The sentence for a husband who fatally stabbed his wife in an Anaheim hotel two years ago and the arrest of a lawyer in a $44 million loan modification fraud scheme are your updates this weekend.
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Bruce Allen Ohlwine Held in Murder of Wife Saori Ohlwine in Hotel
Update: Bruce Allen Ohlwine, who was convicted of fatally stabbing his wife in an Anaheim hotel room, was sentenced this week to 28 years to life in state prison. On Feb. 13, 2013, the defendant and his 37-year-old wife, Saori Ohlwine, refused to leave their Anaheim hotel room, which prompted the staff to contact police. Officers went inside the room and found a large amount of blood on the walls and floors–and then discovered Saori's body in a bathtub filled with bloody water. Bruce Ohlwine, now 50, was also in the room with a stab wound to his torso and a severed middle finger. He was treated at a hospital and arrested for murder, which he'd enter pleas of “not guilty” and “not guilty by reason of insanity” to committing. But jurors found Ohlwine guilty on March 5 of first degree murder and true a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon. On March 11, the same jury found him sane at the time of the crime, and the court found the sentencing enhancement that he committed the murder while out on bail to be true, according to the Orange County District Attorney's office.
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Federal Consumer Agency Seeks Permanent Injunction Against SoCal Lawyer
Update: Stephen Lyster Siringoringo, a Westminster lawyer who has been the subject of federal government and State Bar investigations, as well as hundreds of consumer complaints from Southern California homeowners, has been arrested in connection with a $44 million loan modification fraud scheme. A criminal complaint filed in San Bernardino County Superior Court accuses Siringoringo, 34, of the Siringoringo Law Firm, and Upland's Joshua Michael Cobb, 32, of 24 felony counts of money laundering and 23 felony counts of grand theft. They each pleaded not guilty but remain in custody on $17.8 million bond. A third suspect, Alfred O. Clausen, 41, of Rancho Cucamonga, is reportedly at large and has perhaps left the country. Siringoringo's Orange County law firm had branches in Rancho Cucamonga, Upland and Glendale and advertised loan modification services extensively on English and Spanish-language radio and TV stations. Victims were promised loan mods would be handled by a licensed attorneys but they were instead turned over to non-licensed attorneys, had numbers on their documents falsified and were charged illegal upfront fees, according to the complaint. Under state law, fees cannot be collected until mortgages are modified. The State Bar, which has already been dealing with more than 796 complaints against the firm, ordered Siringoringo to stop practicing law on July 26, 2013.
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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.