Read on for the sentence in the case where a Newport Beach woman tried to run over a John Wayne Airport bicycle officer, the planned destination for a couple pulled over in Newps with a cache of weapons and ammo, and the plea of the lawyer for a pot dispensary kingpin who had shops in Orange and Los Angeles counties.
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Rebecca Lee McLaughlin Pleads Guilty to Trying to Run Over Cop on Bike at John Wayne Airport
Update: Rebecca Lee McLaughlin was sentenced this week a year in jail that will be followed by three years probation for trying to run over a sheriff's officer on a bike in a John Wayne Airport parking structure. The unidentified special officer, who wound up on the hood of the 49-year-old Newport Beach woman's Toyota Sequoia, managed to arrest her before being taken to a hospital for treatment. Under an earlier plea deal, McLaughlin copped to assault with a deadly weapon with force likely to produce great bodily injury and had an attempted murder count dismissed.
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Where Were Inland Empire Felon Couple Going with 7 AK-47s and Ammo Stolen from Georgia?
Update: Court documents this week answered the question raised in the headline above: to the border, where the weapons and ammo were to be smuggled for a Mexican drug cartel. Newport Beach police investigators claim Andrew Cardiel Jr. and Heather Magun Gurule confessed to them that's what they were doing with the seven AK-47 assault rifles, 16 magazines and more than 350 rounds of ammunition that officers found after pulling their Dodge Caravan over last month because its tags had expired. The couple, felons both, have pleaded not guilty to various felony charges, however.
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John Melvin Walker Pleads Guilty to Secretly Owning Pot Clinic Chain and Avoiding Taxes
Update: Richard C. Brizendine, the 59-year-old Long Beach attorney for convicted pot dispensary kingpin John Melvin Walker, pleaded guilty Monday to money laundering and conspiracy to structure cash deposits to avoid federal reporting requirements. A federal indictment that resulted in the arrest of “Pops” Walker and 11 others on Oct. 25, 2012, did not include Brizendine, even though the Orange County Sheriff's Department had by then accused the lawyer of helping Walker launder money from shops in Orange and Los Angeles counties that the feds say generated $25 million in income over a six-year period. Walker last year was sentenced to nearly 22 years in federal prison for operating the chain and failing to report millions of dollars in revenues on his taxes. Brizendine, who represented Walker's Belmont Shore Natural Care in Long Beach's controversial marijuana lottery process, is scheduled to be sentenced on May 4, 2015, when U.S. District Court Judge James V. Selna in Santa Ana could impose a 10-year term in federal prison. Until that time, Brizendine is free on a $500,000 bond.
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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.