The Peruvian boyfriend of Alex Murrel, a cast member from season 2 of MTV's Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County,
was arrested in her rented Laguna Beach house on suspicion of felony possession of cocaine with
intent to sell.
Murrel, 22, was questioned as a witness last week but is not expected to face charges, according to an E! Online report. It goes on to state:
– Laguna Beach Police officers, at the request of
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, raided Murrel's residence because her boyfriend, Renzo Gamboa, was in the country illegally;
– A search of the home turned up
a stash of coke, at which point Gamboa copped to being the owner.
– Gamboa was booked on a felony charge of possession for sales, transported to county lockup and placed on an immigration
hold.
TMZ.com, which had broken the story hours earlier, reported the coke was already packaged for sale.
One other lingering bit of business: Murrel is currently trying to kickstart a music career. She's signed to Warner Bros. Records and is expected to release her debut album later this year. A pop singer hooked up with an alleged coke dealer? Jeez, where do they think up this stuff?
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.