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The Lake County Sheriff's Office issued an alert seeking the driver of a black 2000 Volvo with a Minnesota license plate, No. 933AHB, which was last seen in the Middletown area.
Middletown Unified also reportedly issued an automated call to parents warning of the incident.
Officials said the driver is wanted for questioning regarding an allegation that he tried to get three young girls into his car at Middletown High School on Wednesday by asking them for directions.
The man wanted for questioning was described as a white male adult, approximately 25 years of age, with curly blonde hair. No further descriptive information was available by the end of business Wednesday.
While the man is only wanted for questioning, officials said community members should not attempt to contact the man if they see him.
If anyone knows the immediate location of this person or vehicle, or has seen the man or his car and can provide a current location, call the Lake County Sheriff’s Department Dispatch center at 707-263-2690.
Information as to the whereabouts of this person or vehicle also can be directed to Det. Mike Curran at 707-262-4232.
This is the second time this month suspicious activity has been reported near a school in the Middletown area.
The sheriff's office previously issued a report seeking the public's assistance in identifying a full-sized white “cargo type” van with no side windows or business markings but with expanded steel caging in the back windows.
The van been seen by students in the area of the bus stop on the corner of Stonegate and Greenridge Roads in Hidden Valley Lake on two separate occasions during the first two weeks of September, as Lake County News has reported.
The sole male occupant of the van has reportedly been seen parked near the stop with the window down and on one occasion, the driver reportedly looked at some children as they left the bus stop and then followed them for a short distance up Stonegate Road before turning around and leaving.
The driver in that case was described as a white male adult with “medium” skin tone, a shaved head, and possibly having blue eyes, officials reported.
Coyote Valley Elementary issued a subsequent notice to parents that the sheriff's office had followed up on another white van that wasn't the suspect vehicle, but which belonged to a local man.
“It is important that we not make quick judgments or unjustified accusations with neighbors and community members that may coincidentally own a white van,” the notice said.
The school also urged parents to take the opportunity to talk to their children about safety around strangers, “but please remind them not to make unfounded accusations or spread rumors that may provoke unwarranted panic.”
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The weather still feels like summer, but the colors are those of fall.
Local photographer Ron Keas captured this unique Lake County landscape with fall colors becoming evident.
Keas captured the shot in Lucerne on Tuesday.
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Rowland James Mosser, 66, who was the center's director from July 2002 to August 2005, was in Judge Andrew Blum's Department 3 courtroom Tuesday for the proceedings.
Mosser is charged with two felony counts of embezzlement and two felony grand theft counts for allegedly taking funds from the center between Jan. 1, 2005, and Aug. 12, 2005.
Deputy District Attorney Gary Luck said in a previous interview that he doesn't have a firm amount for the money allegedly taken from the center during that period of time.
Luck took the case to preliminary hearing early in 2009 but later asked for the charges to be dismissed while a forensic examination of the center's financial records was conducted, as Lake County News has reported. He refiled the case in September 2009.
He estimated the hearing should take two and a half days.
Luck told the court Tuesday that the chief investigator on the case, Ron Larsen, a retired Clearlake Police Department captain who in recent years has worked as a part-time investigator for the District Attorney's Office, is ill and was unable to appear for the hearing. Luck asked to be able to submit a copy of the preliminary hearing transcript from early 2009, which included Larsen's testimony.
Jacob Zamora, Mosser's defense attorney, agreed to allow the transcript in, but only for the preliminary hearing, not for any trial that might result. Blum received the transcript later in the day and planned to start going through it.
During brief opening statements, Luck alleged that Mosser and his wife, Jayne – was was previously charged with a county of felony grand theft that later was dropped – received a financial windfall of about $160,000 in mid-2003.
He said the evidence would show that the Mossers had spent all of the money by 2005, when their bank account was closed with penalty fees.
At the end of 2004 and throughout the rest of Rowland Mosser's tenure at the senior center in 2005, Luck alleged that the tracking of donations coming into the center disappeared.
He alleged that payment of vendors also ceased at the end of 2004, with financial judgments from vendors being lodged against the center at that time. Taxes being withheld from employees' paychecks weren't paid to the state and federal government, Luck said.
Zamora briefly countered, “There was simply no money to steal.”
Over the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, Luck called six witnesses who had worked at the center in various volunteer capacities.
Donna Christopher, who lives just a few doors down from the center, recalled regularly attending events at the center with her family, and making donations of time, money and items, such as durable medical equipment.
Bill Ellis, 92, a longtime board member and the center's former treasurer, recalled how in 2005 the center's checks began bouncing, and how he paid for several energy bills, each totaling more than $2,000.
Jim Swatts of Clearlake Oaks, the center's former board chair, testified to being appointed to the position in July of 2005. Beforehand, he had no affiliation with the center other than attending events and breakfasts there.
After his appointment, he said he found out about the center's financial situation, which wasn't good.
Swatts said Mosser asked him in August 2005 if he could give the senior center board a financial report in closed session. Swatts said he told Mosser no, that he needed to give the report in open session.
“I said it would be given in an open meeting, he said he would not do it,” Swatts said.
Swatts said he then asked the board for a closed session to have a personnel discussion. “I wanted to know when the last time Mr. Mosser was graded on performance,” Swatts said.
Mosser later entered that closed session, went ahead and handed out the financial report against Swatts' direction and also gave the board a piece of paper that said he was resigning in two weeks. After Mosser left the room, the board voted to accept the resignation, Swatts testified.
Immediately afterward, Swatts gave Mosser a letter approved by the board putting him on administrative leave for two weeks. Swatts then collected Mosser's keys and Mosser left.
Swatts recounted having to knock the hinges off a small combination safe in Mosser's office, in which Swatts and several other center board members and volunteers found an envelope marked “bingo” with $500 inside, and other envelope containing less than $98.
Swatts said the Internal Revenue Service informed him that the center owed the government back tax money. During one conversation they told Swatts that they planned to shut the center down within 24 hours if some action wasn't taken.
Swatts and then-Lakeport Senior Center Executive Director Marilyn Johnson worked together to try to get the center on track, he said. J.J. Jackson later was hired as the Lucerne senior center's executive director.
Lillian Sherry, 83, the center's former treasurer and thrift shop volunteer, took over as treasurer for Ellis in April 2005 after Ellis had heart surgery. Like Swatts, she recounted opening the safe in Mosser's former office, with her account matching his regarding what was found in the safe.
Luck also called to the stand Lauralei Smith, who testified about volunteering at the center and taking cash at events, which she turned over to Mosser.
Former senior center board member Eva Mooney, who had been involved in running the center's rose garden and thrift shop, recalled having to reduce her commitments to the center in order to care for her 100-year-old mother in the spring of 2005, with her mother dying that summer.
Mooney said she didn't recall being present at the meeting where Mosser resigned. Her term had ended in July 2005.
“I was just glad it ended,” she said, explaining that she was increasingly getting upset having to deal with the center.
After Mosser left, she said people at the center were cold and rude. “I think they were just not caring.”
Mooney recalled never seeing any money from a duck race event in 2005, and said the family of a woman who died donated a large number of items to the center for the thrift shop, but the items never appeared in the shop. She say Jayne Mosser told her they could get more for the items on eBay
When she handed money from the thrift shop over to Mosser, Mooney recalled that he usually just put it in his pocket, not verifying the amount.
While a board member at the center, Mooney didn't recall Mosser reporting that tax levies or judgments had been placed against the center.
The preliminary hearing is scheduled to continue at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
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The Department of Defense’s Board of Actuaries in late July overhauled the assumptions used to calculate what the services must budget for annually to cover future retirement obligations to the current force.
It acted on analyses from the DoD Office of the Actuary which, for the first time, weighed the effects on retirement costs of Post-9/11 developments including nine years of sustained operations, a deep economic recession and growth in military entitlements of retirees and survivors.
The result is an $800 million jump in accrual retirement costs the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps have to pay starting 2012 because more service members are staying until retirement.
Some of that cost too is a projected 40 percent increase in disability retirements, the result of a crackdown on the low-balling of disability awards by service through stricter compliance with rating practices of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Another $200 million in added yearly retirement costs is attributed to retirees living longer. Death rates are falling – and sharply.
“The improvement that military retirees are seeing in their own mortality is just phenomenal,” said Peter Rossi, one of DoD actuaries that worked on revising projected retirement costs.
Retiree deaths are “decreasing at such a rapid rate – faster than the American public, faster than anyone else – we are seeing a 2-plus percent a year change for active, reserve. It’s everybody.”
Deaths for non-disabled retirees in 2008-09 were 8 percent lower than found for non-disabled retirees in 2004-2005. For retired reservists, data showed a 4 percent drop.
No cause has been identified, Rossi added. “Maybe military folks are just in better shape.”
The changes in actuarial assumptions reportedly surprised Under Secretary of Defense Robert Hale, the DoD comptroller, who already was under considerable pressure to curb the services’ soaring personnel costs.
“The comptroller was not pleased,” said one official. “He now had to go out and find [$1 billion] when Defense Secretary [Robert] Gates is telling him he needs to save money. That was a contentious issue for a while.”
The retention rate of careerist is so high that in the 2012 budget to be delivered to Congress next February, the services will assume that 19 percent of all new entrants serve for 20 years, long enough to qualify for retirement. That’s a “huge” change from the 17 percent previously assumed, said Rossi.
Specifically, the probability of newly commissioned officers reaching retirement will climb to 49 percent from 47. For new enlistees, the assumed retirement rate will be raised to 17 percent from 15.
It forces the services overall to set aside $20 billion in their 2012 budgets to cover active duty retirement costs, an unplanned for 5 percent jump. Another $2.8 billion will have to be set aside for Guard and Reserve retirement but that’s unchanged. Rossi said the Office of the Actuary has not reconsidered assumptions for Guard and Reserve retirement but it soon will.
Another way to look at the effect of the new assumptions on retirement costs is by individual member costs. For fiscal 2011 the services will set aside $32.70 for future retired pay for every $100 paid in basic pay. That proportion will climb to $34.30 for every $100 in basis pay in fiscal 2012. So if a service member draws $50,000 in basic pay, his or her service will have to pony up $17,150 that year for future retired pay, or $800 more than was needed a year earlier.
For many years, the military ignored future retirement obligations, budgeting only to cover payments due each year to current retirees and survivors. That pay-as-you-go method created a huge unfunded liability. Critics also said the services had no incentive to control retirement costs.
In 1984 Congress ordered DoD to switch to “accrual accounting” for retirement accounts. The Treasury Department was given responsibility for the unfunded liability and established a military retirement trust fund. The services began to pay into that fund whatever amount was needed to cover retirement costs for the current active, Guard and Reserve forces.
So retirement obligations today are paid from two pots. Treasury pays roughly $50 billion a year to cover annuities of current retirees and survivors. The services pay more than $20 billion a year in accrual payments.
Once again, no COLA
The board of actuaries assumed at its July meeting that military retirees, social security recipients, federal civilian retirees, disabled veterans and survivors will have to wait until at least January 2012 before they see their next cost-of-living adjustment or COLA.
That prediction looks even more solid now, to the regret of retirees.
No COLA was paid last year because there was no inflation. The cost of goods and services, in fact, fell by 2.1 percent from the third quarter of 2008 through the third quarter of 2009, the periods used to track CPI.
To trigger a COLA for next January, inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) for July through September this year would have to climb by more than 2.1 percent above the third-quarter base period of 2008. For that to happen, prices would have to surge 2 percent in September alone. There are no signs that is happening.
No COLA last year eased the unfunded liability of the military retirement system by $22.3 billion. But it gave no relief to service budgets because Treasury’s pays COLAs of current retirees. Rossi said that over time retirees can expect COLAs to deliver an annual average boost of 3 percent.
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Since its inception in April 2009, the task force has obtained the resignation of 12 attorneys involved in loan modification misconduct.
The efforts of the Task Force have also resulted in six pending loan modification trials, 1,800 active investigations and the processing of more than 4,000 complaints by consumers.
Attorneys who have been disbarred as a result of the task force’s actions have been charged with wide range of misconduct, including the collection of illegal fees; failure to refund fees; nonperformance of work they were hired to perform (loan modifications and foreclosure defense); the formation of partnerships with non-attorneys and assisting non-attorneys in the unauthorized practice of law; filing of frivolous and phony lawsuits to reduce mortgage debt; abandoning clients; failing to return files/documents to clients; making misrepresentations to the court; and, practicing law in states where they are not licensed.
Potential clients are led to believe that all loans can and will be modified by lenders. Consumers should be aware that not all loans can or will be modified by lenders and that many of these operations make no attempt at modifying the loans.
In October 2009 a new law, SB 94, was signed in to law, prohibiting persons from charging advance fees to borrowers in connection with the modification of the terms of the borrower’s loan and requiring those who wish to charge a fee for loan modification services (after performing them) to provide a specific notice to borrowers regarding other options available to the borrower.
Since April 2009 the Loan Modification Task Force has received more than 1,250 complaints and is investigating almost 250 lawyers for questionable practices.
Close to 20,000 attorney files have been removed from the offices of attorneys whose loan modification practices have been shut down or abandoned.
Local law enforcement, the California Attorney General’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have partnered with the task force to investigate and stop businesses and law firms that prey on individuals in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure.
“Our office has given a very high priority to allegations of attorney misconduct in connection with loan modification service, and I have been very impressed by the successful work of the Loan Modification Task Force – to date, 12 lawyers have surrendered their licenses, and four stipulated disbarments have been approved by the State Bar Court,” said Chief Trial Counsel Jim Towery of the State Bar recently commented. “I intend to maintain the office’s aggressive stance with respect to attorneys that have engaged in loan modification misconduct.”
For more information about reporting attorney misconduct go to www.calbar.ca.gov/Attorneys/LawyerRegulation.aspx.
For local assistance with evaluating the options if you are headed toward a foreclosure, contact the California Human Development Corporation at 3315 Airway Drive, Santa Rosa, CA 95403, telephone 707-372-4588 or 707-521-4789 or, for Lake County seniors only, the Senior Law Project at 707-263-4703. Both CHDC and the Sr. Law Project are HUD-approved agencies for loan modification assistance.
Mary Heare Amodio is president of the Lake County Bar Association and practices in the areas of estate planning, probate, conservatorship, guardianship, consumer bankruptcy, in addition to business and real estate transactions. She can be reached at 707-263-5759 or at
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The Friday morning incident claimed the life of 57-year-old Zino Eddine Mezoui, owner of Zino's Ristorante in Kelseyville, a man known for his passion for food and friends.
“We're still following some leads,” said CHP officer Joe Wind.
Mezoui, who had just taken his green 1995 Honda Gold Wing motorcycle out for a long-awaited ride, was traveling southbound on Highway 29 at approximately 10:17 a.m. when a blue 1993 Chevrolet Suburban entered the highway from Seigler Canyon Road directly in his path, according to the CHP report.
The motorcycle collided with the Suburban's driver side door, the CHP said. Witnesses reported that Mezoui and his motorcycle came to rest in the middle of the roadway after the crash.
The Suburban's male driver then fled the scene, the CHP reported. The driver turned around and was last seen heading westbound back up Seigler Canyon Road.
The CHP reported that its officers located the suspect vehicle on Friday but are continuing to investigate who the Suburban's driver was.
Mezoui was flown by REACH air ambulance to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, where the CHP said he was pronounced dead shortly after his arrival.
Capt. James Bauman of the Lake County Sheriff's Office said an autopsy is planned on Tuesday morning.
CHP Officer Ryan Erickson is leading the incident investigation.
Anyone with information should call the CHP's Clear Lake Office, 707-279-0103.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at