CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 4, 2014 | By Ryan Menezes
A former Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy convicted of pulling over female drivers and asking them to have sex with him was sentenced Friday to nine years in state prison and ordered to register as a sex offender once he is released. Jose Rigoberto Sanchez, 29, pleaded no contest last month to rape and bribery charges, crimes that prosecutors said took place while he was on duty. Sanchez pulled over a 24-year-old woman in Palmdale while on duty Sept. 22, 2010 and allegedly offered not to arrest the driver on an outstanding warrant in exchange for sex, prosecutors said.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 4, 2014 | By Ryan Menezes
She was driven to a dark road in the desert in the back of patrol car. The sheriff's deputy parked in a secluded spot in Palmdale and told her to walk to the front of the car. It was there, the woman said Friday in court, that the L.A. County deputy raped her and changed her life forever. "You essentially murdered a part of me and I'll never be able to get it back," the victim tearfully said as she stared at her attacker, Jose Rigoberto Sanchez. "A police officer is supposed to serve and protect.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
March 21, 2014 | By Seema Mehta
One of four gubernatorial candidates introduced to California Republicans recently is a registered sex offender who spent more than a decade in state prison, convicted of crimes including voluntary manslaughter and assault with intent to commit rape. Glenn Champ, 48, addressed hundreds of GOP delegates and supporters Sunday at the site of the state party's semi-annual convention. Introduced by party chairman Jim Brulte and allotted 10 minutes, Champ spoke in between the main GOP candidates, former U.S. Treasury official Neel Kashkari and state Assemblyman Tim Donnelly of San Bernardino County.
NATIONAL
March 17, 2014 | By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
HOUSTON - Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs, who has been serving a life sentence in Texas prison, has been hospitalized, officials said. Jeffs was in stable condition Monday at a Galveston hospital, where he was admitted March 11 for treatment of a non-life-threatening condition, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Robert Hurst. Hurst declined to release additional details, including why Jeffs, 58, was hospitalized. Jeffs was transferred to the hospital from a state prison in Palestine, about 140 miles north of Houston, where he had been held in isolation.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
March 10, 2014 | By Adolfo Flores, This post has been corrected, as indicated below.
A 19-year-old charged with fatally shooting his parents and critically injuring his 8-year-old brother while they slept in their San Juan Capistrano home had long planned to “kill the people that loved him the most,” an Orange County prosecutor said Monday. Dressed in a jail-issued orange jumpsuit, Ashton Sachs appeared in court briefly Monday, and told the judge he could not afford to hire an attorney. A public defender was appointed and his arraignment was postponed to April 4. Sachs is accused of entering his family home on Feb. 9 and shooting his parents, Bradford Hans Sachs, 57, and Andra Resa Sachs, 54, and then shooting his 8-year-old brother, who survived but is now paralyzed.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
January 24, 2014 | By Adolfo Flores and Steve Marble
A 36-year-old Fullerton man who shot a teenager to death as he was helping change a tire on a friend's car was sentenced Friday to 50 years to life in prison in the 2011 slaying. Charles Ramirez was found guilty in December of fatally shooting Larry Ruiz, a 19-year-old who was changing a car tire while the car was parked in an alley behind his parent's Fullerton home. Ramirez confronted Ruiz and accused him of having been in a fight with his friend earlier that day. When Ruiz denied being in a fight, Ramirez punched him in the face, pulled out a gun and shot him in the head, prosecutors said.