CDCR NEWS
Imperial Valley News
Sacramento, California - Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced the following appointments.
Kristoffer Applegate, 37, of Sacramento, has been appointed assistant secretary for legislative affairs at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, where he has served as chief of legislative affairs for adult operations since 2012 and was a legislative manager from 2009 to 2012 and a legislative analyst from 2006 to 2009. Applegate served as a legislative analyst at the California Department of Consumer Affairs from 2005 to 2006 and was an expediter at Expo Design Center from 2004 to 2005. He served as a law clerk at the Placer County Public Defender’s Office from 2003 to 2004 and as a certified student attorney at the Federal Public Defender’s Office, Eastern District of California from 2001 to 2003. Applegate earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $120,000. Applegate is a Democrat.
Don Thompson, The Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California's efforts to ease its famously harsh use of solitary confinement are clashing with a bloody reality after an inmate who spent decades alone in a tiny cell was sent back to the general population and killed by fellow inmates within days.
Hugo "Yogi" Pinell's repeated assaults on guards landed him in solitary confinement beginning in the early 1970s, making him one of the longest-serving solitary confinement inmates in the nation, said Keramet Reiter, a University of California, Irvine, professor of criminology who studies the issue.
Job seekers can meet with over 75 employers
The Press Tribune
Job seekers in Placer, Sacramento and El Dorado counties are invited to a free job fair Aug. 21 in Roseville, according to a news release Monday.
A collaboration between those three counties and Sacramento Works, Golden Sierra Job Training and the city of Roseville, the job fair will host more than 75 area employers looking to meet job seekers face to face. Employers confirmed to attend include the California Department of Corrections, California Highway Patrol, Consolidated Communications, CalTrans, CVS, A. Teichert & Sons, Inductive Automation, Goodwill Industries, Floor & Décor, Elk Grove Unified School District, LB Construction, Placer County, Sacramento Sheriff’s Department, Thunder Valley Casino Resort, UC Davis, Walmart and many more.
CALIFORNIA PRISONS
Ralph Pekor spent two years painting walls of Folsom Prison
Dave Manoucheri, KCRA 3
It is a tale of Hollywood, political cartoons, of art and of war, and a homage to DaVinci’s Last Supper.
All are tied together by one man -- a painter -- convicted of a killing in Southern California and sent to Folsom State Prison.
CALIFORNIA PAROLE
Sam Stanton, The Sacramento Bee
Hugo “Yogi” Pinell, who was stabbed to death Wednesday in a maximum-security yard at California State Prison, Sacramento, in Folsom sought parole 10 times before his death, most recently in May 2014.
The 191-page transcript of Pinell’s bid for parole, which was denied, offers a glimpse into the starkly different perceptions of the man.
Dana Bartholomew, LA Daily News
Lawmen across the state are seeking to block the parole of a man who’d indirectly helped murder a Los Angeles cop in front of his 6-year-old son in a hail of machine gun fire in front of a Canoga Park church school.
Unions representing Los Angeles police and California prosecutors this month joined with the widow of Detective Thomas C. Williams to attempt to block the recent parole of Voltaire Alphonse Williams (no relation), one of six men accused of killing the policeman 30 years ago to keep him from testifying in a murder trial.
FBI
LEXINGTON—A registered sex offender from California, who previously admitted to coercing a minor from eastern Kentucky to send him sexually explicit photos of herself, has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.
On Thursday, Chief U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell sentenced 38 year-old Luis Antonio Caballero for enticing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purposes of producing a visual image of that sexual conduct. At the time of this offense, Caballero was on parole, for another crime related to the sexual exploitation of a minor in California. Due to this previous conviction, Caballero’s sentence was enhanced. Under federal law, Caballero must serve at least 85 percent of his prison sentence.
Brian Rokos The Press‑Enterprise
Lonny Remmers, the Corona pastor sentenced to a two-year term for assaulting a 13-year-old son of a church member, was paroled from state prison on Aug. 6, having served nine months and 13 days.
"He served whatever was appropriate as stated by law and the sentence he was given," Joe Orlando, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, wrote in an email.
CALIFORNIA INMATES
Chelcey Adami, The Salinas Californian
An inmate at Salinas Valley State Prison has pleaded guilty to strangling his cellmate in 2011, the Monterey County District Attorney’s office said Friday.
Joshuwa Vinyard, 30, pleaded guilty to murder and had been previously convicted of battery upon another person causing serious bodily injury. He was serving a sentence for resisting an executive officer by using threat or violence when the 2011 murder occurred.
CORRECTIONS RELATED
Ken Carlson, The Modesto Bee
Andrea Conklin’s story of going from drug addiction to recovery set the tone for Thursday’s dedication of a Day Reporting Center for Stanislaus County, which is part of the new era of public safety realignment.
Conklin, 39, was in the first group of people released from state prisons in November 2011 under the statewide initiative that makes lower-level offenders the responsibility of counties.
Evan Sernoffsky, The San Francisco Chronicle
An alarming 47 percent spike in San Francisco car break-ins in the first half of this year has prompted a blame game between police, prosecutors and politicians while repeat victims like Kelley Maulbetsch are left feeling exasperated and helpless.
When Maulbetsch walked to her car one morning last week in San Francisco’s Mission District, her usual upbeat demeanor quickly gave way to sour frustration. Someone had smashed a hole in the rear passenger-side window of her Volkswagen Jetta station wagon and made off with the paltry haul — two camping chairs and a music stand.
Debbie L. Sklar, My News LA
A judge Friday dismissed a civil rights lawsuit brought against Los Angeles County’s top prosecutor and chief probation officer by relatives of four people fatally shot outside a Northridge boarding home in 2012, finding that both government officials are immune from liability.
The lawsuit alleged that the accused killer, Ka Pasasouk, was improperly supervised after his release from prison and should have been behind bars at the time of the deaths.
Lee Romney, The Los Angeles Times
Three California Highway Patrol officers, a Modesto criminal defense attorney and five others have been arrested in connection with the 2012 killing of Korey Kauffman, a 26-year-old Turlock resident whose body was found more than a year later by hunters in a remote Mariposa County forest.
The arrests — on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy and lying in wait — follow an investigation by the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department with help from the Stanislaus County district attorney's office; police in Turlock, Modesto and Ceres; the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation; and the state Department of Justice.
Jessica's Law prohibits registered offenders from being 2,000 feet school
Dana Griffin, KCRA 3
FOLSOM, Calif. (KCRA) —While researching nearby schools in Folsom for his 5-year-old daughter, Simon Varley also checked the Megan's Law website to see where the nearest sex offenders live.
"And it just jumped out at me that there was this sort of congregation of dots on the map and when I looked closer, it was surrounding a school," Varley said.
Jessica Rogness, The Reporter
A suspect wanted for murder and two suspected of operating a honey oil lab were only a few of the people arrested during a special operation led by the Fairfield Police Department.
The police department completed another seven-day Street Criminal Apprehension Team detail from Aug. 2-8.
Brittny Mejia, The Los Angeles Times
A former Northern California schoolteacher wanted for 14 years in connection with several counts of sexual assault against children was arrested Wednesday in Boyle Heights.
Frank Joseph Montenegro, 52, was taken into custody after a foot pursuit and struggle with FBI fugitive task force agents. Montenegro, who had been residing at a community home in Boyle Heights, was in state custody in Los Angeles awaiting transfer to officials in Alameda County.
OPINION
Mike Hestrin, The Desert Sun
As your elected District Attorney, it is my obligation to ensure all citizens are fully informed on critical issues impacting public safety.
We are witnessing the most sweeping changes to our criminal justice system in California history, commencing in 2011 with the enactment of the Realignment Act (AB109) and the November 2014 passage of Proposition 47. As a result of these changes, those who break our laws now find unprecedented leniency and often seem to have the upper hand in our criminal justice system.
Ruben Navarrette, The Washington Post
SAN DIEGO — A heinous crime in a California city recently gave the local police chief a soapbox, which he promptly stumbled over.
As the son of a retired cop, I might normally defend a law enforcement official who appears to be trying to keep the public safe.
Not this time. Not when it sounds as if the police chief wants to be a politician. Not when he gets so emotionally overwrought by a horrific act in his city — one allegedly committed by an illegal immigrant — that he accuses elected officials of making the problem of illegal immigration worse instead of looking closer to home. And not when the lawman ignores the obvious: Illegal immigrants are drawn not by welfare but by work. The states that suffer the most illegal immigration also benefit the most from the sweat of illegal immigrants.
Debra J. Saunders, The San Francisco Chronicle
“The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act” isn’t living up to its promise. Also known as Proposition 47, the ballot initiative that passed in November with 60 percent of the vote, the act downgraded drug possession and many property crimes from a felony to a misdemeanor. Proponents argued that lesser punishment for low-level offenders would enhance public safety. San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón was the rare prosecutor who pushed for its passage , because, as he told The Chronicle, “What we have been doing hasn’t worked, frankly.”
Gascón spokesman Alex Bastian told me, “The voters indicated that possessing small amounts of narcotics” should not constitute a felony. Californians don’t want three-year sentences for drug possession. I don’t either, but on the ground, the legal fix is not living up to its hype. Prop. 47 has made it easier for drug offenders to avoid mandated treatment programs. The measure reduced penalties for thefts of goods worth less than $950. Habitual offenders know that, critics say, and they’ve changed their habits to avoid hard time. The measure’s passage also prompted the state to free some 3,700 inmates.