Stolen Property

A Texas mayor who admitted stealing her neighbor's Shih Tzu was indicted Friday on felony charges -- a serious turn in a canine custody drama that has become the butt of jokes in the Lone Star State. Grace Saenz-Lopez, the mayor of Alice, was indicted on charges of concealing and falsifying evidence by a Jim Wells County grand jury. Each count is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The mayor filed a report with police Jan.

Just after dawn broke in Southern California, teams of federal agents began serving search warrants on what might seem unlikely targets for criminal investigation: four local art museums. "One of the agents said this was a raid of some kind, and I told myself, 'Hey, my God, this is the Bowers, one of the most respectable places,' " said a Bowers Museum landscape supervisor, who did not want to give his name.

For 15 years, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana has been trying to draw attention to itself and prove that a modest Orange County institution can compete in the major leagues of the exhibition world. Some of the big names of world culture have found their way into its galleries, including fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls and an array of ancient Egyptian mummies that have helped draw 150,000 paying visitors over the last 12 months.

A federal investigation into looted Asian antiquities at Southland museums has broadened to include a prominent Chicago industrialist and art collector who purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of allegedly stolen artifacts from a Cerritos arts dealer. On Thursday, the same day federal agents raided four Southern California museums suspected of displaying stolen art, authorities also searched the private museum of Barry MacLean, a trustee of the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago.

White-haired and missing several teeth, a 79-year-old retired steel salesman sat barefoot in a stained undershirt at his modest Cerritos home Wednesday, trying to explain how he had ended up at the center of a major federal smuggling investigation. It all started when Robert Olson took a trip in the 1970s to Thailand, where he said he picked up an ancient bronze ring and was required to buy it after it broke in his hand.

A freeway overpass in the San Fernando Valley may seem an unlikely place to discover buried treasure, but that's exactly where authorities struck pay dirt this week when police received a handwritten map that led them to a cache of stolen valuables by the 118 Freeway. Police say the hot goods -- mainly expensive jewelry -- may be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

After deliberating only a few hours, an Orange County jury Monday convicted a Long Beach man of murder in the death of a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy who was killed in a traffic collision after swerving out of the path of a stove -- allegedly stolen from a construction site -- that tumbled out of the man's pickup.

When Westminster police responded to a routine disturbance call last week, they stumbled onto a herd of wicker reindeer in the living room, strings and strings of Christmas lights -- some plugged in, others just tossed around the house -- a few faux Christmas trees, several snowmen and one too many inflatable Santa Claus figures. It all seemed just a little much, officers thought, even for the most devoted holiday fan. Then they remembered the theft reports.

Frank Mitts, 40, wakes up to find at least three abandoned shopping carts in or near his carport each week. It's an ugly sight in this Van Nuys neighborhood of modest, single-family homes and neat lawns. "People dump them on our property," said his wife, Marisela Mitts, 30. "It's a mess." Abandoned shopping carts, sometimes filled with trash, are a growing problem in Los Angeles. Residents and community activists say they are irked by the eyesore and nuisance.

In the middle of the night on Christmas Eve two years ago, a woman slipped onto the grounds of Hollywood Park and spirited a racehorse named Urgent Envoy past a guard. The horse has been in hiding ever since -- despite the efforts of prosecutors and private detectives. Urgent Envoy is no Seabiscuit. He came in last in his only race, and many in California racing view the situation as nothing more than an odd battle over a $5,000 horse that now, at age 6, has little chance of becoming a champion.