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- Written by: Lake County News reports
Lt. Corey Paulich identified the pilot as Matthew Herron, 89.
Paulich said the sheriff’s office received a report at 5:40 p.m. Friday from the Williams Soaring Center in Williams regarding an overdue aircraft, which was described as a LAK-17B FES MINI Glider.
The aircraft took off from Lampson Airfield at 2 p.m. en route to Mendocino County, Paulich said.
The Williams Soaring Center was able to provide last known GPS coordinates, which placed the aircraft in the area of Mathews Road in Lakeport, according to Paulich’s report.
Paulich said deputies responded to the area and were able to locate the aircraft, which had crashed.
They also located the pilot, Herron, who was deceased. Paulich said Herron was the only occupant of the glider.
Deputies secured the scene and contacted the Federal Aviation Administration. Paulich said the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will be conducting an investigation into the crash.
This is the second aircraft to crash in Lake County this week.
On Tuesday morning, a helicopter crashed on private property near Upper Lake, injuring two people, as Lake County News has reported.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace said Lake County reached 220 cases on Friday, an increase of 25 cases since his last detailed report on July 31.
Of those 220 cases, Pace said 24 are “active,” which means they are continuing to be monitored by Public Health staff, while 194 have recovered.
On Wednesday, Lake County’s second COVID-19-related death was reported. The first was reported on July 3.
There are no current hospitalizations, with total hospitalizations at 17, according to Public Health.
Lake County’s positivity rate was up to 4.6 percent on Friday, the Public Health COVID-19 dashboard showed.
“Overall COVID-19 activity remains manageable in Lake County,” Pace said.
Statewide, nearly 547,000 cases were reported by county Public Health departments as of Friday night, with California’s deaths now surpassing 10,100.
The California Department of Public Health said local health departments have reported 25,679 confirmed positive cases in health care workers and 131 deaths statewide.
Pace said Lake County is not on the state’s monitoring list, which currently has put restrictions on 38 counties representing 97 percent of the state’s population.
“We are in good shape with regard to state metrics at this time, but must remain vigilant for the long haul,” said Pace.
All of Lake’s neighboring counties are on the state’s monitoring list. They reported the following case numbers on Friday: Colusa, 362 cases, four deaths; Glenn, 360 cases, three deaths; Mendocino, 380 cases, 10 deaths; Napa, 1,046 cases, 10 deaths; Sonoma, 3,431 cases, 47 deaths; and Yolo, 1,690 cases, 43 deaths.
Lake County’s tests totaled 7,403 on Friday. The California Department of Public Health reported there have been 8,596,882 tests conducted in California, an increase of 96,419 over the prior 24-hour reporting period.
Pace said Lake County residents have recently reported delays of seven to 10 days or even greater when waiting for test results. He said Quest labs modified their sample evaluation procedures, and have outsourced more work to other labs.
He said Verily testing remains available five days a week in Lake County; register for appointments here. LabCorp has at-home testing kits, with a reported average turnaround time of two to three days.
Health and Human Services secretary discusses data issues
In other COVID-19 news, on Friday California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly gave an update on the technical issues that have led to the state’s delayed laboratory data reporting.
He said a server outage occurred on July 25 that created a delay in lab records coming into the state’s lab reporting system.
His agency instituted technical changes meant to help data flow more quickly into the system. Those technical changes were supposed to be temporary but were not later disabled, which Ghaly said caused further delays in lab data reports and created an extensive backlog.
Simultaneously, Health and Human Services officials discovered they were not receiving data from one of their largest commercial labs from July 31 to Aug. 4, which Ghaly said was the result of the state not renewing a certificate in a timely manner.
He said he became aware of the backlog late on Monday afternoon and alerted Gov. Gavin Newsom and his senior staff shortly thereafter.
Ghaly said the California Reportable Disease Information Exchange, or CalREDIE – which is the California Department of Public Health's communicable disease reporting and surveillance system – “was not built for this volume of data.”
“In order to create a lasting solution, we are accelerating the development of a new laboratory reporting system for COVID-19,” he said.
In the short term, Ghaly said they have reversed the technical changes made last month that were supposed to be temporary and renewed the certificate to allow for data transfer.
Ghaly said they are now putting in place new protocols and notifications when any changes are made, upgrading servers to ensure extra capacity and now have a redundant system that validates the data and reports.
“The governor has directed a full investigation of what happened and we will hold people accountable,” Ghaly said.
As of Friday afternoon, Ghaly said over the previous 24 hours his agency had seen a normalization of the flow of data coming into its lab reporting system.
In the coming 24 to 48 hours, Ghaly said they expected the backlog that is between 250,000 and 300,000 records will be resolved, giving them a better sense of the total number of tests that were delayed.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Lake County News reports
NORTH COAST, Calif. – This week an Oakland man was sentenced to life in prison for killing a Bay Area couple in 2013 in Fort Bragg.
On Wednesday, US District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer sentenced 53-year-old Wing Wo Ma to life in prison for the killings of Jim Tat Kong and Cindy Bao Feng Chen, according to a report from Lt. Andrew Porter of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.
Also known as Mark Ma or Fat Mark, Wing Mo Ma was convicted of the killings in the fall, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.
Mendocino County Sheriff’s deputies found the bodies of Kong and Chen, his wife, in a minivan in the 31000 block of Highway 20 in Fort Bragg on the afternoon of Oct. 17, 2013, Porter said.
Porter said both were determined to have been killed by gunshots to the backs of their heads.
The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office was assisted by the California Department of Justice Criminalists and the Mendocino County District Attorney's Office, Porter said.
The investigation led Mendocino County Sheriff's detectives to the Bay Area, where Porter said they worked largely in partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigations’ Asian Organized Crime unit out of San Francisco.
On Oct. 22, 2015, Ma was arrested by Mendocino County Sheriff's Detectives and the FBI outside his home in Oakland, for a federal arrest warrant alleging manufacturing and distribution of a controlled substance, an enhancement for the previous section with more than 100 marijuana plants and conspiracy to commit above charges, Porter said.
Porter said Ma was held without bail in federal custody, and on April 6, 2017, a federal grand jury gave a superseding indictment on Ma for two counts of causing the death of a person through the use of a firearm. Ma also was federally indicted for multiple counts of corruption, bribery of officials and conspiracy.
On Nov. 7, 2019, Ma was found guilty of all counts following a three-week trial in federal court in San Francisco, officials said.
According to the evidence submitted at trial, Ma shot and killed Kong and Chen on Oct. 17, 2013, while the couple was seated in their minivan. Beginning in January of 2013, Ma had borrowed money from Kong for several business ventures including a marijuana grow and a real estate scheme in Mendocino County.
Fearing retribution from Kong upon finding himself unable to repay the money, Ma met with Kong and Chen on Chen’s birthday. While seated in the car, Ma shot each of the victims with a single gunshot to the head and then left their bodies in the minivan parked in a secluded, wooded area in Mendocino County.
The evidence also showed that Ma bribed Harry Hu, an inspector employed by the Alameda County District Attorney and a former lieutenant in the Oakland Police Department.
Ma bribed the inspector with airfare for multiple trips to Las Vegas, free accommodation at high-end suites and hotel rooms at Las Vegas casinos, meals and entertainment in Las Vegas and San Francisco, female hostesses at private room bars in Las Vegas and San Francisco, music concert tickets, use of a new Mercedes Benz, and labor for the remodel of the DA investigator’s personal residence.
Prosecutors said Ma bribed Hu in an effort to protect himself from prosecution and investigation by Hu and other law enforcement agencies. Ma also collected money from criminal associates for the purpose of bribing Hu and represented to criminal associates that Hu was an investor in Ma’s fraudulent investment projects.
As part of the bribery scheme, Ma used Hu’s name and reputation to attract investors to Ma’s fraudulent schemes, officials said.
In handing down Ma’s sentence on Wednesday, Judge Breyer called the murder of Kong and Chen a "cold-blooded assassination."
Porter said the case was prosecuted federally by the United States Attorney's Office in San Francisco due to the far-reaching crimes connected to the murders committed in Mendocino County.
The primary agencies involved in the investigation were the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office, the Mendocino County District Attorney's Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Porter said.
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- Written by: DENNIS FORDHAM
In California, if a decedent dies with a “small estate,” the “affidavit procedure” may be used by the decedent’s successor in interest, “… to collect money, receive tangible personal property, to obtain evidence of a debt, obligation, interest, right, security or chose in action.”
Let us discuss some scenarios.
Presently, a small estate in California is one under $166,250 in total value. The value of the decedent’s vehicles, vessels, truck camper, floating home, or manufactured and mobile homes are excluded. Also excluded is up to $16,625 in unpaid salary or other compensation owed the decedent. If the decedent owned assets inside of a trust or assets with designated death beneficiaries these are not part of the estate.
The affidavit procedure may be used by decedent’s successor in Interest once 40 days have passed since the decedent’s death. Successor in interest means the decedent’s beneficiary, or beneficiaries, entitled to inherit the property under the decedent’s will; otherwise, if the decedent had no will, it means the decedent’s heir(s).
To use the affidavit procedure, the successor in interest (claimant) must provide the person in possession with the following: a sworn affidavit/declaration of small estate signed by the successor in interest before a notary, a certified death certificate and an inventory and appraisal (if the decedent owned any real property), evidence of the decedent’s ownership of the property (if relevant), and proof of the claimant’s own identity. The required content of the affidavit/declaration is found in section 13101 of the Probate Code.
As an example consider a decedent who dies owning valuable jewelry in a consignment store. The decedent has a will leaving her estate to her one daughter. Her estate is under $166,250 and does not include any real property.
Forty days after the decedent’s death, the daughter provides the consignment store with the required affidavit/declaration of small estate with the decedent’s certified death certificate attached. The daughter presents the decedent’s consignment store receipt showing the decedent owned the jewelry, and her California driver’s license. The jewelry store then gives her the jewelry.
Sometimes, when dealing with a financial institution (like a bank or brokerage), it is often necessary to include a “hold harmless” provision in the affidavit to induce the financial institution to provide the assets in the decedent’s account.
In California, once the claimant (affiant/declarant) has satisfied the affidavit procedure requirements, the person in possession must transfer title/possession of the property to the claimant. Otherwise, the successor is entitled to bring a lawsuit to recover the property or compel its payment, deliver or transfer. The claimant may also recover reasonable attorney fees if the court finds that the holder acted unreasonably in refusing to pay, deliver or transfer the property.
The affidavit/declaration procedure, however, is not exclusive of other procedures. That is, a probate may still be opened, if necessary, because of competing ownership claims or because the decedent’s creditors want the decedent’s estate to pay debts.
If the decedent’s estate becomes subject to a probate then the affidavit/declaration can only be used with the written permission of the decedent’s court appointed personal representative. Moreover, the personal representative may recover property received earlier by a successor in interest using the affidavit procedure when a probate is later commenced.
Another form of the affidavit procedure is available for the decedent’s successor to claim title to real property when the decedent owned real property appraised by the local probate referee at less than $55,425, presently. The real property affidavit procedure can only be used after six months from the decedent’s death. The affidavit, death certificate and inventory and appraisal are recorded as one document in the county where the property is situated.
The foregoing is a generalized discussion of how California’s affidavit procedure can be used as an alternative to probate for small estates. In addition, there is a small estate petition that applies when the appraised value of the decedent’s real property exceeds $55,425 but the estate is still a small estate under $166,250.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney, is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, California. He can be reached at