South Gate Ca

The newest overseer of America's largest pension fund, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, is a political insider with a vast resume. Louis F. Moret, appointed to the 13-person CalPERS board earlier this year, has served as chief operating officer of Southern California's regional planning agency, a Los Angeles public works commissioner, chief of staff for a former assemblyman and, perhaps most famously, as a boxing referee. Less well known are his troubles in South Gate.

A 22-year-old woman was arrested Sunday evening on suspicion of child abduction after she failed to return a 3-month-old boy to his mother, police said. Denise Sanchez, who was taking care of the child, was supposed to return him Friday night. Officers found her Sunday evening with the baby and returned him unharmed to his mother, said Lt. David Pixler of the South Gate Police Department.

A crash that killed two women early Sunday on the Long Beach Freeway may have resulted from "road rage" with another vehicle, a witness told the California Highway Patrol. The women were passengers in a sport utility vehicle that rolled down an embankment after veering across the southbound 710 Freeway about 3:10 a.m., investigators said. The SUV driver, a 20-year-old Bellflower man, was hurt. Two passengers, a 20-year-old from Bellflower and a 22-year-old from Kerman, Calif., died at the scene.

The city treasurer of South Gate, elected to help clean up the corruption-ravaged city's finances in the wake of the Albert Robles scandal, admitted that he lied about holding a college degree and working on a master's. Rudy Navarro, 26, acknowledged in an interview that he made up parts of his resume after The Times made inquiries into his background and education status last week. "I don't know what I was thinking. It was stupid," he said.

In the latest blow to beleaguered South Gate, a Los Angeles jury found Monday that the city should pay more than $4 million to a former police officer who said he was wrongly dismissed. Almost immediately, some City Council members said they would appeal the verdict in favor of former Assistant Chief Mark Van Holt. The award would be insupportable in the predominantly Latino city of 100,000, whose annual budget is $28 million, they said.

Human bones were found Tuesday on the property of a nursery at 5423 Firestone Blvd., Los Angeles County sheriff's investigators said. The skeletal remains were discovered in a pit about 1:50 p.m., authorities said, and homicide detectives were sent to investigate. It was not known how old the remains were, or if they were those of a man or woman.

One of the Southland's largest new shopping centers is slated to be built in South Gate next year, reflecting an industry trend toward building shopping centers in overlooked urban districts. A $175-million outdoor mall, called the Gateway, would be built on the site of a departed pipe manufacturing plant at Firestone Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue. At 600,000 square feet, the mall would be larger than the Grove, a popular outdoor shopping venue in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles.

Former South Gate Treasurer Albert Robles was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in federal prison for plundering more than $20 million from the small, working-class city. A federal judge handed down the sentence after Robles said in an impassioned speech that he had acted "immorally" during his years as leader of South Gate, but never broke the law. "There are different levels of hoodwinking, but I didn't think hoodwinking was a crime," Robles said.

Relatives and neighbors of a 10-year-old South Gate boy who was struck and killed in a crosswalk Saturday called on city officials to install more safety devices at the busy intersection. Ricardo Mercado was killed while crossing Tweedy Boulevard at San Vincente Avenue with his mother and two sisters at 11:24 a.m. They were on their way home after buying Popsicles at a nearby store. A woman driving a Volkswagen SUV was making a left turn from San Vincente Avenue onto Tweedy Boulevard when she struck the family, said Sgt. Tim Williams of the South Gate Police Department.

The scandal-plagued city of South Gate, saddled with more than $8 million in attorneys' fees during the reign of a former city treasurer now facing public corruption charges, is trying to recoup the losses by going after law firms it once employed.