LOS ANGELES– A longtime member of the Five Deuce Broadway Gangster Crips (BGC) street gang has pleaded guilty to federal charges and admitted to trafficking in narcotics and participating in a series of armed robberies that targeted bank customers and small businesses. Akia Pete, also known as ...

A 37-year-old woman and a 24-year-old man have been found guilty of beating a man to death in the recreational vehicle where he lived, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced today. Deputy District Attorney Rachel Hardiman said a jury found Anthony Josua Paz guilty today of on...

A 28-year-old man was charged today with raping a Maywood woman after breaking into her apartment, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced. Salvador Martinez (dob 3/27/88) of Los Angeles faces three counts of forcible rape and one count each of forcible oral copulation, first-...

A Long Beach man was charged today with kidnapping two teenage girls and sexually assaulting them, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced. Samuel Alexander Vasquez (dob 1/22/87) is scheduled to be arraigned after 1:30 p.m. today in Department 30 at the Foltz Criminal Justice ...

LOS ANGELES– A Newport Beach man was sentenced today in connection with a fraudulent debt relief firm, the Justice Department and U.S. Postal Inspection Service announced.  The defendant worked at Nelson Gamble and Associates and Jackson Hunter Morris and Knight, companies that offered to settle ...

SANTA ANA, Calif. – A former NBA star was charged today with hit and run with property damage for driving the wrong way on the freeway and causing a crash. Dennis Keith Rodman, 55, Newport Beach, is charged with one misdemeanor count of hit and run with property damage, one misdemeanor count of d...

LOS ANGELES– Ally Financial Inc. has agreed to pay the United States $52 million to settle allegations that its subsidiaries acted improperly in relation to 10 subprime residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) in 2006 and 2007. Asettlement agreementannounced today resolves an investigation i...

LOS ANGELES– As part of an ongoing undercover operation by Special Agents with the Coast Guard Investigative Service (CGIS), five fraudulent “documents mills” have been dismantled in recent months, and the investigation has now resulted in charges against 13 defendants who allegedly produced bogu...

LOS ANGELES– A Los Angeles doctor has been convicted of federal “structuring” charges for making cash deposits totaling nearly a half million dollars that were designed to circumvent federal reporting requirements. Washington Bryan II, 48, of Westwood, was found guilty yesterday afternoon by a ju...

SANTA ANA, California– A former teacher with the Santa Ana School District who traveled to the Philippines to engage in sex with two girls and produced videos of the abuse has been convicted in federal court of seven child exploitation offenses. Robert Ruben Ornelas, 65, of Santa Ana, a onetime s...

SANTA ANA, Calif. – Two men, who were extradited from Arizona and Illinois, are scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow for the cold case kidnapping and rape of an 11-year-old girl in 1999. Ismael F. Salgado, 36, Chicago, Ill., and Jose Andres Plascencia, 36, Laveen, Ariz., are each charged with one f...

SANTA ANA, Calif. – A taxi cab driver was sentenced today to one year in jail for crashing into a pedestrian, resulting in the victim's death, and driving away from the scene. Ronald Aviles, 58, San Clemente, was found guilty by a jury on Oct. 24, 2016, of one felony count of hit and run with dea...

Satish Kartan, 43, and his wife, Sharmistha Barai, 38, of Stockton, California, were indicted by a grand jury today for forced labor and conspiracy to commit forced labor.  Kartan was also charged with fraud in contacting foreign labor and Barai was also charged with benefiting from forced labor....

Two Northern California real estate investors have agreed to plead guilty today for their role in a conspiracy to rig bids at public real estate foreclosure auctions in Northern California, the Department of Justice announced. California real estate investors John Michael Galloway and Nicholas D...

LOS ANGELES– A medical doctor who was facing charges in a federal health care fraud case when he fled the United States 14 years ago and faked his own death in Russia has pleaded guilty to federal charges related to his flight from justice. Tigran Svadjian, 58, a naturalized U.S. citizen original...

SANTA ANA, California– A former sales representative for AFLAC has been found guilty of federal fraud charges stemming from a scheme that bilked the insurance company out of $4 million with fake disability claims. Patricia Diane Smith Sledge, 60, of Redlands, was convicted late Tuesday in the s...

A retired Navy Captain pleaded guilty today for his role in a massive bribery and fraud scheme involving a foreign defense contractor for the U.S. Navy. Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Laura E. Duffy of the Southern Distr...

SANTA ANA, Calif. – A former caregiver was sentenced today to one year in jail for sexually assaulting a 66-year-old disabled woman. Robert Dumlao Ligayo, 65, Aliso Viejo, pleaded guilty on Aug. 15, 2016, to one felony count of sexual battery. He was sentenced to 360 days in county jail, three ye...

LOS ANGELES– A Compton man who admitted to sex trafficking a 15-year-old girl, subjecting her to a month of sexual abuse, and advertising the victim as a prostitute was sentenced today to 160 months in federal prison. Darrius Marques Sutton, also known as “Biz,” 26, was sentenced by United Stat...

The founder of a Los Angeles drug and alcohol treatment facility has been charged with sexually assaulting nine patients as well as running a $175 million fraudulent healthcare billing scheme, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced today Christopher Bathum (dob 9/22/61) was ...

A 23-year-old man was sentenced today to 30 years in state prison for the 2013 fatal shooting of his stepfather and two assaults on fellow inmates while in custody, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced. Joel Torres was sentenced by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ja...

Four defendants were sentenced today in connection with a fraudulent Orange County, California, debt relief firm, the Justice Department and U.S. Postal Inspection Service announced.  The defendants all worked at Nelson Gamble and Associates and Jackson Hunter Morris and Knight, companies that of...

SANTA ANA, California– A registered nurse who owned and operated a day spa in Laguna Niguel has agreed to plead guilty to a federal charge related to the illegal distribution of Botox that was not approved for use in the United States. Bridget “Gigi” Goddard, 50, of Dana Point, who owned Pure I...

LOS ANGELES– A leading figure in the Five Deuce Broadway Gangster Crips (BGC) street gang has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to racketeering and drug trafficking charges stemming from his role as the primary narcotics supplier to the gang. Roosevelt Sumpter, ...

LOS ANGELES, California– Two brothers from San Jacinto have pleaded guilty to federal weapons charges related to nearly three dozen machineguns, as well as short-barrel shotguns and silencers, that were found at their residence by authorities conducting an investigation in another matter. Alfre...