U.S. District Court

OC's Tollroad Agency Loses Federal Lawsuit Against Commerce Department

In its determination to satisfy the continual demands of Wall Street investment houses for more profits, Orange County's Transportation Corridor Agency (TCA) wants to go billions of dollars further in bond debt by building a 16-mile tollroad linking state route 241 with Interstate 5.But in 2008 the ... More >>

DEA-Busted OC Drug Trafficker Wins Lengthy Prison Trip

An Anaheim man involved in a Mexico-Orange County criminal conspiracy annually distributing more than 75 kilograms of cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin will pay dearly for his crimes.In late March, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter handed Adrian Ibarra a whopping prison term of nearly 22 y ... More >>

SEC Wins Injunction Against Orange County Businessmen For 60% Investment Return Claim

A federal judge has issued a permanent injunction banning three Southern California businessmen from operating future scams to dupe investors with false claims of extraordinary returns as high as "60 percent or better."Officials at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) claim Michael ... More >>

Ex-Orange County Sheriff's Captain Loses Federal Retaliation Lawsuit

In Nov. 2010, an Orange County Sheriff's Department (OCSD) captain filed a federal lawsuit claiming that Sheriff Sandra Hutchens plotted to lay her off in retaliation for speaking up against gross mismanagement in Homeland Security operations and about potential internal corruption involving a ... More >>

FBI Agents Don't Fall For Fake Compartment Trick In Narcotics Loaded BMW

Late one December night in 2009, three individuals riding in a black 1997 BMW 528i on I-15 in San Bernardino County believed a CHP officer stopped them merely for weaving out of a lane, but in truth they'd been under surveillance for hours by a team of undercover FBI agents.Driver Lindberg Villalobo ... More >>

Doc al-Qaeda

Judge to punish Cypress resident and former CVS pharmacist tied to terrorism plot against U.S. soldiers

Orange County Con Artist Targeting Christians Wins Long Prison Trip

An Orange County con artist, who posed as a wildly successful investor to lure $25.7 million mostly from Christians, received a 97-month prison sentence this week inside the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse in Santa Ana.U.S. District Court Judge James V. Selna gave a handcuffed Jon G. Ervin the ... More >>

Virginia's Anti-Sodomy Law Ruled Invalid--with an Assist from UC Irvine's Erwin Chemerinsky

Virginia's anti-sodomy law has been struck down, due in part to an assist from the dean of UC Irvine's School of Law, Erwin Chemerinsky.The decision came in a case involving sex between an adult male and a 17-year-old girl, which the Richmond, Va.-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed shoul ... More >>

Should Child Porn Collector Get No Prison Time Because He's Severely Handicapped?

Should an Orange County father caught possessing child pornography receive a lighter punishment because he is handicapped? If you're Louis George Thibault, Jr., a former machine tools and equipment salesman, the answer is an unqualified yes. After being indicted by a federal grand jury in ... More >>

Bat Shit Nuts Birther Queen Orly Taitz Now Bat Shit Nuttier: Claims There are 2 Barack Obamas and White House One May be Indonesian Spy

Oh, Orly Taitz, how we will fill this blog once you crawl back under that Eastern Bloc rock you emerged from? The lawyer/dentist/real estate saleslady of Rancho Santa Margarita (I know, we've also placed her in Aliso Viejo and Laguna Niguel, but her latest court filing has a RSM address) has really ... More >>

Pedophile California Highway Patrol Cop Loses Federal Appeal

Stephen Robert Deck, an Orange County-based lieutenant in the California Highway Patrol, desperately craved illegal sex with underage girls and took numerous steps to achieve his fantasies.But Deck ended up nabbed in a 2006 Perverted Justice sting orchestrated with undercover officers at the La ... More >>

Anaheim Man Is Realizing Judges Don't Care If Gangsters Whine

Anaheim's Rogelio Veloz is having a difficult time wrapping his mind around this painful concept: He'd spent most of his first 21 years in freedom, has been locked up for six consecutive years now and, at the age of 27, will never again eat at a restaurant, go to a movie, play a video game, date a g ... More >>

Federal Judge Okays More Anaheim Police Secrecy in Manual Diaz Civil Lawsuit

In a rapidly conducted hearing this afternoon, a federal judge in Orange County officially ruled that lawyers for the estate of Manual Diaz, an Anaheim man killed by police in 2011, are not yet entitled to inspect investigatory records while prosecutors consider whether to file charges against the o ... More >>

Toyota, Plaintiffs Willing to Settle Sudden-Acceleration Lawsuit in Santa Ana for $1.1 bil

Toyota will pony up $1.1 billion to make sudden-acceleration lawsuits go away, according to a proposal filed in federal court in Santa Ana today. As part of the largest settlement in U.S. history involving automobile defects, Toyota would send cash to eligible customers who sold or turned in their l ... More >>

Orange County Waiter Gets Punished For Threatening High-Ranking FBI Agents

The Orange County man who made several, wild threatening calls to the FBI last year won't be heading to prison because officials believe the defendant suffers from mental health issues.This week inside the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse in Santa Ana, U.S. District Court Josephine Staton Tucke ... More >>

Notorious Mongols Gangster Admits RICO Guilt in Federal Court

Federal prison will soon get a little bit heavier for many years.A 6-foot-4 and 380 pound, onetime gang leader of the Mongols Nation Motorcycle Club--a rival to the Hells Angels--has admitted he repeatedly violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) including during a ... More >>

Prosecutor Unhappy Medical Marijuana Shop Ringleader Was Released On Bail; But Is Secretive About Her Reasoning

Prosecutors aren't happy that a federal judge gave bail to the San Clemente ringleader of an alleged illegal Southern California medical marijuana dispensary operation.On Nov. 6, U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert N. Block overruled Assistant United States Attorney Christine S. Bautista's detention demand ... More >>

Little Saigon Identity Thief Who Loves Nordstrom Gets A Break

Little Saigon's Celeste Anh Nguyen is a lucky criminal.A federal judge in Orange County is giving Nguyen--a brazen identity and mail thief--a generous path to erase her crimes from the public record if she successfully completes a Conviction and Sentence Alternative "CASA" Program.CASA provides subs ... More >>

Professional Tax Preparer Wins Prison Trip For IRS Cheating Scams

As a professional tax preparer, Mark Joseph Jensen didn't just help steal money from the U.S. Treasury by falsifying tax returns in the name of his clients. Jensen also secretly diverted client refunds into his own bank account and didn't bother to file income tax documents for himself during severa ... More >>

San Clemente Businessman Gets Punished For $6.85 Million Foreign Bribery Operation

A San Clemente businessman who violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by bribing foreign government officials with more than $6.85 million to win lucrative contracts has been sentenced to prison this week inside the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse in Santa Ana.Stuart Carson, 73, faced up to 10 ... More >>

Orange County Serial Bank Bandit Wanted Sentence Reduction For Tanning Salon Robbery

Gabriel Omar Martinez grew up with horrible parents, dropped out of high school, lived on the streets as a teenager and turned to drugs and alcohol.In 2009, a tireless Martinez robbed seven Orange County banks in a three-month period while he was on parole from a tanning salon robbery conviction.Mar ... More >>

Federal Lawsuit Challenges Sex Offender Bans in Parks of Four Orange County Cities

Just days after District Attorney Tony Rackauckas honored Fountain Valley for approving on first reading a ban on registered sex offenders in city parks--based on a county law he co-wrote--word came that a registered sex offender has sued two cities bordering Fountain Valley and two other Orange Cou ... More >>

After Wild Gang Attack On OC Family, Gangster Says She Is The One Who Was Wronged

One night in August 2007, Westminster family members were minding their own business in the backyard of their residence, barbequing and drinking beer when two vehicles drove up and at least 15 hoodlums emerged screaming, "This is West Trece [criminal street gang]! This is our neighborhood!" The gang ... More >>

Training Consultants LLC Accused of Tanking on Securities Tests to Get Questions for Clients

The nation's largest self-regulator for the securities industry is suing Training Consultants LLC of Santa Ana because its president and three of her children allegedly took and purposely failed securities examinations so they could memorize the questions for her clients. The Financial Industry Reg ... More >>

Barnes and Noble Loses Huge Motion in Federal False Advertising Lawsuit

A federal judge in Orange County ruled today against bookselling giant Barnes and Noble in its efforts to force a false advertising lawsuit plaintiff from the public courthouse and into private arbitration.In a 10-page opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Josephine Staton Tucker sided with Kevin Khoa ... More >>

Hurley Sues Old Navy For Allegedly Ripping Off Its Board Short Technology

All board shorts are not created equal. When Hurley tested its first pair of "Phantoms," constructed with patented technology, it was "like we just walked on the moon," one design exec said. That was five years ago, and since then, the Costa Mesa-based surfwear company has hailed its Phantom li ... More >>

Michael Alan Taylor, Orange County Accountant, Punished For Con Game Role With Convicted Felon

A successful Orange County certified public accountant and property owner indicted for his role in a brazen con game got a break this week inside the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse in Santa Ana.Facing a potential prison trip, Michael Alan Taylor of Seal Beach argued that while he worked closely wi ... More >>

Murderous, International Cocaine Dealer in Mexican Mafia Gets Punished in OC

For a decade after his 1999 federal grand jury racketeering indictment, Los Angeles-based gangster Rolando Ontiveros (AKA "Rolo") escaped justice for his prolific, murderous career as an international cocaine dealer in the Mexican Mafia. Law enforcement intelligence placed Ontiveros in Mexico and li ... More >>

Taqueria Tapatia Owner Shien Wong Sentenced For IRS Evasion

The owner of two popular Santa Ana restaurants has been placed on two years of federal probation after admitting that he tried unsuccessfully to trick the Internal Revenue Service on $16,000.Shien Wong--a native of Taiwan and owner of Taqueria Carniceria Tapatia and Taqueria Tapatia--was arrested by ... More >>

Dish Network Claims Little Saigon Man is Satellite TV Code Breaker

Is a Little Saigon website owner a master code breaker guilty of stealing access to valuable commercial satellite TV broadcasts? That's the question in this week's Moxley Confidential.Dish Network is suing Westminster's Tan Minh Nguyen in federal court in Orange County and seeking hundreds of thousa ... More >>

U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Alan Keyes and Wiley Drake's Obama Birther Lawsuit

The U.S. Supreme Court has officially declined to hear the Barack Obama "birther" lawsuit. This legal remedy was not sought by "Queen of the Birthers" Orly Taitz but the conservative shark hired by the Alan Keyes-Wiley Drake presidential tag team of 2008. (Actually, the Aliso Viejo lawyer/dentist/re ... More >>

Costa Mesa Gangster With Forming Kaos Admits Guilt in Mexican Mafia Operation

A massive law enforcement investigation into Forming Kaos (FK), a Costa Mesa-based criminal street gang tied to the Mexican Mafia, has won a guilty plea from Douglas Joseph Jackovich, AKA "Temper" and "DJ," according to federal court records in Orange County.Hoping for leniency when he is sentenced ... More >>

OC Child Pornography Collector Wins 66-Month Prison Trip

An Orange County man who possessed a large cache of child pornography and kept alarming images on display in his home living room now regrets his conduct and promises he will won't make the same mistake again.U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter made sure that Gary Alan Keller, a longtime gas e ... More >>

Laguna Hills Bank Teller Who Lied to the FBI Gets Sentenced

Bank teller Alvina Roy Sundaram faced five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for lying to an FBI agent probing allegations that her boss, a vice president at the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Laguna Hills, had stolen money from one of the bank's customers.According to FBI Special Agent Michele Bel ... More >>

Orange County Gold Swindler Who Targeted Elderly Learns His Punishment

In 2007, La Habra's slick-talking John Arthur Walthall tricked an elderly Orange County couple into investing $5.5 million for a fictitious gold mining operation and, as scumbags are prone to do, secretly used the money to pay his personal living expenses.The FBI learned of the con game, arrested Wa ... More >>

Taco Bell Crime of the Week: Police Beat Up Man in Parking Lot, Get Sued, and Lose

​This week is interesting: usually, we have cops catch criminals at Taco Bell, not be the bad guys themselves. Yet that's exactly what happened in Oakland, where a man alleged that police officers beat him up at a Taco Bell parking lot for no reason--and is now $43,000 richer for it.

Euirang "Chris" Hwang, Phony Billionaire Who Preyed on Koreans, Gets 6.5 Years for Ponzi Scam

Dammit, again, it's Ponzi not Fonzie.​38-year-old Euirang "Chris" Hwang was sentenced this week in federal court to 6 1/2 years in prison for operating an Irvine investment business that was actually a front for a Ponzi scheme targeting Korean Americans.After Hwang pleaded guilty to federal wire f ... More >>

[UPDATED with Victims Speak:] Luis Mijangos, Sextortion Hacker, Gets 6 Years

​UPDATE, SEPT. 2, 11:04 A.M.: Two victims of Luis Mijangos hacking into dozens of computers to obtain personal data--and in some cases demanding sexually explicit videos from female victims in exchange for not distributing other images--spoke at the undocumented immigrant's sentencing."During to ... More >>

[UPDATED] Luis Mijangos Guilty of Being Sextortion Hacker

​UPDATE, MARCH 22, 4:46 P.M.: Santa Ana's Luis Mijangos, who had previously pleaded not guilty to 16 federal charges, pleaded guilty Monday to two federal counts related to his tricking about 230 people into downloading a virus that allowed him to hack into their computers, and then extort from th ... More >>

Mike Carona: No More Excuses

[Moxley Confidential] Federal Appeals Court upholds the ex-sheriff's conviction, and he's finally headed to prison

Souhair Khatib, Who Had Her Hijab Removed in OC Jail, to Get Her Day in Appeals Court

​The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a new hearing in the case of a Muslim woman who claims her constitutional rights were violated when Orange County sheriff's deputies forced her to remove her headscarf while she was being held in a courthouse holding facility.Chief Judge Alex Kozin ... More >>

Arnold Schwarzenegger's Indian Tribe Tax Idea Slapped Down

screenrant.comBarbarian Tax Man"We find all of the state's arguments unpersuasive."--From the Ninth Circuit's ruling this week that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's made strong-arm efforts to force the Rincon San Luiseno Band of Mission Indians to accept an illegal tax on tribal gambling ... More >>

Phu Tan "Peter" Luong, Accused of Using Wheelchair Scam Funds to Start Business Hawking Dangerous Boner Pills

​Phu Tan Luong, a 55-year-old health-care fraudster who moved from Huntington Beach to a federal prison cell in Plano, Texas, where he is serving 10 years for a scam involving wheelchairs and hospital beds, has now been charged with distributing ... More >>

Judge Denies Restraining Order to Keep Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Open

​A federal judge has denied a restraining order aimed at keeping medical marijuana dispensaries open in Costa Mesa and Lake Forest while the court considers a lawsuit filed on behalf of four MedMar Patient Care Collective patients and based on the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).

Judge Sends the Law after Orly Taitz for Ignoring $20,000 Fine

​A Georgia federal judge last month fined Laguna Niguel's Dr. Orly Taitz Esq. for repeatedly filing "frivolous" lawsuits about Barack Obama's eligibility to be president. The deadline to pay that fine came and went Thursday; Taitz told the Columbia Ledger-Enquirer that she has no intention of payi ... More >>

Santa Ana-Based Street Gang Implicated in $25 Million Medicare Fraud Cases

​A Long Beach man and a Santa Ana street gang have been implicated in an alleged Medicare fraud schemes that resulted in approximately $25 million in fraudulent bills to the Medicare program, various federal authorities announced this morning. In all, 18 defendants, most of whom reside ... More >>

Teaching Museum Uses Adventure Films to Help Fund Mendez v. Westminster Exhibit

Jonathan Copp, RIP.​What do the plucky Museum of Teaching and Learning, an internationally acclaimed film festival and the landmark Mendez v. Westminster School District case of 1946 have in common?All three could learn you something.The Fullerton-based Museum of Teaching and Learning (MOTAL) is s ... More >>

Feds: Mike Carona Qualifies for Lengthy Taxpayer-Funded Trip After Miracle!

A federal sentencing official has recommended that ex-Sheriff Mike Carona win an all-expenses-paid 78-month trip to the slammer for his unrepentant corruption while in control of California's second largest police agency.This should come as a surprise to Carona, his defense lawyers and other folks w ... More >>

Sheriff Loses Battle To End Federal Case

A U.S. District Court in Los Angeles has refused Sheriff Michael S. Carona’s demand to dismiss a First Amendment complaint filed by former Carona challenger, ex-sheriff’s Lt. William Hunt, according to a press release issued this morning by Silver, Hadden, Silver, Wexler & Levine. Hunt attorne ... More >>

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