An expert testified Tuesday that Charles “Chase” Merritt’s pickup truck “cannot be excluded” as the vehicle caught briefly on a security video driving away from the Fallbrook home of the McStay family the night in 2010 prosecutors say they were slain and disappeared. Prosecution witness Eugenio Liscio used a laser scan of Merritt’s 2000 Chevrolet…
We’ve been hearing about it for years. The system is rigged. Donald Trump went at it from the right, Bernie Sanders from the left. They targeted different villains but identified the same casualty. The little guy. The one who kept falling further behind while a select few prospered. And now we…
Gov. Gavin Newsom will sign an executive order Wednesday placing a moratorium on the death penalty for all 737 inmates on California’s death row, ensuring that no executions will take place while he is governor, an administration source has confirmed. Newsom’s order also will withdraw the state’s lethal injection protocol and immediately close the execution…
More than a dozen colleges coaches, high-powered executives and celebrities appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom Tuesday after being charged in a wide-ranging cheating and bribery scheme designed to get their children into good colleges. Actress Felicity Huffman, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, former UCLA men’s soccer coach Jorge Salcedo and former USC assistant women’s soccer…
The self-described “master coach” warned parents that in the scrabble for a spot at an elite university, their children would hardly stand out without his help. He spoke of a “side door” to top schools he could wrench open to the “wealthiest families in the U.S.” He promised their children nothing…
SANTA ANA — A 33-year-old man was charged Tuesday with beating a wheelchair-dependent man with cerebral palsy outside a Santa Ana fast-food restaurant, leaving the victim fighting for his life. Vittorio Ronald Froncillo is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday on an attempted murder count, with a sentencing enhancement allegation of attempted premeditated murder. He also…
Matt Vecere a Long Beach resident and employee for a La Mirada air-filtration company was among the lives lost aboard the Ethiopia flight that crashed over the weekend. Vecere shared this image with his friends from Haiti while he was there to aid with water filtration systems. (Photo courtesy of Tiffany Allegretti) Matt Vecere a…
A prominent senior athletic official and several coaches at USC, as well as another coach at UCLA, are among several charged in a sweeping admissions bribery case unsealed in federal court Tuesday in which the coaches accepted bribes in exchange for admitting students as athletes, regardless of their ability. Charges have been brought against USC…
Federal prosecutors on Tuesday indicted dozens of people — including two Hollywood actresses — in connection with an elaborate scheme aimed at getting students into elite colleges. According to court records, the scheme involved cheating on college entrance examines for such elite schools as Yale,…
Tyler and Tricia Halstead grew up quickly, in a home centered around a mother who spent her last decade dying of melanoma. “We did not have what you would call a normal childhood,” said Tricia, 27, now an attorney living in Huntington Beach. “But our mom made it as normal as possible by developing a…
