Sex Crimes

Swiss officials told U.S. authorities earlier this month that Roman Polanski probably will be returned to Los Angeles to face sentencing in the child-sex case he fled three decades ago, according to e-mail records made public by the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. "While the Swiss officials cannot speak for the judge, the extradition will likely be ordered based upon the facts submitted in our papers," a deputy district attorney in the extradition services department, Diana Carbajal, wrote to her supervisor two weeks ago. The e-mail related an Oct. 5 conversation between officials at the U.S. Justice Department and their Swiss counterparts concerning the film director, who is jailed in Zurich and fighting extradition.

The Los Angeles Police Department has reduced the backlog of untested DNA evidence kits from rapes and sexual assaults by two-thirds since last fall, but City Controller Wendy Greuel cautioned Thursday that "we still have a long way to go to resolve this issue." With Police Chief-designate Charles L. Beck at her side, Greuel outlined the results of a new audit one year after former Controller Laura Chick found that the LAPD's backlog of untested kits had grown to more than 7,000, with 217 languishing beyond the legal time limit for prosecuting suspects.

Lawyers for Roman Polanski accused Los Angeles County Superior Court of bias against the fugitive film director Monday and asked that a judge from another jurisdiction handle the Academy Award-winner's recent request to have the 30-year-old unlawful intercourse case against him thrown out. In a court filing, attorneys wrote that comments by a court spokesman showed a predisposition against Polanski and made a scheduled Jan. 21 hearing before Judge...

A high school basketball coach was charged Friday with crimes for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old girl. Erik Ross, 43, an assistant boys' basketball coach at Franklin High School, was arrested Wednesday by Glendale police and charged with 12 crimes. He also coached a girls' youth basketball team, and the alleged victim was a member of an opposing squad. She was not a student at Franklin. -- Jason Song

A former sheriff of Custer County was sentenced to 79 years in prison for using his power over female drug court defendants to force them to have sex with him. Mike Burgess, 56, apologized to two victims but maintained that he was not guilty of allegations that he had also abused others. Defense attorney Steve Huddleston said an appeal was planned.

A judge officially rejected Roman Polanski's request for a dismissal of 32-year-old child sex charges Thursday after the filmmaker missed a deadline to surrender to U.S. authorities. His attorneys had informed L.A. County Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza in advance that the director would not return to Los Angeles to meet a deadline set by the court in February, but the judge nevertheless took the bench at the time of his scheduled appearance. "Court calls for the record the matter of Roman Raymond Polanski," Espinoza said to the vacant well of the courtroom.

Police have arrested a U.S. Marine Corps recruiter on charges of felony pimping and kidnapping and are looking into whether he used sex with a 14-year-old girl to entice potential recruits. Staff Sgt. Bryan Damone Cunningham, 33, of San Pedro pleaded not guilty to seven felonies last Thursday after police in Orange discovered the teenage girl in a car with Cunningham and two other men. The two men, ages 18 and 19, were potential Marine recruits, police said. The girl, who has since been returned to her parents in Hemet, told police that she met Cunningham online and had sex with all three men. She also told police Cunningham wanted her to work as a prostitute and had tried to take her to Los Angeles County against her will.

A man who avoided prison time for having sex with the corpse of a 4-year-old girl is behind bars after pleading no contest to an unrelated animal cruelty charge, authorities said. Earlier this month, sheriff's deputies were called to a feces-stained, urine-soaked Hesperia home where Donald Luis Cooper, 32, lived with three other adults, seven children and 31 animals. As a result of that visit, Cooper pleaded no contest to a single count of animal cruelty, which amounted to a violation of his probation.

One worker was killed and two were seriously injured Monday when a five-story steel structure collapsed during demolition of a power plant near the city's shoreline, officials said. The incident occurred just before noon at a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. plant that was decommissioned in 2006. Company and fire officials said the cause was under investigation. Fire Department spokesman Lt. Ken Smith said the cage-like structure fell, hitting one worker who escaped on his own and trapping another who suffered leg injuries and had to be cut out of the wreckage by firefighters.

A female juvenile probation counselor at Los Pinos youth facility has been sentenced to a year in jail for engaging in unlawful sex with a 17-year-old inmate and helping him after he escaped from custody, authorities said Monday. Beccy Hasselbarth, 36, of Murrieta pleaded guilty last week to committing several felonious sex acts in 2005 with the boy, whose name was not released. The acts were committed at the facility while he was under her supervision. Hasselbarth also pleaded guilty to continuing the unlawful sexual relationship with the teen after he escaped from the facility and of helping him by giving him money.