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KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – The service of a search warrant by the Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force has resulted in two arrests, the seizure of LSD, 116 pounds of processed marijuana, $36,946 and a firearm.
Arrested were 45-year-old Elizabeth Anne Lango and Brandon Scott Augsburger, 28, both of Kelseyville, according to Sgt. Steve Brooks.
On March 2 the Lake County Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force received information from the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration that they had served search warrants in Lake Winnebago, Wis., and Kimberly, Wis., according to Brooks.
Their investigation revealed that 43-year-old Spencer Breitreiter of Kelseyville and Paul Van Wychen of Wisconsin were responsible for transporting multiple pounds of marijuana from California to Wisconsin, Brooks said.
Agents recovered approximately 5 pounds of processed marijuana and $200,000 in cash. Brooks said both Van Wychen and Breitreiter were arrested in Wisconsin.
During a search of Breitreiter’s property in Wisconsin a rental agreement for a storage unit in Kelseyville was discovered. Brooks said the rental agreement was made out to Lango.
He said Lake County Sheriff’s narcotics detectives responded to the storage unit. They deployed a narcotics detection K9 which alerted to the unit. A search warrant also was secured for Lango, her home and storage unit.
On March 2 at approximately 6:40 p.m., Lake County Sheriff’s narcotics detectives served the search warrant at Lango’s residence, located on Montezuma Way in Kelseyville, Brooks said. Upon entry to the residence Lango and Augsburger were detained without incident.
During a search of the residence detectives seized 47 immature marijuana plants, approximately 20 pounds of processed marijuana, a sheet of suspected LSD containing approximately 100 dosage units, a 20 gauge shotgun, digital scales and $16,812 in cash, Brooks reported.
He said detectives also located a bank account in Lango’s name that contained $20,134 which was also seized pending asset forfeiture proceedings.
Lango denied any knowledge of the storage unit that was in her name. Brooks said detectives forced entry into the storage unit and located a Lexus parked inside.
After making entry into the Lexus detectives discovered 96 pounds of processed marijuana. Brooks said most of the marijuana was packaged in vacuum sealed bags.
Paperwork found inside the vehicle linked Lango, Breitreiter and Augsburger to the vehicle, according to Brooks. Additional paperwork found at the residence linked Lango to recent trips to the state of Wisconsin.
Lango and Augsburger were both arrested for possession of a controlled substance for sale, possession of marijuana for sale and being armed while in the commission of a felony, Brooks said. They were transported to the Lake County Hill Road Correctional Facility and booked.
The Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force can be contacted through its anonymous tip line at 707-263-3663.
SACRAMENTO – California Attorney General Kamala Harris on Friday announced the appointment of Professor Katherine Porter of the University of California, Irvine School of Law as the California monitor of the commitment by the nation's five largest banks to perform as much as $18 billion worth of homeowner and borrower benefits in the state.
Attorney General Harris' decision to appoint a California monitor was made independent of the national settlement, and Professor Porter's role is focused exclusively on ensuring compliance in California.
This California commitment is part of a national federal-state mortgage settlement penalizing robo-signing and other servicing and foreclosure misconduct that is currently pending approval in a federal court in Washington, D.C.
Upon approval of the settlement, California's monitor will assist the Attorney General's Office in holding the banks accountable for their commitments to the state and ensuring that the promised benefits are delivered to homeowners in full and on time.
“Hundreds of thousands of California homeowners will benefit from the commitments of up to $18 billion extracted from mortgage lenders. We must enforce full and timely compliance with these commitments, and the appointment of Professor Porter as our California monitor is central to that enforcement,” said Harris. “Professor Porter's wealth of experience and knowledge will protect the interests of homeowners and ensure the settling banks deliver on their promises.”
“I will work hard to make sure banks hold up their promises to change troubling practices so that families and communities across California see the benefits of the settlement,” said Professor Porter. “Part of repairing the damage of the mortgage crisis is restoring public confidence that our largest financial institutions will treat consumers fairly and follow the law.”
Katherine Porter is a professor at University of California, Irvine School of Law. She specializes in commercial and consumer law, including mortgage foreclosures and bankruptcy, and just released a book, “Broke: How Debt Bankrupts the Middle Class.”
In 2007, Porter authored an empirical study that offered some of the first systemic evidence of the problems in mortgage servicing that harmed homeowners.
She has worked with other government entities, including the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, on issues relating to mortgage servicing.
Upon approval of the settlement, Professor Porter will verify the extent and timeliness of lenders meeting their obligations to California homeowners.
Using information obtained by the national monitor of the mortgage settlement, former North Carolina Commissioner of Banks Joseph Smith, Professor Porter will review lender filings, homeowner reports and complaints, and other compliance documents to ensure that benefits committed by the banks are performed and result in meaningful relief to California borrowers.
She will regularly report the results of her findings to the Attorney General's Office.
The appointment of Professor Porter as the state's monitor is one of a series of enforcement mechanisms to ensure transparent compliance with the national settlement and the separate California agreement.
Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and JP Morgan Chase will face significant financial penalties if they do not meet their guarantee of a minimum of $12 billion in principal reductions and short sales for homeowners within the state.
Unlike the larger national agreement, which is only enforceable in a federal court in Washington, D.C., the agreement reached with California empowers Attorney General Harris to enforce the penalty provisions in California state court.
California secured the estimated $18 billion in borrower benefits and relief as part of a national multistate settlement to penalize robo-signing and other bank servicing and foreclosure misconduct.
The agreement comes after California departed from the multistate negotiations last September when the relief to California was estimated at $4 billion.
Harris insisted on more relief for the most distressed homeowners, on stronger enforcement provisions, and that California and other states preserve key investigations into mortgage misconduct.
California's separate commitment also creates important incentives to ensure that banks will reduce the principal mortgage balance of underwater homeowners in California's hardest-hit counties and that the principal reductions in these and other California communities will occur within the first year of the settlement.
Professor Porter will ensure that both the California-specific and national settlements are properly implemented in the state.
“The California commitment provides a path for thousands of struggling homeowners in California to retain their homes, while preserving our ability to investigate banker crime and predatory lending,” added Attorney General Harris. “This is one important stride in our ongoing efforts to address the mortgage and foreclosure crisis that has devastated too many California communities.”
Attorney General Harris earlier this month joined Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and other state legislators to unveil the California Homeowner Bill of Rights, designed to protect homeowners from unfair practices by banks and mortgage companies and to help consumers and communities cope with the state's urgent mortgage and foreclosure crisis.
The legislation would make permanent and available to everyone the interim reforms agreed to as part of the California commitment, including a single point of contact for mortgage-holders and restrict the unfair and inherently deceptive system of dual-track foreclosures.
State legislators authoring key components of the Homeowner Bill of Rights include Assemblymembers Wilmer Carter, Mike Davis, Mike Eng, Mike Feuer, Holly Mitchell, Nancy Skinner, Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, and Senators Mark DeSaulnier, Loni Hancock, Mark Leno and Fran Pavley.
Harris also continues her work to have the Federal Housing Finance Agency authorize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – holders or guarantors of over 60 per cent of California mortgages – to participate in targeted programs of principal reduction that will benefit struggling homeowners, stabilize the country's housing market, and benefit taxpayers.
The state's Mortgage Fraud Strike Force continues its work to crack down on all forms of mortgage misconduct. Earlier this month, three prominent attorneys were arrested and are accused of running a loan modification scam.
New movies of Jupiter are the first to catch an invisible wave shaking up one of the giant planet's jet streams, an interaction that also takes place in Earth's atmosphere and influences the weather.
The movies, made from images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft when it flew by Jupiter in 2000, are part of an in-depth study conducted by a team of scientists and amateur astronomers led by Amy Simon-Miller at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and published in the April 2012 issue of Icarus.
"This is the first time anyone has actually seen direct wave motion in one of Jupiter's jet streams," said Simon-Miller, the paper's lead author. "And by comparing this type of interaction in Earth's atmosphere to what happens on a planet as radically different as Jupiter, we can learn a lot about both planets."
Like Earth, Jupiter has several fast-moving jet streams that circle the globe.
Earth's strongest and best known jet streams are those near the North and South Poles; as these winds blow west to east, they take the scenic route, wandering north and south.
What sets these jet streams on their meandering paths-and sometimes makes them blast Florida and other warm places with frigid air-are their encounters with slow-moving waves in Earth's atmosphere, called Rossby waves.
In contrast, Jupiter's jet streams "have always appeared to be straight and narrow," said co-author John Rogers, who is the Jupiter Section Director of the British Astronomical Association, London, U.K., and one of the amateur astronomers involved in this study.
Rossby waves were identified on Jupiter about 20 years ago, in the northern hemisphere. Even so, the expected meandering winds could not be traced directly, and no evidence of them had been found in the southern hemisphere, which puzzled planetary scientists.
To get a more complete view, the team analyzed images taken by NASA's Voyager spacecraft, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, and Cassini, as well as a decade's worth of observations made by amateur astronomers and compiled by the JUPOS project.
The movies zoom in on a single jet stream in Jupiter's southern hemisphere.
A line of small, dark, v-shaped "chevrons" has formed along one edge of the jet stream and zips along west to east with the wind.
Later, the well-ordered line starts to ripple, with each chevron moving up and down (north and south) in turn. And for the first time, it's clear that Jupiter's jet streams, like Earth's, wander off course.
"That's the signature of the Rossby wave," said David Choi, the postdoctoral fellow at NASA Goddard who strung together about a hundred Cassini images to make each time-lapse movie. "The chevrons in the fast-moving jet stream interact with the slower-moving Rossby wave, and that's when we see the chevrons oscillate."
The team's analysis also reveals that the chevrons are tied to a different type of wave in Jupiter's atmosphere, called a gravity inertia wave.
Earth also has gravity inertia waves, and under proper conditions, these can be seen in repeating cloud patterns.
"A planet's atmosphere is a lot like the string of an instrument," said co-author Michael D. Allison of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. "If you pluck the string, it can resonate at different frequencies, which we hear as different notes. In the same way, an atmosphere can resonate with different modes, which is why we find different kinds of waves."
Characterizing these waves should offer important clues to the layering of the deep atmosphere of Jupiter, which has so far been inaccessible to remote sensing, Allison adds.
Crucial to the study was the complementary information that the team was able to retrieve from the detailed spacecraft images and the more complete visual record provided by amateur astronomers.
For example, the high resolution of the spacecraft images made it possible to establish the top speed of the jet stream's wind, and then the amateur astronomers involved in the study looked through the ground-based images to find variations in the wind speed.
The team also relied on images that amateur astronomers had been gathering of a large, transient storm called the South Equatorial Disturbance.
This visual record dates back to 1999, when members of the community spotted the most recent recurrence of the storm just south of Jupiter's equator.
Analysis of these images revealed the dynamics of this storm and its impact on the chevrons. The team now thinks this storm, together with the Great Red Spot, accounts for many of the differences noted between the jet streams and Rossby waves on the two sides of Jupiter's equator.
"We are just starting to investigate the long-term behavior of this alien atmosphere," said co-author Gianluigi Adamoli, an amateur astronomer in Italy. "Understanding the emerging analogies between Earth and Jupiter, as well as the obviously profound differences, helps us learn fundamentally what an atmosphere is and how it can behave."
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
For information about Cassini, visit http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A man wanted on numerous charges in Clearlake and listed as the city's “most wanted” suspect has been arrested in Butte County.
Vincent Anthony Saenz, 28, of Clearlake was arrested in Butte County on Thursday night. Butte County Jail records confirmed he was being held there on Friday.
Clearlake Police Chief Craig Clausen said Saenz was picked up in Butte County on separate charges from those he's facing locally, which include infliction of corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant, possession of a controlled substance, vehicle theft, resisting an officer and being under the influence of a controlled substance.
Clause said he anticipates Saenz will soon be transported back to Lake County to face the local charges.
CLEARLAKE OAKS, Calif. – The community is being asked to help provide information on two dogs that attacked a man and his small dog earlier this week in Clearlake Oaks.
Animal control officials are trying to confirm if the dogs have had rabies vaccinations in an effort to protect the health of the victims.
Family members said the elderly man and his Pomeranian dog were attacked by two pit bulls at around 7:15 a.m. Monday.
The man and his dog were walking near the intersection of Island Drive and Highway 20 in Clearlake Oaks when, without warning, two pit bulls charged them, biting him and knocking him to the ground.
The little dog was mauled, receiving injuries including a broken jaw, broken leg, punctured lung and multiple bite wounds over her body. She is being treated at Wasson Memorial Veterinary Clinic in Lakeport, where the bill currently is about $4,000.
The pit bulls were both black in color, each weighing about 40 pounds, according to the available description.
A white male subject retrieved the dogs, allegedly gave the victim a false name and contact information, and left in a Mitsubishi Montero SUV – which may have been green in color – with the license plate 5BGV640.
The male was described as having a medium build, was estimated to be about 5 feet, 10 inches tall, and in his late 30s or early 40s.
If you have any information on the dogs or their owner, please notify Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278. To offer assistance with the veterinarian bill, contact Jim Young at 707-350-4867 or Leah Young at 707-245-3049.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – This past week marked the annual deadline for teacher layoff notices to go out across the state and the county.
California Education Code requires school boards issue preliminary pink slips by March 15, and then make the final decision on layoffs by May 15, according to the California Department of Education.
The California Teachers Association said preliminary pink slip data showed that 19,500 layoff notices were issued across 206 school districts on Thursday.
In Lake County, 25 of the notices were handed out to teachers this week, according to a Lake County Office of Education tally.
That total includes seven layoffs in the Lake County Office of Education’s schools; Konocti Unified School District, seven; Kelseyville Unified School District, six; Middletown Unified School District, four; and Lakeport Unified School District, one.
No layoff notices were issued in the Lucerne Elementary School District and the Upper Lake Union Elementary School District, the Lake County Office of Education reported.
“The numbers don’t look as severe as in the past because there’s no more room to cut,” said Lake County Superintendent of Schools Superintendent Wally Holbrook.
He said any further cuts to the county’s teacher numbers would significantly affect class size.
“We can’t cram 100 students in a classroom,” Holbrook said.
Middletown Unified Superintendent Dr. Korby Olson said of his district’s four notices, two are due to projected project enrollment, one is due to a teacher returning from leave and one is related to a possible program cut.
“So we really only did one that was due to a budget cut,” he said, adding that they may be able to restore that position once they know more about next year’s enrollment, particularly kindergarten student numbers.
He said Middletown Unified ended the 2010-11 school year with a strong fund balance, with cuts not as serious as projected. However, with state revenue numbers not as high as anticipated, more cuts could be ahead. Olson said the district has enough reserves to get by for now.
Middletown, like other county districts, has faced declining enrollment issues in recent years, which Olson attributes to the drop in jobs.
“We were really doing well based on the building of new homes and the growth in real estate,” he said, but when the market collapsed the district felt it as well.
Olson said he doesn’t believe Middletown Unified was hit harder than other county districts, but that it felt the impact at a different time.
Holbrook said Lake County’s educators have to plan for the worst in the face of more potential cuts, and that teachers often have to wait while those details are worked out.
“If we don’t get a clear picture of what the budget is going to be, we have to continue to act as if the cuts are going to take place,” which he said leads to the preliminary layoff notices, the numbers of which usually are higher than the final tally.
The California Teachers Association reported that the 10 California school districts issuing the most layoff notices are: Los Angeles Unified, about 9,500; San Diego Unified, more than 1,608; San Juan Unified, 458; Capistrano Unified, 392; Sacramento City Unified, 389; Moreno Valley Unified, 332; Long Beach Unified, 309; San Bernardino City School District, 251; San Francisco Unified, 210; Sweetwater High School District, 209.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said every pink slip being issued Thursday “is an unwelcome and undeserved blow to the morale of the teacher who receives it. They should also remind all of us of the urgency of finding the will and the resources to end the financial emergency facing our public schools."
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at