Rachanee Srisavasdi–a prolific court reporter for The Orange County Register for nearly 14 years–has accepted a new job as communications director for the Los Angeles-based Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC).
For several years, Srisavasdi partnered with legendary courthouse reporter Larry Welborn to provide Orange County with its most consistent daily newspaper trial coverage.
She tirelessly covered countless major trials, including those involving disgraced ex-Sheriff Mike Carona, billionaire Henry Nicholas and Greg Haidl, the son of an assistant sheriff who videotaped himself and two pals sexually assaulting an unconscious 16-year-old girl in Corona del Mar.
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Her best work (along with Register investigative reporter Tony Saavedra) may have been in the infamous John Chamberlain jailhouse murder case.
Srisavasdi, who graduated from UCLA in 1997 with a degree in American literature, will start her new job at APALC on January 11.
So why leave the Reg?
“I'd always held Stewart Kwoh, the organization's founder, in high regard,” she told me. “I also believe in the mission of the organization. My parents were both immigrants. My mom is Filipino and my dad is Thai. I grew up watching them struggling to achieve the 'American Dream.' I want to give back and help new immigrants. This position is a nexus between that desire, as well as my interest in law and the media.”
APALC serves as an advocacy group for the civil rights of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
–R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
