This weekender you are updatered on: a high noon rally TODAY by anti-vaxxers; the stiff sentence for a sex offender who raped and murdered an unconscious woman; the plea deal of a teacher who repeatedly molested an underage female relative; the non-jail jail sentence for a chronic public masturbator; and the latest in the lawsuit against the Staples Center filed by the parents of a Garden Grove toddler who fell to his death there.
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A Closer Look At OC's Anti-Vaccination Cluster: South County parents are opting out of the CDC schedule altogether
Update: Southern Californians opposed to mandatory vaccinations are scheduled to gather in Huntington Beach at noon today to show solidarity with the “Rally for Truth, Transparency and Freedom” in Atlanta. The goal is to draw attention to Centers of Disease Control and Prevention research released in August 2014 that, demonstrators contend, omitted data that suggested African American boys who receive the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. “This research proves the MMR vaccine causes autism,” say rally supporters, who offer more “proof” if you click here or you click here. The rally runs through 3 p.m. near the Huntington Beach Pier at Pacific Coast Highway and Main Street.
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Charles Patrick Drew, Sex Offender Accused of Brutal Murder, Faces More Charges
Update: Charles Patrick Drew, the registered sex offender who was convicted Sept. 15 of rape and first-degree murder and other charges associated with a homeless woman who fell unconscious at a Stanton motel due to complications from diabetes three years ago, was sentenced this week to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The mother of 29-year-old victim Amber Oceja told Orange County Superior Court Judge Steven Bromberg that she believes 65-year-old Drew is also responsible for the death of her husband. “The defendant did not murder one person, he murdered two,” she said. My husband did not make it to our daughter's funeral because five days before her services, the pain and burden was too much for him and he suffered a stroke and died. During the five weeks after Amber, I lost two people in less than two months. I was left alone in the world.” At the time of Oceja's death in March 2012, she had two children, then ages 3 and 8, that she lost custody of due to her alcoholism. “A piece of my heart was ripped apart,” the victim's mother said. “There are days when I lie awake unable to sleep because I'm constantly thinking of what's become of my grandchildren. What is to become of them growing up without the nurturing affection of family?” Assistant District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh had told jurors during the trial that Oceja considered Drew “a father figure.” In handing down the sentence, Bromberg said, “The defendant's conduct was so exceptional that for him to be allowed to live in any civilized society would be a regrettable error.” Oceja's mom thanked the prosecution. “I thought that this case had been long forgotten because we are poor and humble people,” she said, “but I see now that justice was done.”
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Lucas Anthony Tang, 2 y.o Who Died in Fall, Was Not Staples Center's Responsibility: JudgeUpdate: A rush to open Staples Center in time for the Lakers' 1999-2000 season led the owners to take shortcuts in the design of luxury suites, contributing to the death 11 years later of Garden Grove's Lucas Tang, a 34-month-old who fell over a 10-inch-high glass barrier to his death, an attorney told a jury in Los Angeles this week. Visitors were never warned to stay off the shelf or about the low level of the glass, with the only signs in the suites telling them about alcohol discounts and to keep children away from refrigerators, said Scott Wellman, the lawyer for Tang's parents (via the City News Service report). But Dana Fox, an attorney for the owners and operators of the arena, told the LA Superior Court jury hearing the case that the boy fell 25 feet to his death in November 2010 because of his mother's negligence. In a previous video deposition, Lee Zeidman, the current Staples Center president, testified that safety and security is monitored on a “24/7” at the arena that opened in 2009. But Zeidman, who has been on the Staples staff “since it was a drawing on a napkin,” could not recall details from the planning meetings of the food and beverage shelf construction in luxury suites. And Richard Fortman, a principal inspector for the LA Department of Building and Safety who was involved in the early project review, said he would have questioned the construction of the shelves had he been aware of them; in addition to guests standing on the shelves, he says he also would have been concerned about people tripping over them. The suit contends the luxury suites were redesigned without the food and beverage shelves after the Tangs filed their complaint.
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Teacher Christopher Millette Charged for Sex Acts with Girl Relative Under 10
Update: Christopher Millette, who was teaching seventh grade at Valadez Middle School Academy in Placentia between 2012 and 2014 when he repeatedly molested a female relative age 10 or younger, pleaded guilty to charges against him this week and was immediately sentenced to 15 years to life in state prison. The 37-year-old Fullerton resident copped to one count of oral copulation or sexual penetration of a child 10 years old or younger in exchange for the dismissal of three counts of lewd or lascivious acts with a minor and one count of possession or control of child pornography, according to court records. The victim was not a student at the school, prosecutors note.
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Robert Bruce Engel, Chronic Public Library Masturbator, Faces Trial
Update: Robert Bruce Engel was sentenced this week to three years behind bars for jerking off in front of two teenage girls in a Rancho Santa Margarita public library back in May 2011. But the 71-year-old registered sex offender has already spent that much time behind bars in jail and at a state mental hospital. Orange County Superior
Court Judge Craig Griffin found Engel guilty in a non-jury trial, the third for the defendant who was previously convicted in 1999 and 2002.
Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
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.