Pleas

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.

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown released a plan to close California's rapidly growing deficit by switching state offices to a four-day week, slashing welfare benefits and healthcare for the poor and relying on a variety of short-term fixes - all in the hopes that voters will give the state some breathing room by raising taxes in November. The governor, who unveiled his revised budget proposal in the Capitol on Monday, is facing a nearly $16-billion budget gap, far larger than the $9.2 billion he predicted in January.

A man identified by law enforcement authorities as a top lieutenant in the notorious Arellano Felix drug cartel--and who is wanted in Mexico on murder charges--pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Diego to arranging a cocaine deal from prison while he awaited extradition. The charge carries a mandatory 10-year sentence.

WASHINGTON -- In an election day push as a tea party challenger tries to unseat veteran GOP Sen. Richard Lugar in Indiana's closely watched primary , both sides have hammered a simple message: Every vote matters. The get-out-the-vote drive has been intense and Richard Mourdock, the state treasurer trying to oust Lugar, asked supporters for a promise that they would go to the polls. "Even better, would you commit to bringing a friend with you?" Mourdock asked in an email blast.

A former Glendale fire captain, already imprisoned for arson, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new set of crimes, including the murder of four people who died in a 1984 fire he is now accused of setting. The charges against John Leonard Orr, once an acclaimed arson investigator, also include arson for the 1990 College Hills brush fire in Glendale that destroyed 67 homes.

A former Cruttenden & Co. stockbroker pleaded guilty Wednesday to receiving gifts, including a $50,000 Jaguar luxury car, from Spectrum Information Technologies in return for helping the wireless data company manipulate its stock price. Federal prosecutors said Reagan Richmond, 34, of Tustin, conspired to manipulate Spectrum stock between 1992 and 1994 while working as a broker at Irvine-based Cruttenden, now known as Cruttenden Roth, and at Regency Capital Group Inc. in Glendale.

A day before Thanksgiving 1998, Donald "Pato" Schubert was shot to death in the carport of his apartment building in the San Gabriel Valley city of Rosemead. A member of the Lomas Rosemead street gang pleaded guilty to killing Schubert, a plumber and former gang member. With that, the case was filed away, forgotten by nearly everyone except Schubert's family. Then, earlier this month, the case suddenly returned to life.

Three suspects pleaded not guilty Monday to charges stemming from a robbery and car chase in which a teenager was shot to death by police. The two boys from Pico Rivera, one 15 and the other 17, were charged with assault with a deadly weapon and firing at an occupied vehicle. Because of their ages, their names were not released.

A man accused of kidnapping his two young daughters 20 years ago and moving them to Florida will plead guilty today in an agreement that will spare him jail time, a newspaper said Thursday. Stephen Fagan, who told the girls that their mother was dead and raised them under assumed names, will enter a guilty plea to kidnapping, the Boston Herald reported, citing sources it did not identify.

A 23-year-old woman has pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery in connection with her role in the shooting death of a cab driver in Hollywood last year, authorities said. Mabelin Esther Torres entered the guilty plea Wednesday in connection with the slaying of Gerardo Torres Jimenez on June 21, 1999, Dist. Atty. spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said Thursday. Police described Torres as the getaway driver. Torres will be sentenced Nov.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Clippers huddled during their fourth-quarter timeout Sunday and exchanged blank stares. The clock indicated that 8 minutes 54 seconds remained in the game and they trailed the Memphis Grizzlies on the road by 24 points. There wasn't much to say. A thick-bearded man who is 6 feet 8 and 245-pounds of muscle and often-crazed determination spoke up. "C'mon, man, we're not quitting," Reggie Evans said. That message, however foolhardy, seemed to stick.

For Bobby Brown, a plea deal entered Wednesday in Van Nuys means that his recent DUI case is, for the most part, one for the books. Through his attorney, who appeared in L.A. Superior Court on his behalf, the singer pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence, L.A. Now reported. He'd found himself in trouble after a midday arrest in the San Fernando Valley on March 26. In addition to three years' informal probation, he was hit with a one-day jail sentence.

When he came to, Giovanni Macedo was fast tumbling down the side of an embankment somewhere along a road between Tijuana and Mexicali. It was a few seconds before he remembered what had happened. Fleeing to Mexico after a botched shooting. Downing a bottle of vodka and teetering up and down Avenida Revolucion in Tijuana. Reaching a second too late to deflect a rope as it was slung over his neck. A week earlier, the 18-year-old had been "putting in work" in the name of the 18th Street gang in 2007 when he fired shots in the middle of a bustling Westlake street, accidentally killing a 3-week-old infant.

Former star center fielder Lenny Dykstra will not be allowed to post or solicit on social networking or e-commerce sites over the next three years as part of a plea deal with city prosecutors, authorities said. Dykstra pleaded no contest Wednesday to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct and assault with a deadly weapon involving women who responded to housekeeping ads he placed on Craigslist, authorities said Wednesday. Prosecutors said he would receive nine months in jail. Under the plea deal, Dykstra also was placed on three years' probation, including provisions to prevent him from misusing the Internet, which he used to lure women who traveled long distances and were desperate for work in the bad economy.

The two suspects in Tulsa's deadly Good Friday shootings entered not-guilty pleas on Monday to murder and other charges associated with the shootings. Susan Witt, a spokeswoman for the Tulsa district attorney's office, told The Times that Jacob "Jake" England, 19, and Alvin Watts, 33, appeared in Tulsa County District Court via closed-circuit television from Tulsa Jail, where they have been held since their arrest on Easter Sunday. Police have said the pair, who were roommates, confessed to the shootings shortly after their arrest.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Wednesday granted a third — and final — defense request to delay the arraignment of a UCLA chemistry professor and the UC Board of Regents on felony charges stemming from a 2008 lab fire that killed a staff research assistant. Judge Shelly Torrealba ordered professor Patrick Harran and lawyers for the regents back into court June 7, effectively setting a deadline for them to reach a plea agreement with prosecutors on charges in the death of Sheharbano "Sheri" Sangji.

The president of the Orange County Hells Angels' chapter pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal drug-trafficking charges, admitting his role in an elaborate drug ring that smuggled methamphetamine in shipments of Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Howard Coones, a 45-year-old Garden Grove resident, pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply and distribute ephedrine--the raw material used in the production of methamphetamine.

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.

MENDENHALL, Pa. -- Within hours of Rick Santorum's withdrawal from the presidential race Tuesday, leading Republicans were focused on the difficult task ahead: uniting a fractured party behind Mitt Romney. That work got underway in Pennsylvania on Tuesday night shortly before Romney's appearance at the Chester County GOP dinner where the state's junior senator made a plea to members of his party to set aside their loyalties and get behind the former Massachusetts governor.   “He can't do this alone.

Neighborhood Watch captain George Zimmerman will be charged in the shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin, law enforcement sources were reporting Wednesday. The Washington Post and the Associated Press were among the media outlets reporting the developments, although it was not immediately clear what charges Zimmerman would face. The special prosecutor assigned to the case is expected to hold a news conference in Florida later this afternoon. Martin 's parents and their attorney are pleading, even begging, for a peaceful reaction as the nation waits to hear whether charges will be filed against Zimmerman, who has admitted shooting and killing Martin -- but insists it was only in self-defense.