Prisoners Orange County

Every few seconds, the scream coming from Safety Cell 9 rises to a horrible rasping shriek. The young woman inside is disheveled, disoriented, terrified, outraged. She pounds on the walls and the thick metal door, wailing for an unseen friend to help her, consumed by uncomprehending alcoholic delirium, rage and fright.

A 71-year-old Orange County man described by authorities as a "sexual psychopath" has been sentenced to 17 1/2 years in federal prison for attempting to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor overseas, authorities said. Arthur Leroy Shoot, who has residences in Mission Viejo and the Philippines, was arrested Sept. 3, 2008, at Los Angeles International Airport, where he was found to be carrying pornographic pictures of his wife's then 7-year-old niece. Shoot arrived in Los Angeles from the Philippines, where he and his wife own a house, according to federal prosecutors.

Desperately alone in his dark world, 20-year-old Jesus Orbina began to shake and cry uncontrollably when a message delivered to prisoners throughout the world Sunday came to him inside the Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail. You have not been forgotten, the suicidal Orbina was told. People out there love you.

Nearly a decade after the largest mass arrest in Orange County history, county supervisors have paid $280,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by more than 100 laborers jailed during a bitter strike by drywall workers. The settlement--the highest civil rights payout against the Sheriff's Department in years--closes the final chapter in a legal saga involving the 1992 detention of a convoy of drywallers accused of conspiring to kidnap replacement workers. Deputies jailed 153 of the strikers.

Dianna D'Aiello insisted Tuesday that her ex-husband beat her, but conceded she could not be sure Kevin Lee Green caused the death of her unborn baby--a crime that kept Green in prison for nearly 17 years. D'Aiello said she is still trying to reconcile her vivid memories of the September 1979 night of the attack on her with the stunning news that a serial killing suspect, Gerald Parker, has allegedly confessed to the bludgeoning.

The man accused in the 1996 slaying of a California Highway Patrol officer in Fullerton has been charged with plotting the murder for hire of witnesses in his and other murder trials and with trafficking in high-powered guns from his Orange County Jail cell, officials announced Tuesday. One of the man's alleged accomplices is a veteran private investigator working on his defense; he is charged with conspiring to commit murder for hire.

In what police say is an unusual arrangement that will allow Laguna Beach officers to stay closer to home while their station at City Hall is being remodeled, people arrested in Laguna Beach during the next year will be housed in Newport Beach Jail. The agreement, which was unanimously approved by the Newport Beach City Council, means Laguna police will not be pulled off their beats to drive prisoners to Orange County Jail in Santa Ana.

A former Anaheim Hills contractor who managed to get $82,705 from a bogus income tax refund while serving five years on a securities fraud charge will be spending 33 months more in a federal prison. Gerald W. McComber, 41, was sentenced late Friday to the additional time by U.S. District Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler in Santa Ana. He had pleaded guilty in April to filing a false refund claim.

What do you think is the most important purpose of a jail sentence? Criminal off the streets: 31% Crime prevention: 25% Punish criminal: 22% Rehabilitaion: 17% Other: 5% Source: Times Orange County Poll

Mark Richard Hilbun, the former Dana Point postal worker accused of murdering his mother and a former co-worker, suffered a possible broken vertebra and a slight concussion Monday in a fall from a second-story walkway in Orange County Jail, authorities said. Hilbun, 39, who is being held in protective custody without bail, was injured about 7:15 a.m.

Some of Southern California's top religious leaders met Wednesday with Anaheim's police chief and city manager over a controversial policy that allows INS agents to question suspects detained in the city jail. The religious leaders issued a short statement after the unusual closed-door session saying that the conversation was "fruitful and informative" and that "mutual concerns of how to better serve our community were discussed."

Two inmates at the Theo Lacy Branch Jail were hit with pepper spray and suffered minor cuts after they refused to return to their modules, officials said Thursday. The men were among 33 inmates who disobeyed deputy's orders last Friday, said Jon Fleischmann, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department. Fleischmann said more than 100 inmates had spent 5 1/2 hours playing in the jail's recreation area, but 33 of them wanted more time.

Sambo Lorn returned to the Santa Ana city jail Tuesday, a month after being released, but this time it was to celebrate. Lorn was one of seven graduates from a pilot program offered by Santa Ana College that allows inmates to take college courses and receive credits transferable to colleges and universities.

A Santa Ana jail guard involved in a romantic relationship with an inmate helped carry out a daring scheme to smuggle methamphetamine to her boyfriend and others in the jail, authorities said Monday. Michelle V. Rodriguez acted as a drug courier at least five times, delivering hardback books stuffed with drugs, Orange County prosecutors allege. Rodriguez, 25, who was fired by the Santa Ana Police Department in October, was charged Friday with five felony counts.

A Santa Ana Jail guard involved in a romantic relationship with an inmate helped carry out a daring scheme to smuggle drugs into the city jail, supplying methamphetamine to her boyfriend and other inmates, authorities said Monday. Michelle V. Rodriguez acted as a drug courier at least five times, delivering hardback books stuffed with drugs, Orange County prosecutors allege. Rodriguez, 25, who was fired by the Santa Ana Police Department in October, was charged Friday with five felony counts.

A prominent prison-rights attorney filed a class-action lawsuit Wednesday accusing Orange County Juvenile Hall of keeping youngsters behind bars for too long without a court hearing. The civil rights suit contends that juveniles are not receiving hearings within 72 hours after their arrest to allow a judge to decide whether they should remain locked up. County officials strongly deny the allegations. Attorney Richard P.

A Newport Beach socialite finished three days in solitary confinement Thursday for hoarding items such as jail underwear, towels and olive-drab inmate jumpsuits in her cell, authorities said. Tina Schafnitz, serving a 10-month sentence for selling cocaine to a Tustin detective, had been hiding the items somewhere in her cell at the James A. Musick Facility in Irvine, Sheriff's Lt. Tom Garner said.

Officials condemned the Immigration and Naturalization Service on Saturday for ending a pilot program to identify and deport illegal immigrants, calling the decision "intolerable" and "insulting." Since March, the INS has stationed two agents at Anaheim City Jail to identify, detain and place a hold on illegal immigrants so that they won't be released on bond. The pilot program was terminated Friday.

Thursday was the best day of Anthony Ybarra's life. He was in jail, didn't know when he would see his 2-week-old son, Noah Anthony, and was crying hard. But a priest who had once been an inmate at the same jail was washing his feet, just as Jesus did for his 12 surprised disciples at the Last Supper. Father John McAndrew cleaned and kissed Ybarra's feet, along with those of 11 other prisoners, during a Holy Thursday Catholic service at Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange.

A little-publicized beating case that led to the first criminal convictions in memory for brutality at the Orange County Jail threatens to come back to haunt the county--and possibly taxpayers as well. The case involves an inmate who was repeatedly kicked and punched by jail officials. Unlike the flurry of beating allegations to hit the Sheriff's Department in recent years, investigators quickly determined Leonard Mendez's allegations had merit.