Jury selected for surfers accused in beach brawl
Pretrial motions took place this week Tuesday in a hearing at Malibu Courthouse for two Malibu surfers accused of beating up a paparazzo on the beach as he was snapping photos of actor Matthew McConaughey during the summer of 2008. The hearing was continued to Wednesday of this week, during which jury selections were to be conducted, Monica Gonzalez of the District Attorney’s Media Relations Division said Tuesday in a phone interview.
Malibu residents Skylar Peak and Philip “John” Hildebrand are each charged with one count of misdemeanor battery for their alleged involvement in the June 2008 beating of French paparazzo Rachid Aitmbareck.
The fracas between the paparazzi and the wave riders began on June 21, 2008, when a pack of photographers staked out McConaughey as he surfed at Little Dume Beach.
Video of the incident soon surfaced on the Internet and appeared to show another pack, several young men in surf trunks, ordering Aitmbareck and other paparazzi to “go home,” and dragging the photographers into the water. The surfers say the videos have been edited out of context and do not accurately portray what occurred.
McConaughey was not involved in the altercation.
Malibu Library renovation to begin June 1
The City of Malibu and the County of Los Angeles are working cooperatively on the $5.6 million Malibu Library Renewal Project to improve the interior and exterior of the Malibu Public Library. Beginning June 1, 2010, the library will be closed to allow construction, which is anticipated to be completed in September 2011. Alternative Library programming is being planned.
There is a projected fund balance for the project of $5.2 million, but project costs are estimated to be $5.6 million, leaving a shortfall of $471,000. The Library Task Force is preparing a fundraising campaign to make up the funding required for the project. Letters seeking donations will be mailed to Malibu residents in the near future. Additionally, the Task Force will be hosting an open house at the existing library on May 16 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
More information can be obtained by calling 310.456.2489 ext. 224.
Rambla Pacifico reconstruction EIR now viewable
The draft environmental impact report of the Rambla Pacifico Road Reconstruction Project is now available for review. A CD copy of it can be obtained at Malibu City Hall, and more information can be obtained by calling 310.456.2489 ext. 276.
A huge landslide wiped out 100 feet of road on Rambla Pacifico in early February. The official cause of the landslide is currently under investigation. John Kelly, deputy director of Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, last month said grading of a nearby parcel of land on which a new home is to be built could have instigated it.
“The grading may have caused a slope failure, which revealed a fault surface,” Kelly said. “When [the] earth gave way, it may have fractured an eight-inch water main that ran for a while before it could be shut off.” The excess water, he said, could have exacerbated the landslide.
The failure occurred just south of the intersection of Rambla Pacifico and Las Flores Canyon Road. It has affected the commute of about 20 homeowners south of the landslide, who must now use a three- to five-mile detour to head north.
Kelly said no damage estimates were available, but that it will likely take “several weeks at a minimum” to reconstruct the road.
Layoffs, closures for court system
Plagued by a record shortfall of $79 million, Los Angeles Superior Court officials last week Tuesday announced 329 layoffs and the closure of 17 courtrooms, including ones in San Fernando and Malibu, according to a Contra Costa Times report.
Presiding Judge Charles W. “Tim” McCoy Jr. said another 1,800 layoffs are possible-34 percent of the court workforce-and 180 courtrooms and nine courthouses could be shuttered by 2013 if the system doesn’t get more state funding.
It is expected that the cuts will make the already inundated court system even more clogged, with cases that take longer and increased pressure to release prisoners early to make way for those still facing trial.
“Sadly, this means more courtroom closures downtown and around the county, increasing delays in access to justice, growing case backlogs, longer lines at filing windows and service counters, delays in processing judgments, delays in child support determinations and custody decisions,” McCoy said in the report.
As a result of the state budget crisis, McCoy in the report said another 500 employees will be laid off and 50 more courtrooms shut down by September, including those that handle criminal, family law, general civil, limited civil, complex litigation and small claims
The additional 500 layoffs don’t include 156 voluntary departures through attrition projected this fiscal year. By September, McCoy said he expects the 5,400-employee court system to have lost about 1,000 employees through layoffs and attrition, a 20 percent reduction.
Without these employees, some officials say criminal cases and trials will be delayed, further contributing to jail overcrowding and ultimately more early releases of inmates.
The layoffs and courtroom closures come as Sheriff Lee Baca is cutting $128 million from his budget through overtime reductions and releasing hundreds of nonviolent offenders from the county’s jail system.
Assembly approves smoking ban at state parks and beaches
State lawmakers on Monday adopted one of the nation’s most far-reaching regulations of tobacco use, approving a bill to outlaw smoking at 278 state parks and beaches, according to a report issued by the Los Angeles Times.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has not said publicly whether he will sign the measure, which would allow a fine of up to $100 for smoking at a state beach or in a designated section of a state park.
Smoking would still be allowed in many parking lots and campgrounds. The state has previously banned smoking within 25 feet of a playground or sandbox area and in public buildings.
The addition of the state ban would make much of the Los Angeles beachfront off-limits to cigarettes.
The city of Los Angeles already bans smoking at parks, beaches and within 25 feet of playgrounds, sports fields and picnic areas.
Santa Monica and Malibu have similar bans, as does Long Beach.
Los Angeles County banned smoking on county-run beaches in 2004 and last year extended the ban to parks and public golf courses.
More than 100 local governments statewide have imposed similar bans, the report said, including Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Seal Beach in Orange County.
Although smoking bans at restaurants and bars are widespread around the country, bans on smoking outdoors have been less common outside California.
The measure, which squeaked by with one vote to spare Monday, goes back to the Senate, which had approved it previously and is expected to concur in amendments.
Republicans opposed the bill, saying it was unwarranted meddling in legal behavior.
The Democratic majority, however, argued that the ban was justified because of the health risks of second-hand smoke and the pollution caused by thousands of toxic cigarette butts littering beaches and picnic areas, the report states.
Sen. Jenny Oropeza (D-Long Beach), the author of the statewide bill, SB 4, said in the report that the primary reason for the bill was that cigarette butts represent a significant source of pollution and threaten marine animals, which have difficulty eating and digesting food once they have ingested cigarette debris.
In addition, Oropeza said the California Department of Forestry estimates that smoking is responsible for more than 100 wildfires in an average year, damaging more than 3,400 acres.
Malibu man gets 5.5 years in advertising fraud case
A Malibu resident convicted in relation to an advertising fraud scheme that collected more than $6 million from companies and organizations has been sentenced to 66 months in federal prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said last week Tuesday.
Joshua Hoffman, 40, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge George H. Wu. In addition to the five-and-a-half year prison term, Wu ordered Hoffman to pay $2.1 million in restitution to 277 victims.
Hoffman pleaded guilty in May 2009 to conspiring to commit mail fraud and wire fraud, a charge related to a telemarketing scam involving RAB Publications, a company run out of a Tarzana motel room that claimed to put out several publications and bilked numerous entities with false invoices for advertising purportedly aimed at minority readers, according to a report by Contra Costa Times.
Hoffman-along with six others involved and sentenced in the case-contacted various organizations and collected money based on false claims that the organizations had purchased advertising in the publications, the report states.
They generally targeted entities by contacting officials who had the ability to pay invoices and telling them that a former employee had authorized the purchase of ads in the bogus publications. In many cases, the purported publications were never printed. In other cases, the publications were printed long after the alleged publication dates for the sole purpose of generating “tear sheets” to convince the victims that the purported advertisements were real.
The victimized entities lost more than $6 million, authorities say. The victims in the case include the American Red Cross, Southeastern Michigan; ChoicePoint Inc.; the County of Sacramento; E*Trade Financial; Fed Ex Ground Package System; Instinet; and United Defense.
Rep. Sherman advocates protection of Zuma/Trancas canyons
In his testimony at the House Budget Committee Hearing on March 3, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) advocated the habitat protection of Zuma/Trancas canyons in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area as a budget priority for the 2011 fiscal year.
The budget provides a request for $3.75 million to acquire 286 acres to protect core habitat in Zuma/Trancas canyons.
The National Park Service has preserved approximately 6,500 acres or over 50 percent of the Zuma/Trancas canyons watersheds.
But high-end real estate development on the remaining private in-holdings threatens to displace critical habitat and degrade park scenery and coastal water quality.
The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area Land Protection Plan identifies 484 acres in the watersheds for acquisition by the National Park Service. This includes 28 legal parcels with an estimated fair market value of $6 million.
An additional $2.6 million will be required to purchase the remaining 198 acres of undeveloped parkland within Zuma/Trancas canyons.
To date, the National Park Service has acquired 22,000 acres of parkland using Land and Water Conservation Funds totaling $163 million. The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area has one of the largest backlogs of acquisition needs in the national park system. Approximately 20,595 acres remains to be acquired to complete the Land Protection Plan recommendations. The value of these lands is estimated to be over $57 million.
By Olivia Damavandi