LA cop caught in child sex sting; body found near Manson site ID'd; cats going missing
- Updated
Odd and interesting news from the West.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
TACOMA, Wash. — A Tacoma lawyer has been accused of having sex with an inmate and bringing drugs for others while visiting Pierce County Jail.
The News Tribune reports William Stoddard Jr. pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of introducing contraband, unlawfully delivering a controlled substance and conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance.
An inmate who visited with Stoddard 19 times between March 2015 and February 2016 says the two had sex and that in exchange Stoddard provided money to the inmate.
Court documents say Stoddard also brought butane hash oil to the inmate, who would deliver it to other prisoners who had earlier met with Stoddard to give him money.
The 68-year-old's bail was set at $7,500 and his privileges to visit the jail as a lawyer have been suspended.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles school police officer has been charged with attempted sex trafficking of a child and trying to use the Internet to lure a child into sex.
Twenty-eight-year-old Mauricio Estrada surrendered to authorities on Wednesday, a day after he was indicted by a federal grand jury. City News Service says he pleaded not guilty to the charges Wednesday and was released on bond.
Authorities say Estrada offered to pay $150 to have sex with a 15-year-old girl after answering an ad on Craigslist on April 20. The ad and the non-existent "girl" were part of a sting operation and Estrada was confronted by authorities when he arrived at an Artesia gas station for the alleged encounter.
The Los Angeles Unified School District has placed Estrada on administrative leave.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
LOS ANGELES — A Southern California man has been arrested on suspicion of flying a jet with eight passengers on board without a pilot's license.
Thirty-six-year-old Arnold Leto of Irvine was arrested Wednesday, a day after being charged with the federal crime. He remains jailed.
A call to his attorney seeking comment wasn't immediately returned.
Prosecutors say Leto's pilot certificate was revoked in January and he also hadn't been licensed to fly a turbojet when he piloted a twin-engine Falcon 10 from Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles to Las Vegas on April 8.
Authorities say Leto also didn't have the required co-pilot on board.
If convicted, he could face up to three years in federal prison.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Afternoon thunderstorms packed with hail and snow moved through Northern California, pelting people with grape-size hail and dusting the Sierra Nevada with light snow.
The thunderstorms began moving into Northern California Wednesday afternoon.
A water spout was spotted Wednesday afternoon over Lake Berryessa in Napa County.
Sacramento television station KCRA reported that in the city of Oakdale, heavy hail caused several carports in a mobile home community to cave.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
SEATTLE — Officials say an American Airlines flight headed to Dallas returned to the Seattle Tacoma International Airport after striking a bird during takeoff.
Sea-Tac Airport officials said in a tweet that the flight with 150 passengers landed safely Wednesday afternoon.
KIRO-TV reports a crater left by the bird was visible on the nose of the plane as it landed.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
LOS ANGELES — Newly released emails show Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell's chief of staff forwarded emails containing jokes mocking minorities, Muslims and women when he worked for Burbank police.
The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that Tom Angel sent the emails between 2012 and 2013 when he was second-in-command at the Burbank Police Department. The Times obtained the emails through public records law.
The newspaper says one email joked about "blacks" and Mexicans filling jail cells. Another listed "towels for hats" for why "Muslim terrorists are so quick to commit suicide." It also said, "You can't wash off the smell of donkey."
Angel told the Times he's sorry if he offended anyone and never intended for the emails to become public.
McDonnell says he's disappointed but has no disciplinary plans.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
KELSO, Wash. — A former teacher in Kelso has been sentenced to nine months in jail for communicating with a minor for immoral purposes.
The Daily News reports Walter Monroe Knowles was caught asking for sex through Facebook from a fictitious 14-year-old girl named Amanda.
The girl was in reality a Cowlitz County deputy who arranged with Knowles to meet at a Starbucks, where he was arrested.
In 1998, Knowles was convicted of first-degree child molestation for having sexual contact with girls in his elementary school classroom.
The 76-year-old apologized in court Tuesday, saying he made a terrible mistake.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
PHOENIX — A former Phoenix elementary school teacher accused of having a sexual relationship with a young girl last year has pleaded guilty to three sex-crime charges.
Maricopa County Superior Court officials say Kenne Worthen pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of sexual conduct with a minor and two counts of attempted child molestation.
He's scheduled to be sentenced on July 29.
The 28-year-old Worthen was arrested in April 2015 after police say he had been sending inappropriate text messages to the then 12-year-old girl for some time.
Authorities say the sexual relationship was discovered after interviews with the girl and Worthen.
Court records show Worthen previously worked as a teacher at Longview Elementary.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
LAS VEGAS — A veteran Las Vegas police K-9 officer is denying that he burned his recreational vehicle trailer in January for insurance money.
Defense attorney Andrew Leavitt said Wednesday that Jeff Lynn Harper, 36, removed a flat tire from the parked toy-hauler along a Nevada highway and drove to Pahrump to repair it when fire destroyed the trailer and an all-terrain vehicle inside.
"Somebody torched the trailer," Leavitt said. "He didn't do it."
Harper was current on payments for the trailer and the ATV, Leavitt added, suggesting that he wouldn't have any motive to destroy them.
State Attorney General Adam Laxalt said fire investigators determined the fire had been set, and he blamed Harper.
Charges filed Monday accuse Harper of insurance fraud, theft, attempted theft and arson. A conviction could get Harper decades in prison and put him on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in restitution.
A Las Vegas judge on Wednesday set a June 1 preliminary hearing. Harper remains free on bond.
Harper joined the department in September 1999, a Las Vegas police spokeswoman said. He will be suspended without pay pending the outcome of the criminal case, she said.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
DENVER — Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey has filed assault charges against a 57-year-old man accused of running down a golfer with a golf cart.
Richard Ponds is accused of second-degree assault. There was no attorney listed for Ponds in court files.
Ponds is accused of running down the unidentified man on April 3 at Wellshire Golf Course after the two men got into an argument.
The victim told police he got into a dispute because the suspect refused to get off the golf course after he was finished.
Morrissey says Ponds ran the man down with a golf cart, causing injuries that required stitches.
Ponds is due back in court May 17.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
CUPERTINO, Calif. — Authorities responded to Apple's campus in Cupertino for a report of a dead body in a conference room.
KTVU reported that Santa Clara County sheriff's deputies say they were called to the scene shortly before 9 a.m. Wednesday.
The gender, name, and age of the dead person were not available.
The sheriff's office did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press. Apple representatives did not respond to emails for comment.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
BOISE, Idaho — Residents of a southeast Boise neighborhood say at least 25 cats have disappeared from the area in the last few months and are concerned missing cats could be a problem throughout the city.
Cat owners told KBOI-TV that felines started disappearing last July and then again in the last few weeks.
Erin Liedtke says five stray cats living in her garage for eight years all vanished in the last nine months.
Humane Society spokeswoman Allison Maier says predators are a big concern and a reason cats go missing.
But Liedtke and Kristi Dohner, whose cat disappeared months ago, says predators would have left carcasses.
They suspect a person is responsible, and Liedtke has started a "Catch the Boise Cat Napper" page on Facebook.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
SALT LAKE CITY — Federal prosecutors say they took aerial videos and installed surveillance cameras at a polygamous town's general store to gather evidence in a multimillion-dollar food stamp fraud case.
Prosecutor Robert Lund said Wednesday in a Salt Lake City courtroom that the FBI got permission to use the cameras inside and outside the store on the Utah-Arizona border.
The revelation provides new insight into how authorities carried out a multi-year investigation that led to 11 people being charged in one of the biggest crackdowns on a group led by Warren Jeffs.
All the defendants have pleaded not guilty.
Lund offered the information after U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart questioned why the government hadn't turned over all its evidence by an April 15 deadline.
Lund says the video takes up about 48 terabytes of data.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
KODIAK, Alaska — Federal wildlife managers say efforts to remove a herd of more than 2,000 feral cattle on Chirikof Island that have long gone without caretakers have stopped due to funding issues.
The Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge said in a press release Monday that the 2016 federal budget prohibits supporting removal efforts regarding cattle on Chirikof or on Wosnesenski Island south of the Alaska Peninsula.
The Chirikof animals are descendants of cattle first brought to the 29,000-acre island in the late 1880s to provide meat for whaling crews and fox traders.
The refuge has long been trying to remove the non-native herd and was nearing completion of an environmental impact statement to explore different options.
"It was a couple of years in," refuge manager Steve Delehanty said.
Delehanty said the refuge acknowledges members of the public who provided "excellent feedback" regarding the cattle. The refuge had received hundreds of public comments on the issue, he said.
"If authorized in the future, we hope to provide a draft EIS for public review and comment and address these issues," the release says.
- By SCOTT SONNER Associated Press
- Updated
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval is considering legal action to force the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to pony up some money to pay for roundups of wild horses in the state that have been put on hold because of federal budgetary constraints.
BLM State Director John Ruhs asked agency leaders in Washington D.C. earlier this month to approve funding for a series of gathers in northeast Nevada's Elko County where ranchers are being asked to curtail livestock grazing due to lingering drought.
The federal agency currently plans no large-scale roundups in Nevada this year because of budget shortfalls driven largely by the cost of housing more than 45,000 mustangs now in government holding facilities across the country.
Sandoval says if BLM's parent Interior Department refuses to provide the necessary funding, he'll "pursue all legal options" to protect Nevada's ranchers and rural communities.
The Republican governor in a statement Tuesday said the BLM has "underfunded the wild horse program for years."
"For too long, Nevada has been forced to compensate for the federal government's inability to manage these growing populations without the appropriate resources," Sandoval said.
Nevada is home to nearly 28,000 wild horses — more than half of the 47,000 estimated in 10 western states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.
BLM argues the range can sustain less than half that many — about 12,000 in Nevada and 26,000 nationally.
Sandoval said BLM's latest estimates indicate there are more than 5,000 wild horses in a series of herd management areas in southern Elko County alone — three times more than BLM maintains is appropriate for that region.
Nevada Department of Agriculture Director Jim Barbee said ranchers could face anywhere from a 25 percent reduction to elimination of grazing altogether on federal lands in Elko County where they have permits to graze their cattle through the end of the year. He said those restrictions could have as much as a $1.8 million negative impact on Elko County's economy.
Nevada Department of Wildlife Director Tony Wasley said many of the areas with the horses contain habitat critical to the greater sage grouse at risk of being degraded.
Deniz Bolbol of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign said private livestock grazing on public land far outweighs the negative impacts mustangs have on sage grouse habitat.
More like this...
- The Associated Press
TACOMA, Wash. — A Tacoma lawyer has been accused of having sex with an inmate and bringing drugs for others while visiting Pierce County Jail.
The News Tribune reports William Stoddard Jr. pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of introducing contraband, unlawfully delivering a controlled substance and conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance.
An inmate who visited with Stoddard 19 times between March 2015 and February 2016 says the two had sex and that in exchange Stoddard provided money to the inmate.
Court documents say Stoddard also brought butane hash oil to the inmate, who would deliver it to other prisoners who had earlier met with Stoddard to give him money.
The 68-year-old's bail was set at $7,500 and his privileges to visit the jail as a lawyer have been suspended.
- The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles school police officer has been charged with attempted sex trafficking of a child and trying to use the Internet to lure a child into sex.
Twenty-eight-year-old Mauricio Estrada surrendered to authorities on Wednesday, a day after he was indicted by a federal grand jury. City News Service says he pleaded not guilty to the charges Wednesday and was released on bond.
Authorities say Estrada offered to pay $150 to have sex with a 15-year-old girl after answering an ad on Craigslist on April 20. The ad and the non-existent "girl" were part of a sting operation and Estrada was confronted by authorities when he arrived at an Artesia gas station for the alleged encounter.
The Los Angeles Unified School District has placed Estrada on administrative leave.
- The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — A Southern California man has been arrested on suspicion of flying a jet with eight passengers on board without a pilot's license.
Thirty-six-year-old Arnold Leto of Irvine was arrested Wednesday, a day after being charged with the federal crime. He remains jailed.
A call to his attorney seeking comment wasn't immediately returned.
Prosecutors say Leto's pilot certificate was revoked in January and he also hadn't been licensed to fly a turbojet when he piloted a twin-engine Falcon 10 from Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles to Las Vegas on April 8.
Authorities say Leto also didn't have the required co-pilot on board.
If convicted, he could face up to three years in federal prison.
- The Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Afternoon thunderstorms packed with hail and snow moved through Northern California, pelting people with grape-size hail and dusting the Sierra Nevada with light snow.
The thunderstorms began moving into Northern California Wednesday afternoon.
A water spout was spotted Wednesday afternoon over Lake Berryessa in Napa County.
Sacramento television station KCRA reported that in the city of Oakdale, heavy hail caused several carports in a mobile home community to cave.
- The Associated Press
SEATTLE — Officials say an American Airlines flight headed to Dallas returned to the Seattle Tacoma International Airport after striking a bird during takeoff.
Sea-Tac Airport officials said in a tweet that the flight with 150 passengers landed safely Wednesday afternoon.
KIRO-TV reports a crater left by the bird was visible on the nose of the plane as it landed.
- The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Newly released emails show Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell's chief of staff forwarded emails containing jokes mocking minorities, Muslims and women when he worked for Burbank police.
The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that Tom Angel sent the emails between 2012 and 2013 when he was second-in-command at the Burbank Police Department. The Times obtained the emails through public records law.
The newspaper says one email joked about "blacks" and Mexicans filling jail cells. Another listed "towels for hats" for why "Muslim terrorists are so quick to commit suicide." It also said, "You can't wash off the smell of donkey."
Angel told the Times he's sorry if he offended anyone and never intended for the emails to become public.
McDonnell says he's disappointed but has no disciplinary plans.
- The Associated Press
KELSO, Wash. — A former teacher in Kelso has been sentenced to nine months in jail for communicating with a minor for immoral purposes.
The Daily News reports Walter Monroe Knowles was caught asking for sex through Facebook from a fictitious 14-year-old girl named Amanda.
The girl was in reality a Cowlitz County deputy who arranged with Knowles to meet at a Starbucks, where he was arrested.
In 1998, Knowles was convicted of first-degree child molestation for having sexual contact with girls in his elementary school classroom.
The 76-year-old apologized in court Tuesday, saying he made a terrible mistake.
- The Associated Press
PHOENIX — A former Phoenix elementary school teacher accused of having a sexual relationship with a young girl last year has pleaded guilty to three sex-crime charges.
Maricopa County Superior Court officials say Kenne Worthen pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of sexual conduct with a minor and two counts of attempted child molestation.
He's scheduled to be sentenced on July 29.
The 28-year-old Worthen was arrested in April 2015 after police say he had been sending inappropriate text messages to the then 12-year-old girl for some time.
Authorities say the sexual relationship was discovered after interviews with the girl and Worthen.
Court records show Worthen previously worked as a teacher at Longview Elementary.
- The Associated Press
LAS VEGAS — A veteran Las Vegas police K-9 officer is denying that he burned his recreational vehicle trailer in January for insurance money.
Defense attorney Andrew Leavitt said Wednesday that Jeff Lynn Harper, 36, removed a flat tire from the parked toy-hauler along a Nevada highway and drove to Pahrump to repair it when fire destroyed the trailer and an all-terrain vehicle inside.
"Somebody torched the trailer," Leavitt said. "He didn't do it."
Harper was current on payments for the trailer and the ATV, Leavitt added, suggesting that he wouldn't have any motive to destroy them.
State Attorney General Adam Laxalt said fire investigators determined the fire had been set, and he blamed Harper.
Charges filed Monday accuse Harper of insurance fraud, theft, attempted theft and arson. A conviction could get Harper decades in prison and put him on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in restitution.
A Las Vegas judge on Wednesday set a June 1 preliminary hearing. Harper remains free on bond.
Harper joined the department in September 1999, a Las Vegas police spokeswoman said. He will be suspended without pay pending the outcome of the criminal case, she said.
- The Associated Press
DENVER — Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey has filed assault charges against a 57-year-old man accused of running down a golfer with a golf cart.
Richard Ponds is accused of second-degree assault. There was no attorney listed for Ponds in court files.
Ponds is accused of running down the unidentified man on April 3 at Wellshire Golf Course after the two men got into an argument.
The victim told police he got into a dispute because the suspect refused to get off the golf course after he was finished.
Morrissey says Ponds ran the man down with a golf cart, causing injuries that required stitches.
Ponds is due back in court May 17.
- The Associated Press
CUPERTINO, Calif. — Authorities responded to Apple's campus in Cupertino for a report of a dead body in a conference room.
KTVU reported that Santa Clara County sheriff's deputies say they were called to the scene shortly before 9 a.m. Wednesday.
The gender, name, and age of the dead person were not available.
The sheriff's office did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press. Apple representatives did not respond to emails for comment.
- The Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho — Residents of a southeast Boise neighborhood say at least 25 cats have disappeared from the area in the last few months and are concerned missing cats could be a problem throughout the city.
Cat owners told KBOI-TV that felines started disappearing last July and then again in the last few weeks.
Erin Liedtke says five stray cats living in her garage for eight years all vanished in the last nine months.
Humane Society spokeswoman Allison Maier says predators are a big concern and a reason cats go missing.
But Liedtke and Kristi Dohner, whose cat disappeared months ago, says predators would have left carcasses.
They suspect a person is responsible, and Liedtke has started a "Catch the Boise Cat Napper" page on Facebook.
- The Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY — Federal prosecutors say they took aerial videos and installed surveillance cameras at a polygamous town's general store to gather evidence in a multimillion-dollar food stamp fraud case.
Prosecutor Robert Lund said Wednesday in a Salt Lake City courtroom that the FBI got permission to use the cameras inside and outside the store on the Utah-Arizona border.
The revelation provides new insight into how authorities carried out a multi-year investigation that led to 11 people being charged in one of the biggest crackdowns on a group led by Warren Jeffs.
All the defendants have pleaded not guilty.
Lund offered the information after U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart questioned why the government hadn't turned over all its evidence by an April 15 deadline.
Lund says the video takes up about 48 terabytes of data.
- The Associated Press
KODIAK, Alaska — Federal wildlife managers say efforts to remove a herd of more than 2,000 feral cattle on Chirikof Island that have long gone without caretakers have stopped due to funding issues.
The Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge said in a press release Monday that the 2016 federal budget prohibits supporting removal efforts regarding cattle on Chirikof or on Wosnesenski Island south of the Alaska Peninsula.
The Chirikof animals are descendants of cattle first brought to the 29,000-acre island in the late 1880s to provide meat for whaling crews and fox traders.
The refuge has long been trying to remove the non-native herd and was nearing completion of an environmental impact statement to explore different options.
"It was a couple of years in," refuge manager Steve Delehanty said.
Delehanty said the refuge acknowledges members of the public who provided "excellent feedback" regarding the cattle. The refuge had received hundreds of public comments on the issue, he said.
"If authorized in the future, we hope to provide a draft EIS for public review and comment and address these issues," the release says.
- By SCOTT SONNER Associated Press
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval is considering legal action to force the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to pony up some money to pay for roundups of wild horses in the state that have been put on hold because of federal budgetary constraints.
BLM State Director John Ruhs asked agency leaders in Washington D.C. earlier this month to approve funding for a series of gathers in northeast Nevada's Elko County where ranchers are being asked to curtail livestock grazing due to lingering drought.
The federal agency currently plans no large-scale roundups in Nevada this year because of budget shortfalls driven largely by the cost of housing more than 45,000 mustangs now in government holding facilities across the country.
Sandoval says if BLM's parent Interior Department refuses to provide the necessary funding, he'll "pursue all legal options" to protect Nevada's ranchers and rural communities.
The Republican governor in a statement Tuesday said the BLM has "underfunded the wild horse program for years."
"For too long, Nevada has been forced to compensate for the federal government's inability to manage these growing populations without the appropriate resources," Sandoval said.
Nevada is home to nearly 28,000 wild horses — more than half of the 47,000 estimated in 10 western states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.
BLM argues the range can sustain less than half that many — about 12,000 in Nevada and 26,000 nationally.
Sandoval said BLM's latest estimates indicate there are more than 5,000 wild horses in a series of herd management areas in southern Elko County alone — three times more than BLM maintains is appropriate for that region.
Nevada Department of Agriculture Director Jim Barbee said ranchers could face anywhere from a 25 percent reduction to elimination of grazing altogether on federal lands in Elko County where they have permits to graze their cattle through the end of the year. He said those restrictions could have as much as a $1.8 million negative impact on Elko County's economy.
Nevada Department of Wildlife Director Tony Wasley said many of the areas with the horses contain habitat critical to the greater sage grouse at risk of being degraded.
Deniz Bolbol of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign said private livestock grazing on public land far outweighs the negative impacts mustangs have on sage grouse habitat.
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