How a mother of two ended up in a plot to smuggle high-tech gear to the enemy.
In life and death, tattoo artist Kauri Tiyme made her mark.
Amy Neustein never could resist going public with her family dramas.
A visit with the hurricane victims that a country forgot.
JANUARY
2Before the trial begins, novelist Sylvia Fleener settles for an undisclosed sum her lawsuit alleging that televangelists Paul and Jan Crouch of Trinity Broadcasting Network in Costa Mesa plagiarized her work for the crappy Christ-o-rama flick The Omega Code. 4The much-loathed Tony Tavares resigns as overlord of the Anaheim Angels and Mighty Ducks. Arriving as a seasoned businessman who'd take responsibility for his actions, Tavares leaves claiming to be the victim, calling players he'd drafted and acquired poor losers. We miss him already. 10 Ex-Huntington Beach City Councilman Dave Garofalo pleads guilty to one felony and 15 misdemeanors for repeatedly voting on matters benefiting companies that had padded his wallet over the years. Later, one of his former constituents socks him in a restaurant. 11The New York Times runs a story on new New York Met Mo Vaughn that paints Anaheim as a baseball wasteland. "Being on the West Coast, I learned how much I love the East Coast," Vaughn says. Wasn't this the guy who signed an $80 million contract with the Halos, injured his ankle during his first game here and never produced again? 16 The Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) agrees to give $4 million in taxpayer funds to the private company that owns the 91 freeway toll lanes so that the OCTA can make $7.9 million in taxpayer-funded improvements to the 91's public lanes. "The OCTA should be complimented for recognizing that we have a franchise, but stepping in and making something happen for commuters," Greg Hulsizer, the general manager of the California Private Transportation Co., tells the Riverside Press-Enterprise. We have no idea what Hulsizer sounds like, but if you want to read that back to yourself in a smug voice, more power to you. 17 Former UC Irvine pollster Mark Baldassare's Public Policy Institute of California releases a poll that finds Californians are less frightened of terrorists than they are of what the government might do to protect them from terrorists. Christ, doesn't everyone realize that if we don't pee all over the Bill of Rights, the terrorists win? 18 The C-Span School Bus pulls into Yorba Linda Middle School, but any kids expecting to see the public-affairs network's permanently blank-faced host/CEO Brian Lamb jump out in baggy jeans, a dope FUBU sweatshirt and sideways ball cap are thoroughly disappointed. Instead, students are treated to a videotape of then-President Bill Clinton stepping aboard the same bus. Hopefully, someone has since sprayed Pine-Sol on the seats. 25 No foreign service experience? No chief exec experience? No shame over his role in the largest municipal bankruptcy in history? No problem! The U.S. Senate confirms ex-Orange County Supervisor Gaddi Vasquez as director of the Peace Corps. He'll oversee 7,300 volunteers in 70 countries and manage a budget of $265 million—a quarter of what county officials defrauded from municipal-securities buyers under Vasquez's watch. 28 Coming off a three-month suspension fueled by complaints that he likened Muslim students to terrorists, political-science professor Ken Hearlson returns to his classroom at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. In other news, the U.S. is killing about 60 Afghanis per day. 30As part of a conflict-of-interest probe that sounds eerily similar to the case that drove Garofalo out of office, investigators raid the home and apartment of Seal Beach City Councilman Shawn Boyd. By year's end, he's convicted of voting on matters involving former Seal Beach Trailer Park owner Richard Hall while working for Hall on various real-estate projects outside the city. 31 More Garofollies: Surf City's ex-councilman recently tried to funnel $11,500 from a city organization's charity bank account into his own account, The Orange County Register reports. Garofalo reportedly returns the money to the city-sponsored Conference and Visitors Bureau only after officials threaten to sic the district attorney's office on him. Again. FEBRUARY