Subject: Orange County Jail

• Hey There, Hi There, Ho There, You're As Incarcerated As You Can Be ...

  A "preacher" dropped us a line to say that he and his 30 red-robed gospel singers spent Christmas day in that most inhospitable of jails. Not French Guiana or Abu Ghraib or even the severly overcrowded, abusively run Orange County Jail. No, this was the most frightening pokey of 'em all: the Disneyland detention room! The horror, the horror. After a 4,500-mile bus ride that included stops at places like Wal-Mart all across the Midwest and crescendoed with a Buy Nothing Day celebration in New Yor

  December 28, 2005

• God Bless the Wabs of SanTana

  "I bet you someone's going to be playing that music," my girlfriend said with resignation as we saw the KTLA-TV Channel 5 News at 10. The music: "Dos Locos," the klezmer mestizaje masterpiece by pasito durangüense icons Los Horóscopos de Durango. The occasion: a man escaped from the Orange County Jail in SanTana. KTLA reporter Chip Something-or-Other was trying to keep a straight face as he filed a dispatch from the corner of Flower Street and Edinger Avenue, but it was pretty hard

  April 8, 2007

• Stall in Montessori Killer/Rapist Sentencing

  Superior Court Judge William Froeberg had intended to announce punishment this morning for convicted Montessori killer/rapist Jonathan Phong Khanh Tran, 22. But Tran's mother switched defense lawyers and, through new counsel Al Stokke, asked for a five-month delay. Froeberg granted the request. The decision means that Tran continues living in the Orange County Jail, where family members can easily visit. A prison sentence could land him at, say, Pelican Bay State Prison near the California-Oreg

  May 11, 2007

• Dr. No Good?

  Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas announced the arrests of three medical doctors who allegedly traded their professional oaths for quick cash. Michael Cheeluen Chan, 61, Mario Z. Rosenberg, 59, and William Wilson Hampton, 51, now face 47 felony counts and, if convicted, could go to prison for 49 years for their roles in a massive insurance fraud scheme, according to the DA's office. After their early morning arrests, all three doctors were transported to the Orange County Jail. Ba

  May 16, 2007

• Al Gore III - What a dope

  Al Gore's 24-year-old son graced our fair county with his presence earlier today - allegedly with an ounce of marijuana and other controlled substances (Vicodin, Valium, Xanax and Adderall) he didn't have a prescription for. He was stopped by the OC sheriff's department when they caught him going 100 mph on the I-5 south. Gore got to spend most of the 4th in the Orange County Jail, and was released at around 2 p.m., reports the Times. Bail was set at $20,000, notes the Register. Funny tidbit:

  July 4, 2007

• DA Determined to Send White Supremacist Killer to Death Row

  Prosecutor Ebrahim Baytieh announced this morning he will try a second time to send convicted killer Michael Alan Lamb, 33, to San Quentin State Prison's notorious Death Row. An Orange County jury convicted the Public Enemy Number One (PENI) Death Squad hit man in July for the execution-style murder of a fellow gang member and the attempted murder of an undercover Anaheim police officer. After the penalty phase of the trial, the panel heard testimony about Lamb's vicious adult personality (fro

  August 21, 2007

• Men Get Hate Crime Charges for Vicious Beating of Illegal Immigrant Janitor

  Right about now three Southern California men probably wish that they'd just gone home after drinking booze at the Angels 9-6 loss to the Boston Red Sox on August 8. Or, perhaps, James Joseph Kelly, 26, Justin Louis Mullins, 23, and Cheyne Danica Wilson, 25, wish that the final event of their evening together had been getting more drunk and watching strippers wiggle inside Larry Flynt's Hustler Club in Westminster. Had they made either choice they wouldn't be facing the possibility of prison

  September 12, 2007

• Headlines & Suprises: Jailhouse Shocker!

  Last year, I sat in a booth at Original Mike's in Santa Ana and listened to Assistant Sheriff Jo Ann Galisky explain--quite logically, in her mind--that jail deputies in Orange County have never used excessive force because jail deputies always behave. Why? Because, Galisky assured me, deputies are the good guys, and folks in custody are bad guys. The expression on her face revealed a frustration that I didn't buy from her cookie-cutter position. After all, I'd seen gory pictures of what groups

  January 23, 2008

• The Biggest Losers: Cops or Deputies?

  Ten Santa Ana police officers and ten Orange County Sheriff's deputies are facing off to see who can drop ten percent of their total weight first. There's really not a lot else I feel I need to say about this one. I'm also laughing too hard to type. "Maureen Albrecht, 55, a senior deputy coroner's investigator, estimated that she weighs "280-something" and said she wants to lose 150 pounds. She has dropped 100 pounds before, she said, but always returned to the cookies and cakes that are readil

  January 23, 2008

• One Less Haidl in Prison

  Sometime on Saturday, according to the OC Register, Greg Haidl will be released from prison. He is being released early because he was given automatic credit for good time and work time while in prison and for the time he served in the Orange County Jail before his sentencing, according to Bill Sessa, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections. How heartwarming to know that our Department of Corrections and/or Rehabilitation gives sex offenders an incentive to play nice-pervert

  January 25, 2008

• Wrongly Imprisoned OC Man Wins State Payment

  For Buena Park's James Ochoa, the indescribable agony of spending 16 months locked in the Orange County Jail and a California prison for crimes he did not commit is a bit less painful today. This afternoon, a state board in Sacramento voted 3 to 0 to award Ochoa nearly $30,000 in compensation in one of the final chapters of a bizarre law enforcement case. (Witnesses at the scene say board member Rosario Marin, a member of the governor's cabinet, argued against the payment but must have recorde

  April 22, 2008

• Quinton "Rampage" Jackson goes on a . . .

  . . . rampage. Of course he does. In what assorted Internet pundits are already calling the stupidest hit-and-run ever, Ultimate Fighting Championship superstar (and Irvine resident) Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, who was the subject of this 2007 Weekly cover story, was arrested yesterday in Balboa after slamming his truck into several vehicles, jumping a center divider and driving up onto a sidewalk, which forced several pedestrians to leap out of the way to avoid injury. Apparently the reason fo

  July 16, 2008

• Big and Greasy

  August 26, 1999

• Diary of a Mad County

  February 7, 2002

• 2002: Diary of a Mad Year

  January 2, 2003

• Diary of a Mad County

  May 29, 2003

• Ex-LAPD Cop Admits Guilt in OC Kiddie Picture Arousal Case

  A visibly nervous Ralph Cameron Lakin II (pictured) stood out this morning in Superior Court Judge Steven Bromberg's courtroom not just because he wore a natty suit (tan slacks, green coat and floral-patterned tie), but also because the other criminal defendants awaiting attention were hoodlums or drug addicts while he served as a veteran cop in the Los Angeles Police Department. On May 26, 2007, Lakin was captured at the Garden Grove Strawberry Festival secretly filming the cro

  January 13, 2009

• It's a Quick Read 21

  Orange County Register: It's not the happiest place on Earth today, as Disneyland begins laying off back-office employees and telling employees of a Paradise Pier Hotel restaurant it will close. . . . Motivational speaker Gary Shawkey was booked into Orange County Jail on murder charges after spinning wild tales about criss-crossing the country in search of his business partner, who is believed to be the victim. . . . Firefighters battling a blaze at a Santa Ana commercial storage building

  March 27, 2009

• Justice Takes a Beating

  August 11, 2005

• Who Is This Jerk-off?

  The tragic tale of how horny OC women got one unsuspecting man to expose himself in public. Repeatedly

  July 12, 2007

• Frat Brat Going to Jail for Hate Crimes

  WEB EXCLUSIVE! Gaston Gastelum avoids prison with plea and apology

  June 7, 2007

• Diary of a Mad County

  Feb. 21-Feb. 27

  March 1, 2007

• 'Holy Crap! I Lost Louis Eugene Craft!'

  May 25, 2006

• Finding Jesus in the OC Jail

  April 6, 2006

• Welcome Home, Mr. Haidl

  March 30, 2006

• Monster's Ball

  March 23, 2006

• Diary of a Mad County

  October 27, 2005

• Diary of a Mad County

  September 22, 2005

• 'I Really Like the One on VD'

  September 1, 2005

• Diary of a Mad County

  Aug. 10 - Aug. 16

  August 18, 2005

• Parting Shots

  March 24, 2005

• Shocking Development

  December 9, 2004

• The War at Home

  September 2, 2004

• Beach Fuzz

  May 29, 2003

• Cram It In

  Where to eat after an all-nighter

  September 26, 2002

• Diary of a Mad County

  August 22, 2002

• Bye Bye Birdie

  December 16, 1999

• It Takes a Village Idiot

  August 19, 1999

• Crime Time: Move Over, Trendzilla!

  The must-have fashion accessory of the season for robbers in Irvine and San Juan Capistrano.It's the Weekly's weekly round-up of Orange County police calls . . . TUESDAY, JUNE 16Forest Firebug is a Pot Farm Exposer to Boot: Seven fires were ignited within a short distance of each other in Trabuco Canyon. A serial firebug may be responsible as four other fires had been lit in the same general area of Cleveland National Forest over the past four weeks. The latest led to a brush fire that brought o

  June 23, 2009

• Crime Time: Spot This Week's Celebrity Victim!

  Hey, juvies, it's our weekly Weekly round-up of Orange County police calls . . .MONDAY, JUNE 29 The pre-vandalized Scott BorasAnyone Fitting the Description of a Major League Baseball Team Owner Spotted Outside Before the Crime? The windows of super-agent Scott Boras' Land Rover were vandalized while he was inside Bandera restaurant in Corona del Mar this evening. The vehicle reportedly sustained damage totalling $2,000--equal to about what Manny Ramirez earns every time he inhales. TUESDAY, JUN

  July 7, 2009

• Welcome to Agrestic, errrrr, Orange County

   When did Showtime's Weeds, which is set in Valencia or Calabasas or Santa Clarita or Stevenson Ranch or Gorman or wherever the hell it is, spring up in Orange County? It's sure seeming very Agrestic-like based on two police incidents mere hours apart Wednesday.First, cops started going door-to-door in the 1100 block of East First Street in Tustin because someone had called saying marijuana was being grown and sold in the area. The odor led officers to a particular home around 9 a.m., and w

  July 23, 2009

• Crime Time: Ninja! Gang-y! Homeless! Unappreciative! Dead!

  Friday: Paging Chuck Norris!​It's the Weekly's weekly round-up of local police calls--now with more unappreciative homeless men, alleged Ecstasy pushers and Ninjas, Ninjas, Ninjas! MONDAY, AUG. 3Wrong-Way Minivan After clocking a green minivan at 80 mph south on Beach Boulevard near the 405 freeway just after 2 a.m., a CHP officer activated his patrol car's flashing lights and gave chase. At Edinger Avenue, the minivan suddenly started heading south in Beach's northbound lanes and continued go

  August 11, 2009

• Crime Time: Methed Mom, Nitrous Oxide, a Full Moon, a Gutted Black Cat and a Skateboarding Giant Ax Carrier

  It's our weekly Weekly roundup of Orange County police calls--with suspect mugs!TUESDAY, JULY 7Courtesy of Cypress Police DepartmentAlison Le Anne EbertAt Least She Left the TV On Officers responding to an anonymous, 4:45 a.m. report of child abuse in a home in the 8500 block of La Homa Street in Cypress discovered two girls, ages 9 and 11, who had been left alone overnight amid knee-high trash piles, toilets overflowing with human feces, frozen bugs inside a refrigerator and unfrozen bugs and m

  July 14, 2009

• NEW UPDATES: Just Another Orange County Murder: Ashley Nicole Lilly

  UPDATED WITH NEW PHOTOS, DETAILS FROM PRESS CONFERENCE. . . Courtesy of Garden Grove Police Department Cesar Gomez has been arrested in the murder of Ashley Nicole Lilly​Cesar Gomez looks pretty tough with his stocky build, ink-drum-draining collection of tattoos and long, violent rap sheet.But when the 34-year-old illegal immigrant, three-time deportee to his native Mexico and Los Angeles street gang member was brought in to face Garden Grove police detectives Thursday after being arre

  September 11, 2009

• Just Another Orange County Murder: Rebecca Benedict

  View Larger MapUC Irvine graduate student Brian Hughes Benedict, 35, shot his 30-year-old ex-wife Rebecca Benedict during a custody exchange of the couple's 4-year-old son around 7 p.m. Sunday in the parking lot outside graduate student apartments at 4200 Verano Place, Irvine, police say. The woman later died at a local hospital to become the first ever homicide on the UCI campus.

  September 14, 2009

• Hold Your Mother of the Year Ballots: Here's the Woman Who Allegedly Stabbed Her Little Girls

  Courtesy of Westminster Police DepartmentThuy Le's booking photo.​This photo was taken today of Thuy Le, 38, of Garden Grove, after she was booked for allegedly trying to stab to death her 3- and 5-year-old daughters before turning the knife on herself in Westminster Wednesday morning.

  September 17, 2009

• White Supremacist Party Made in Garden Grove

  Jaimee Lynn Fletcher has a fascinating piece in today's Orange County Register about a pro-white (as in Caucasian) political group forming in Garden Grove. Supporters of the Golden State Party notified the Secretary of State in May they would try to qualify as a political party for 2010, elections officials said. The kicker is the self-proclaimed "European-American" group has links to white supremacist groups and is run by a two-time convicted felon, something that has caught the atte

  September 4, 2009

• 78-Year-Old Man Arrested for Kicking Cop in the Nuts (Twice)

  ​What began as a routine traffic stop Wednesday ended with the arrest of a 78-year-old Garden Grove man for allegedly battering a much younger police officer--an attack the cops say included grandpa kicking the patrolman in the nuts. Twice!

  November 3, 2009

• Crime Time: Double the Fun Starring [Alleged] Skeevy Teachers, Fake Cop Robbers and Ryan Seacrest's Strange Stalker

  It's the Weekly's weekly round-up of local police calls--actually the Weekly's TWO weekly round-up as an attempt is made to make up for lost vacation time.Left courtesy of E! Entertainment, right courtesy of Orange Police DepartmentRyan Seacrest (left) gets paid another visit from his No. 1 Army special forces fan, Chidi Benjamin Uzomah Jr.​SEACREST OUT, UZOMAH BACK IN Remember Chidi Benjamin Uzomah Jr., the 25-year-old Lakewood resident who pleaded guilty last month in Orange County Superior

  November 4, 2009

• Crime Time: Creepy Toys, Slick Bank Robbers, Egged On Victims, Dog-Beating Dipshits and At Least [Alleged] Criminals Still Read Newspapers

  It's the Weekly's weekly roundup of local police calls and assorted mayhem.MONDAY, NOV. 2". . . and I don't like you!" ​"I'm Talking Tina . . . and Things Are Going to Be Different Around Here" A woman called 9-1-1 around 3:45 in the morning to say she heard a baby toy go off downstairs in her home in the 26800 block of Moore Oaks Road in Laguna Hills even though no one else was supposed to be down there. She wanted deputies to come by and make sure everything was safe. Set your tasers to stun

  November 10, 2009