doctor who treated AIDS patients admitted to watering down medications and pleaded guilty to fraud charges, the U.S. attorney's office announced Thursday. Dr. George Steven Kooshian, who practiced in Orange and Los Angeles counties, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Santa Ana federal court to a total of four counts of billing fraud and making false healthcare statements. The charges stem from Kooshian's treatment of two patients in 2000.

An Irvine lawyer convicted last year of conspiracy and securities fraud in a scheme that bilked investors out of tens of millions of dollars pleaded not guilty Monday to new charges of credit card fraud and forgery. Jeanne M. Rowzee is accused of fraudulently applying for credit cards in her children's names and adding herself to the accounts as a second cardholder.

A Lodi woman pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that she assisted in the suicide of her brother, a blues guitarist who was well-known in the Central Valley. Jimmy Hartley, 45, had been crippled by a series of strokes and other health problems. In constant pain, he had pleaded with his sister for help in killing himself for nearly a year, according to Randy Thomas, June Hartley's attorney.

Two weeks after his murder conviction was overturned, Bruce Lisker appeared Friday in Los Angeles County Superior Court to once again face charges for the 1983 slaying of his mother. During a brief hearing in front of Judge Peter Espinoza, Lisker, dressed in a dark suit, listened as the prosecutor read the same murder charge that was filed in 1983 and asked him how he pleaded. "Not guilty," Lisker, 44, responded. In an interview with The Times after the hearing, Lisker said he was confident that he would be exonerated at a retrial.

Temple City's mayor, former mayor and an aide were indicted Wednesday on charges of perjury and soliciting and receiving bribes from a developer in exchange for supporting his $75-million mall project. Mayor Judy Wong, former Mayor Cathe Wilson and Wilson's campaign treasurer, Scott Carwile, pleaded not guilty to the charges after the 21-count grand jury indictment was unsealed by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg.

Former Peregrine Systems Inc. President Gary Lee Lenz, whose fraud trial ended in a deadlocked jury, pleaded guilty Tuesday to making false statements in a case that charged him with helping destroy the once-$4.7-billion company. Lenz entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Thomas Whelan in San Diego. Lenz, 60, faces as many as five years in prison and a fine of $250,000. "Mr. Lenz wants to put this behind him," Lenz's attorney, Thomas Bienert, said after the hearing.

The 80-year-old leader of a megachurch pleaded guilty Wednesday to lying under oath about his sexual affairs and was sentenced to 10 years' probation. Archbishop Earl Paulk, who has been in ill health, was also fined $1,000 on a single felony count. The charges stem from a 2006 deposition Paulk gave in a lawsuit against him, his brother Don and the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church by former church employee Mona Brewer, who said she was coerced into an affair.

The director of the anti-gang organization No Guns, which the city of Los Angeles once paid $1.5 million to steer Latino youths away from a life of crime, pleaded guilty Thursday to illegally selling assault weapons to federal undercover officers. Hector "Big Weasel" Marroquin, 51, was sentenced to eight years in prison, said Eric Harmon, the Los Angeles County prosecutor in the case. Marroquin's accomplice and girlfriend, Sylvia Arellano, 26, pleaded guilty to illegal weapons sales.