Eastern District of California Blog

EDCA Court Holds Anti-Latino Bias In Kern County Redistricting

In a rare challenge of a California voting district, a federal judge sided with residents that Kern County “dilutes” Latino voters’ influence through discriminatory district lines drawn in 2011.

The plaintiffs, represented by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), argued that while more than half of Kern County’s population is Latino, just one of the county’s five voting districts is majority-Latino. They claim the county crafted districts to spread out the Latino vote in order to protect incumbents and create an uneven playing field for Latino candidates.

U.S. District Judge Dale Drozd said the county’s method of electing Board of Supervisors candidates is “not equally open to participation by Latino voters” and violates the Voting Rights Act.

“The evidence before the court supports a finding that voting in Kern County is frequently racially polarized,” Drozd said in a 70-page ruling issued Feb. 23.

Courthouse News Service, 2/26/18

Feds Charge Man With Selling Assault Rifles Without Serial Numbers

On Thursday afternoon, as the nation was reeling from the Florida school shooting where an AR-15 assault weapon was used to kill 17 people, federal agents were booking Michael Paul Smith of Grass Valley into the Sacramento County Main Jail.

The charge?

Manufacturing and selling AR-15 rifles – known as “ghost guns” that are virtually untraceable – to an undercover federal agent.

The arrest stems from a five-month Homeland Security investigation that used the dark web, Bitcoin payments, secret meetings at the Bass Pro Shops parking lot in Rocklin, and discussions of buying grenades, anti-personnel mines and explosives, federal court documents say.

 

Sac Bee, 2/20/1

EDCA Court Takes Live Video Testimony From Pakistan in Hayat Case

In what legal experts are calling one of the first cases of its kind, a Sacramento federal courtroom stayed open until 10 p.m. two nights last week to take live video testimony from Pakistani witnesses 7,353 miles away.

All four Pakistanis testified as alibi witnesses in the evidentiary hearing on whether to free Lodi cherry picker Hamid Hayat, who has spent 12 years in prison after being convicted in 2006 of lying to the FBI and providing assistance to terrorists.

Hayat’s legal team, led by criminal appellate specialist Dennis Riordan, has been fighting for years to prove that he never attended a terrorist camp in Pakistan and was coerced into confessing during two days of grueling interrogation by the FBI.

Sac Bee, 2/20/18

Synthetic Drug Conspiracy Nets Man 3-Year Prison Sentence

According to a DOJ Press Release, Judge Drozd in Fresno sentenced a man on Monday to three years imprisonment after he pled guilty to conspiring to ship misbranded synthetic drugs (i.e., "spice") in interstate commerce with intent to defraud.  U.S. v. Ortiz, No. 1:14-CR-101-DAD.

Feds Seek To Extradite Man From Britain On Charges of Making False Statements Involving International Terrorism

"A former Sacramento youth counselor for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is awaiting extradition to the U.S. on suspicion he lied to the FBI about his role fighting alongside Islamic militants in Syria.  Brian Arthur Dempsey Sr., 46, faces five charges of false statements involving international terrorism."

Sac Bee, 2/13/18

Feds Charge 19 Defendants With Conspiracy to Sell Drugs on Snapchat

Federal officials announced the indictment Wednesday of 19 defendants – including suspected gang members and two current state prison inmates – on charges that they were part of a massive conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin by using social media.

As part of the bust, agents began a series of arrests early Wednesday of suspected members of Varrio Bosque Norte, a Norteno-affiliated street gang known as “VBN” that is based in Woodland.

Agents served 39 federal search warrants and conducted another 30 parole and probation searches on suspects throughout 11 Northern California counties, as well as in Oregon and Pennsylvania.

Federal grand jury indictments unsealed Wednesday morning name 19 defendants, including two incarcerated at Pelican Bay State Prison.

Sac Bee, 2/14/18

EDCA Court Sentences Arson Defendant To Thirty Years Imprisonment After Guilty Plea

What?  A Saturday night federal court hearing?  Never heard of that in my 25 years of EDCA practice.  Here's the Sac Bee's coverage:

A suspect accused in a massive arson for profit scheme that also entangled the father of French train hero Spencer Stone has pleaded guilty in a move that will net him 30 years in prison.

Jamal Mustafa Shehadeh, 58, agreed to the plea in an unusual Saturday night court hearing before U.S. District Judge Morrison C. England Jr., who then sentenced him, court filings show.

“He decided to plead guilty instead of going to trial,” Shehadeh’s assistant federal defender, Matthew Bockman, said Monday.

Shehadeh, who has been in custody at the Sacramento County Jail since being charged in a 60-count indictment in February 2016, pleaded guilty to two counts of arson in a case that allegedly included numerous fires that destroyed Sacramento buildings, $1.5 million in insurance payouts, classified government evidence and even suggestions of murder.

Vacaville Man Files Civil Rights Suit Against Vallejo, Chief of Police, & Officers After Resisting Arrest Acquittal

A Vacaville man and his Fairfield attorney have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in Sacramento against the city of Vacaville, one week after the man was acquitted of a criminal charge of resisting arrest.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday by attorney Justin Tabayoyon also names as defendants Vacaville Police Chief John Carli and four of his officers.

The four officers, Aaron Potter, Brian Halley, Chris Hill and Marc Raymond, now retired, were all involved in an altercation with Francisco R. Galvan, 25, a former Marine and currently a student at the University of California, Berkeley, on the night of Jan. 25, 2015.

Fairfield Daily Republic, 2/7/18

Feds Charge DMV Worker with Identity Theft

A worker at California’s Department of Motor Vehicles, which is the subject on an ongoing federal bribery probe into the misuse of department computer files, has been accused of using driver’s license records in an elaborate mail and identity theft case.

Sarah Laray Sandoval, 39, was a DMV employee with access to computer records that included driver’s names, dates of birth, addresses and other personal information that was used to steal victims’ identities and open phony bank accounts, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Sacramento.

Sandoval, of West Sacramento, is named in the complaint along with Anthony Andrew Zamarron, 37, who shares the same address as Sandoval.

Sac Bee, 2/9/18

Twelve-Year Sentence in Loomis Wealth Solutions Ponzi Scheme Case

A Sacramento-area man was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison Tuesday for running what prosecutors say was a massive Ponzi scheme that cost investors in six states millions of dollars.

U.S. District Judge John Mendez sentenced Lawrence Leland "Lee" Loomis, 60, of Granite Bay, in the scheme that collapsed during the 2008 Great Recession.

He could have faced 18 years in prison under a plea deal that also calls for him to repay less than $500,000 for defrauding nearly 200 investors in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois and Nevada.

Loomis Wealth Solutions took in more than $10 million by promising 12 percent annual returns, prosecutors said. Instead he used the money for expenses and to pay other investors, authorities said.

Sac Bee, 2/6/18 

Sam Stanton's Bee coverage here.