Weapons Charge

A veteran Los Angeles police officer who owns a private security company in Belize surrendered to federal authorities Monday after being indicted on a weapons charge. Johnny Augustus Baltazar, 50, is accused of illegally shipping 10 handguns and 1,500 rounds of ammunition to the Central American nation, where he owns a company called Elite Security, according to authorities. Prosecutors suspect the guns were intended for use by employees of the company. Baltazar did not have the required license to export the firearms, officials allege.

Two men were arrested Tuesday in San Bernardino County on suspicion of illegally trafficking in firearms after they allegedly sold guns to agents from the California Department of Justice. Hours after the arrest of Alvin Seal, 67, of Oildale, and Erik Stoffel, 39, of Apple Valley, investigators using search warrants discovered more than 300 handguns, rifles, two World War II grenades and one mortar round at homes on Beardsley Avenue in Oildale and on Cronese Road in Apple Valley.

The Orange County district attorney's office filed a felony weapons possession charge Friday against the son of the principal at Santa Margarita Catholic High School, a private school in Rancho Santa Margarita. Robert Hemenway, 18, a former student at the school, had a gun in his car while parked in the school's parking lot in January, said Tori Richards, a district attorney spokeswoman.

The men who pleaded guilty last month to the brutal Dodger Stadium beating of San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow have been indicted by a federal grand jury on a weapons charge, according to court documents. According to an indictment filed Wednesday, the grand jury charged Louie Sanchez and Marvin Norwood, both of Rialto, with one count each of being felons in possession of firearms. If convicted, the men face a maximum of 10 years in federal prison, prosecutors said. Authorities said they found about a half-dozen weapons - two semiautomatic rifles and a pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a revolver  - along with nearly 70 rounds of ammunition when they searched Norwood's home in connection with the Stow assault.

Criminal charges have been filed against an 18-year-old man arrested for carrying a billy club during a riot outside a Westwood theater Aug. 3. Kevin Lyle Bailey, who lives in the Fairfax District, was arrested at 1:35 a.m. Aug. 4 outside a theater at Westwood Boulevard and Broxton Avenue. He was charged with possession of an illegal weapon and possession of a deadly weapon with intent to commit an assault, according to the city attorney's office, which filed the charges.

A man accused of selling an undercover agent two machine guns on behalf of former KNBC-TV Channel 4 helicopter pilot Bob Pettee pleaded guilty Friday to a federal weapons charge. Jeff Miller, 46, entered his plea to one count of unlawful possession and / or transfer of a machine gun during an appearance before U.S. District Judge Lourdes Baird. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office declined to say whether Miller had agreed testify against Pettee, who is scheduled to go on trial Jan.

A Lancaster man, whose arsenal of guns, grenades and an antitank rocket launcher was seized in a September raid, was sentenced Monday to 180 days in County Jail for possession of a deadly weapon. Chris Sundahl, 44, pleaded no-contest to the charge in a sentencing agreement with Lancaster Superior Court Judge Charles E. Horan, who dropped remaining weapons charges. Sundahl also received five years' probation as part of the sentence.

A fugitive gun enthusiast who caught the interest of federal authorities because of a possible connection with an Oklahoma City bombing suspect was ordered Friday to return to California to face an unrelated weapons charge. Steven G. Colbern, formerly of Oxnard, waived his right to an identity hearing in federal court and will be transferred to the Central District of the U.S. District Court in California.

Linebacker Winston Moss, traded to the Raiders by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before last weekend's draft, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor weapons charge and was fined $400, ordered to perform 300 hours of community service and put on probation for a year by a Tampa judge Friday. The charge stemmed from an incident in which Moss allegedly pointed a gun at a cocktail waitress and pulled the trigger twice outside a nightclub last January.

Paroled sex offender Robert Lee Donaldson, who is awaiting trial on charges he raped four children and teen-age girls just months after his release from prison, has been charged with another crime that could send him to prison for life under the state's recently enacted "three strikes" law. Donaldson, 35, who has been held on $2 million bail since his arrest last fall, was charged last month with possessing a weapon in prison, a felony that would be his third strike, Deputy Dist. Atty.

New York Knicks point guard Raymond Felton was arrested on three counts of criminal possession of a weapon after turning himself in to police early Tuesday morning. He is expected to be arraigned later Tuesday in Manhattan Criminal Court on charges of second- and third-degree criminal possession of a firearm, both felonies, and fourth-degree possession, a misdemeanor, according to a New York police spokesman. Felton was accompanied by his attorney when he arrived at the 20th Precinct on Manhattan's Upper West Side, police said.

San Francisco 49ers All-Pro linebacker Aldon Smith was activated to the 53-man roster from the non-football injury list Thursday, two days after he turned himself in to Santa Clara County authorities as he faces weapons charges. Smith had been undergoing rehabilitation at an in-patient facility for substance abuse since late September and missed five games. With San Francisco (6-2) on its bye this week, Smith could resume practicing and working out on his own, then formally practice next week ahead of a Nov. 10 home game against the Carolina Panthers.

BEIRUT -- The United Nations Security Council called an emergency meeting in New York on Wednesday afternoon to discuss allegations of a deadly chemical weapons attack outside the Syrian capital, Damascus. The announcement came amid mounting calls for a U.N. investigation into opposition charges that a poison-gas attack by the Syrian military killed hundreds of people early Wednesday across a broad swath of the city's suburbs. The allegations remained uncorroborated -- and Syrian authorities have labeled them a fabrication -- but the White House urged the U.N. to deploy an inspection team already on the ground in Syria to look into the matter.

University of Washington cops first noticed Justin Miles Jasper when he sat up in the bed of his truck, which was parked at the Seattle campus on the night of July 2. He was shirtless and in a sleeping bag. Police did not learn until the next day that the truck was stolen and that Jasper was armed, according to court documents. Jasper, 22, made an initial appearance in federal court Thursday to answer an indictment in which he is charged with possessing Molotov cocktails, stolen weapons and body armor, which police say they found in the truck.

A Texas paramedic arrested last week will plead not guilty to a federal charge of having bomb-making materials and will waive a formal arraignment on a new federal indictment, it was reported Wednesday. Bryce Reed, who was among the emergency crews that responded to a deadly fire and explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, was scheduled to appear at a detention hearing and arraignment Wednesday afternoon. Reed has not been linked to the April 17 disaster that killed 14 people and injured more than 160. Wednesday's federal proceeding was canceled, Jonathan Sibley, a lawyer for Reed, told reporters in Texas, according to media reports.

A roundup of entertainment headlines for Wednesday: Soulja Boy is arrested on drug and weapons charges in Georgia. ( Los Angeles Times ) Lindsay Lohan is headed back to court amid reports that the actress is not showing up for her mandatory community service. ( Los Angeles Times ) Shia LaBeouf gets in another fistfight, this time in a Vancouver bar. ( Los Angeles Times ) Morrissey is trying to sue NME for printing an interview he says made him seem racist.

Missouri's Anthony Peeler, expected to be a first-round choice during next week's NBA draft, received five years' probation after pleading guilty Tuesday to a felony weapons charge and two related misdemeanors. The guilty plea will keep Peeler from being tried for allegedly attacking a woman last month in her Columbia, Mo., apartment and pointing a gun at her head. "He won't spend any time in jail," assistant prosecutor Tim Wynes said after a 30-minute hearing in Cole County Circuit Court.

The Mexican government's efforts to prosecute former Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon collapsed Tuesday after a federal judge tossed out weapons charges and another judge blocked authorities' last-ditch efforts to keep him under arrest on a new murder charge. Hank, whose highly publicized arrest June 4 seemed to puncture the bubble of impunity that had long protected him, smiled as he walked away from detention at a hotel in Tijuana. Flanked by his attorneys, Hank's motorcade made its way back to his estate behind the historic Agua Caliente racetrack, which he owns, as supporters in cars honked their approval.