How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
News
Josh Leo Johnson, 35, of Santa Rosa, arrested earlier this month in Lake County for the June 4 assault at Konocti Vista Casino, is among the eight individuals charged in a 25-count federal indictment that includes allegations of conspiracy to commit financial institution fraud and wire fraud, according to U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag.
Johnson was arrested in the case during the week of Sept. 19, as were Jacob Moynihan, 30, of San Francisco; Gerald Moynihan, 51, of Santa Rosa; Greco, 38, of Rohnert Park; Raymond Foakes, 48, of Rohnert Park; Desiree Maclean, 25, of Rohnert Park; and Justin Batemon, 34, of Hayward, the FBI and US Attorney's Office reported.
Jerry Mays, 63, of San Pablo, remains at large, officials reported.
The defendants in the case each made their initial appearances in federal court in San Francisco on Sept. 22, and are scheduled to appear for a status conference before United States District Court Judge William Alsup on Nov. 8 at 2 p.m.
In the Lake County assault case, Johnson is facing charges including felony participation in a criminal street gang, misdemeanor fighting in public, misdemeanor battery and special allegations relating to the infliction of great bodily injury and the participation in a criminal street gang, according to the District Attorney's Office.
So far, it's not clear if the federal case will impede the Lake County prosecution, according to Deputy District Attorney Art Grothe.
“It is unknown exactly how the new federal prosecution will effect the progress of the Lake County case,” Grothe said Thursday. “However, it does add another level of complexity in scheduling and coordinating appearances. We expect both cases to go forward at the normal pace, but some minor delays may be possible due to scheduling.”
According to the federal indictment, some of the defendants – including Johnson – hold leadership positions in, and are members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club.
In addition to allegations of conspiracy to commit financial institution fraud and wire fraud, the federal indictment alleges that Johnson, along with Jacob Moynihan, Gerald Moynihan, Greco, Foakes, Maclean, Mays and Batemon also committed money laundering, conspiracy to maintain drug-involved premises and possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance between 2006 and 2007 in the greater San Francisco Bay area.
One of the primary defendants in the federal case, Jacob Moynihan, was a loan officer in San Francisco. Jacob Moynihan owned Xanadu Global Investment LLC and, during the relevant timeframe, worked at Universal Mortgage and Sales Inc., Onyx Capital Property and Investment Inc., and Accelerated Funding and Realty Inc.
The indictment alleges that the defendants conspired with one another and others to procure a series of fraudulent mortgage loans and refinancing loans for pieces of real property in and around the Bay Area, including San Francisco, Sonoma, Petaluma, Healdsburg and Santa Rosa.
The FBI and US Attorney's Office reported that the scheme initially involved recruiting straw buyers to obtain mortgage loans in exchange for money.
The scheme allegedly was accomplished by generating falsified bank statements, fictitious employment history and false income information for client-borrowers.
In many cases, bank statements were physically altered to reflect inflated balances and deposit activity. These falsified documents were then submitted to mortgage lenders to obtain mortgage loans, some in excess of $1 million, on terms that the lenders would otherwise not have funded. The properties underlying those loans were subsequently foreclosed upon.
The total amount of fraudulent loans was in excess of $10 million, according to the indictment.
Kathryn Haun is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Sutton Peirce. Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Arvon Pereet is assisting with the asset forfeiture aspects of the case.
The prosecution is the result of a multi-year investigation by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations Division and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Santa Rosa Resident Agency.
The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office has assisted with portions of the narcotics aspects of the case.
The maximum statutory penalty for each count of conspiracy to commit financial institution fraud and wire fraud – and for each substantive count of financial institution fraud – is 30 years in prison and a fine of $1 million or twice the loss. The maximum statutory penalty for each count of wire fraud is 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 or twice the loss.
If convicted the defendants could face a maximum 10-year sentence for each count of money laundering, as well as a fine of $250,000 or twice the loss; up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $500,000 for each count of conspiracy to maintain a drug-involved premise; and a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of 40 years in prison and a $5 million fine for possession with intent to distribute 100 or more marijuana plants. Restitution may be ordered for any count.
Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews, on Tumblr at www.lakeconews.tumblr.com, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The events that culminated in a June shooting that left a child dead and several people wounded were explored in the first day of a preliminary hearing for three local men that got under way on Wednesday.
Orlando Joseph Lopez, 23, and Paul William Braden, 21, of Clearlake Oaks and Kevin Ray Stone, 29, of Clearlake sat in the jury box throughout the first day of their preliminary hearing, set to continue for several more days.
The three men are facing charges of murder, mayhem, and numerous counts of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, along with special allegations for use of firearms and great bodily injury for a late night shooting on June 18 that killed 4-year-old Skyler Rapp and wounded the child's mother, Desiree Kirby; her boyfriend, Ross Sparks, and his brother, Andrew Sparks; and friends Ian Griffith and Joseph Armijo.
Security in the courtroom was heightened on Wednesday. In addition to two correctional officers and the bailiff, a sheriff's sergeant and two deputies oversaw the proceedings as about a dozen friends and family members of the victims filtered in and out to watch the testimony.
During a brief meeting in Judge Stephen Hedstrom's chambers before the hearing started, District Attorney Don Anderson and defense attorneys Stephen Carter, Doug Rhoades and Komnith Moth – representing Lopez, Braden and Stone, respectively – settled on an estimate of five days of preliminary hearing, Hedstrom said afterward.
A total of 21 witnesses will take the stand in the coming days, Hedstrom said once court convened.
In the first day of testimony, cousins Joshua Gamble and Ross Sparks were called to the stand, both of them describing tensions, threats and fights with members of a local gang which are believed to have contributed to the June 18 shooting, the worst in the city's history, according to police.
The bulk of the day's testimony came from 17-year-old Gamble, a Lower Lake High School student who often spent time at the home Ross Sparks and Kirby shared at 14034 Lakeshore Drive, where the shooting took place.
In more than three hours of testimony and cross-examination, Gamble described not just the night of the shooting but a fight that occurred when he and Armijo attended a friend's adult school graduation event at Lower Lake High School. The Konocti Unified School District calendar shows that the event took place on Thursday, June 9.
Gamble said he was taunted by a group called the “Ave. Boys,” named for the city's Avenues area, where the teens live.
“They made up their own gang or whatever” about a year ago, said Gamble, testifying during the day that the teens had had the name shaved into their hair at one point.
Wearing white shirts, red caps and blue jeans, the group followed Gamble and Armijo out of the graduation and attacked them. Lopez's brother, Leonardo, allegedly came up during the fight and hit Gamble in the head with a pipe.
Gamble said he was acquainted with Leonardo Lopez – who had dated his sister about three years previously – but said he didn't know him personally.
When cross-examined by Carter about his history with the Ave. Boys, Gamble said that he had a developmentally delayed cousin named Johnny who a member of the gang beat up about two years ago. Armijo was beaten up by the gang members the year before that, Gamble added.
On June 18 Gamble went over to hang out and play video games at Sparks' home, later walking down to Austin Park and heading back to the Lakeshore Drive home at around 6 p.m.
At the home that evening Ross Sparks and Desiree Kirby received a total of three threatening phone calls that upset them, said Gamble. At least one of the calls was attributed to Leonardo Lopez.
Over the course of the evening on June 18 about a dozen other people – including Sparks, Kirby and their two young children – were gathered at the home, where they had a barbecue. Gamble's sister, Amanda, roasted marshmallows to make Skyler s'mores.
Sparks' neighbor, Curtis Eeds, came over briefly to talk to him. A man nicknamed “Goofy,” who came from Eeds' home and who Gamble had never seen before, came and stood up against the fence for most of the evening. Gamble said he had wondered why the man stood off by himself.
During questioning, Anderson had Gamble draw the locations of the party's participants on a map of the homes. Gamble also described the fence – located between the apartments where the couple and their children lived and the home of Curtis Eeds – which had a large hole in it where boards were missing.
It was over and through that fence that several gunshots were fired that wounded the couple and their friends, and killed Skyler Rapp, according to Wednesday's testimony.
When he first heard the gunshots, Gamble said he thought it was a firecracker. “I heard a loud pop, like 'Pow!' Then I heard another one. And then I noticed what it really was,” he said.
Shortly afterward, everyone scattered, Gamble said.
Anderson asked him if he saw Skyler. Gamble said yes.
“Did you see Skyler fall?” Anderson asked.
“Yes,” said Gamble, choking up.
He said the child collapsed within seconds of the start of the shooting. One of the women at the home went to him and cradled him as he lay on the ground.
Gamble testified to hearing at least four gunshots, and seeing five muzzle blasts, the first from over the fence, the second from the area where the hole in the fence was located.
“It felt like hours but it was only minutes,” he said of the shooting.
Exploring connections
Gamble said he saw a tall “lanky” figure – whose head and shoulders were visible – firing a handgun over the top of the fence with their right hand. The handgun's report sounded like “pap, pap, pap,” while the firearm shot through the fence had a lower, louder boom.
The only lighting came from porch lights – one in a neighbor's yard and the one from Sparks' home. Gamble said he could only see shadowy figures shooting at him and his friends.
He couldn't discern the subjects' skin tone or ethnicity, although he said the subject shooting over the fence – who may have been standing or sitting on a washing machine in the yard – had short hair.
“When the shots first started I was like a deer caught in the headlights. I didn't know what to do,” said Gamble.
One of the suspects then stepped through the hole in the fence, and Gamble said he believed at that point that the shooters were coming to get the group.
Gamble ran between a car parked nearby and the apartments, then jumped a side fence and ran down the street. He said he stopped about a block away in someone's yard when the gunshots stopped. He then ran back.
When he got back to the apartment, he found a horrible scene.
“My cousin Andrew was walking around with holes all through his legs and his arm,” said Gamble.
Kirby was lying in the doorway, and Armijo and Griffith were lying on the floor in the front room. Gamble said Ross Sparks was running around outside, saying his son had been shot, while bearing a gunshot wound near his hip.
“It was just a clean hole, straight through,” Gamble said of Sparks' wound.
During cross-examination, Moth pressed Gamble on whether he had been drinking beer that day with the others at the barbecue. He said no. Moth would also question Gamble closely about his use of marijuana that day, and whether or not it impaired him. Gamble said no.
Carter questioned Gamble closely about Eeds and “Goofy,” and their actions on the night of the shooting.
Gamble couldn't remember where Goofy – who had stood near the fence and away from the group during that night – was when the shooting started.
“You can't rule them out as the shooters, can you?” Carter asked of Eeds and Goofy, with Gamble saying he didn't know.
Carter also asked Gamble about statements to police on the night of the shooting, in which he stated he didn't think the fight at the graduation event and the shooting were related.
Gamble clarified that he stated to police, “I told them I didn't know.”
When Sparks took the stand at the end of the day, he told the court that he considered Skyler his child.
He said he knew Orlando Lopez, who had played football with Sparks' younger brother. Sparks also knew Braden, whose brother was a good friend of his in high school. Sparks said he also worked for Braden's father.
Sparks said he did not know Stone.
In the days before the shooting, Sparks said he spoke with Orlando Lopez at Eeds' home, where Sparks said he was doing laundry.
Sparks said he and Lopez had a discussion about Gamble's run-in with Leonardo Lopez and his friends at the high school.
He said Orlando Lopez told him not to worry about it, that he would handle it. “He was totally cool like he was my friend,” Sparks said.
Sparks said Lopez was at Eeds' home with a man named “Boxer,” who claimed that the Ave. Boys were his clique and “they get sh**” done.
“You will see,” Boxer told Sparks.
Days later Sparks said he received a text message, purportedly from Lopez, that said, “F*** your life.”
When the preliminary continues on Thursday – with additional testimony expected from Sparks – the attorneys and Hedstrom will discuss whether that text message is admissible or if it must be excluded due to hearsay evidence rules, an issue they went over at the end of Wednesday's proceedings.
The issue of the text message and whether it could be considered actually interrupted Sparks' testimony and resulted in Hedstrom asking him to step down from the stand and wait outside of the courtroom.
Hedstrom called it “a very important issue in this case.”
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
NICE, Calif. – The award-winning Tulip Hill Winery has announced that it is closing its tasting room in Nice on Oct. 14.
The property, located at 4900 Bartlett Springs Road at Highway 20, is currently listed for sale as a state of the art winery production facility and will close on Dec. 31, the company said.
The changes in Nice will have no affect on the tasting room for Tulip Hill Winery at The River in Rancho Mirage.
Company officials said the sale of the production facility follows the sudden death of Tulip Hill’s founder, Robert H. “Budge” Brown, who died May 18 in a private aircraft accident.
Kristi Brown, daughter of Budge Brown and president of Tulip Hill Winery, will continue to oversee the development of the Tulip Hill brand with a renewed focus on the tasting room in Rancho Mirage, the Tulip Mania Wine Club and online sales.
“'We cannot know much about the future, except that it will bring some changes. We should be prepared to change, every day.’ I am not sure who said this, but it resonates with me today,” Kristi Brown said.
She said that prior to her father's death, the family made the decision to restructure its business in order to reduce costs. That restructuring includes closing the tasting room and winery production facility in Nice so that the company's wines could be made closer to its Mt. Oso Vineyard in Tracy.
“We have enjoyed being a part of such a close-knit group of vintners,” she said. “Obviously, this decision was extremely difficult as it means saying goodbye to an incredible team of employees and a wonderfully supportive Lake County community.”
The tasting room at The River in Rancho Mirage will become the primary location where Tulip Hill wines can be found, as well as through the Tulip Hill online store, and the Tulip Mania Wine Club.
Tulip Hill Winery is a family owned and operated wine company with its sole tasting room at The River in Rancho Mirage, featuring award-winning wines and daily tastings within a beautiful boutique setting “offering everything wonderful with wine.”
The goal of Tulip Hill Winery has always been to bring the best wines at the best possible prices to all wine enthusiasts.
For more information about Tulip Hill Winery, please visit www.tuliphillwinery.com or call 760-324-VINO (8466).
Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews, on Tumblr at www.lakeconews.tumblr.com, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .
Routine surveillance through mosquito testing showed the first positive evidence of West Nile Virus in samples collected in early through mid-September in locations near Kelseyville and east of Middletown.
An American crow in the Clearlake Oaks area on Sept. 15 has also tested positive for West Nile Virus.
Although approaching fall weather is associated with diminishing numbers of mosquitoes, Jamesina J. Scott, Ph.D., the District Manager and Research Director of the Lake County Vector Control District notes that “we are still seeing signs of mosquitoes capable of transmitting West Nile Virus.”
No human cases of West Nile Virus have been reported in Lake County this year, according to the Wednesday report.
Statewide, a total of 70 human cases have been reported from eighteen counties during 2011.
“Even though the West Nile season will soon be winding down, it is important to take precautions to avoid mosquito bites as long as there is any evidence that transmission of the infection is possible,” said Lake County Health Officer Dr. Karen Tait.
West Nile virus is transmitted by mosquitoes to a variety of animals and to humans. Mosquito and Vector Control agencies usually detect the virus in mosquitoes, birds and sometimes tree squirrels before human cases appear.
Most people who become infected with West Nile virus do not show symptoms and will recover uneventfully. Up to 20 percent of people will develop fever, headache, and other nonspecific symptoms that may last several weeks, health officials said.
Approximately one in 150 people will develop severe illness known as neuroinvasive disease. Health officials said people over age 50 and diabetics appear to be at most risk for the more severe forms of disease. There is no vaccine for humans.
Lake County residents are advised to avoid being outside when mosquitoes are active, especially near dusk and dawn; wear long sleeves and pants and use a mosquito repellent – always read and follow label directions – if they are outside when mosquitoes are active; and dump out buckets, wading pools and other sources of water where mosquitoes develop.
Call the Lake County Vector Control District at 707-263-4770 or visit the district's Web site at www.lcvcd.org to request assistance in addressing problems with mosquitoes.
To report a dead bird or squirrel, call 1-877-WNV-BIRD (1-877-968-2473) or visit the California Department of Public Health’s West Nile virus Web site at www.westnile.ca.gov.
For additional information on West Nile virus, visit http://www.westnile.ca.gov, http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/wnv_factsheet.htm and http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/RepellentUpdates.htm.
Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews, on Tumblr at www.lakeconews.tumblr.com, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake Police Department has arrested a Middletown man on vehicle theft and elder abuse charges in connection with an August case.
Hanexaysana Rattanavong, 35, was arrested on Tuesday, Sept. 27, according to a report from Sgt. Martin Snyder.
On Aug. 23 Sgt. Rodd Joseph was dispatched to a report of a stolen motorcycle in the 15000 block of 33rd Avenue in Clearlake, Snyder said.
The victim reported that the suspect, who was only identified as “Hon,” asked to take a test ride on a 2001 Kawasaki motorcycle which the owner agreed to let him do, according to Snyder.
The suspect rode the motorcycle away and did not return to pay for the motorcycle in question, Snyder said. At that time “Hon” had not been identified.
During the investigation Joseph, with the victim's assistance, was able to identify “Hon” as Hanexaysana Rattanavong of Middletown, Snyder said.
He said the Outlook newspaper contacted Joseph and requested information regarding the theft which the publication later printed.
Over several days following the article's publication, several people contacted the Clearlake Police Department and reported that they were victims of various alleged crimes by Rattanavong. Snyder said the reporting parties did not wish to make police reports regarding the separate crimes but relayed information regarding the whereabouts of Rattanvong.
On Tuesday, Sept. 27, Rattanavong contacted Sgt. Rodd Joseph at the Clearlake Police Department, stating there was a misunderstanding and the property would be returned to the victim, according to Snyder's report.
The alleged victim later contacted the Clearlake Police Department and reported Rattanavong was on his property attempting to return the motorcycle, Snyder said.
Snyder said officers responded to the scene and Rattanavong was taken into custody for vehicle theft, elder abuse and possession of stolen property. Rattanavong was transported and booked into the Lake County Jail.
Jail records indicated he later posted his $10,000 bail and was released.
Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews, on Tumblr at www.lakeconews.tumblr.com, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .
Education
Health
Business
Obituaries
Veterans
Recreation
Religion
Arts & Life
Government & Politics