Showing posts with label County of San Bernardino. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 09, 2013

Suspected Rialto lunch money embezzler, Judith Oakes, allegedly writes confession.. The Sun By Beau Yarbrough & Joe Nelson

Suspected Rialto lunch money embezzler, Judith Oakes, allegedly writes confession

Oakes

By Beau Yarbrough, The Sun

and Joe Nelson, San Bernardino Sun

POSTED: 10/07/13, 8:02 PM PDT | UPDATED: 12 HRS AGO

Oakes

Rialto >> Rialto police handed their case against a former Rialto Unified accountant accused of embezzling up to $3.1 million in lunch money to the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office Monday. Among the evidence: a letter, purportedly written by Judith Oakes herself, confessing to the crime.

A copy of the letter, dated Aug. 14, was obtained by this newspaper.

“Last week, as you know by now, I committed a crime and was arrested,” the letter reads in part. “I not only hurt myself, but my family, the district, my friends and the school district employees who know me. There were no other school district employees involved in this crime and my confession to the police was honest and heartfelt.”

Oakes could not be reached for comment for this story. Rialto police said they are investigating the letter and its origins and are also attempting to confirm it was authored by Oakes.

Oakes, 49, was an accountant for the district’s Nutritional Services Department. She was arrested Aug. 7 after twice being caught on camera putting money into her bra, according to a Rialto Police Department search warrant. At the time of her arrest, she had a large quantity of cash on her person and more was found at her San Bernardino home later. She resigned from the district the next day.

The letter-writer claims that Superintendent Harold Cebrun was unconnected to the crime:

“I feel so bad knowing that the papers are using the crime that I committed to damage his reputation. But all of you must stop blaming Dr. Cebrun, let him continue to do his job, work with him, and I will have to face the consequences of my own actions.”

The envelope the letter was sent in reads “to the Board of Education to be read in closed session on 8/14/13,” but the letter did not surface until after Rialto Unified board President Joe Ayala offered a public defense of Cebrun after a closed-session meeting last week:

Cebrun is “an honorable man who has not been convicted of any crime,” Ayala said, reading from a prepared statement on Wednesday. If Cebrun has done anything wrong, “it’s because he fell into a web, (one) that many of us men fall into.”

Cebrun, through his lawyer, strongly denied any romantic relationship between himself and Oakes on Friday:

“Dr. Cebrun was friends with Ms. Oakes, but the friendship is being exaggerated by the RUSD board of education and the press. Dr. Cebrun was not involved in an intimate, romantic relationship with Ms. Oakes,” Rancho Cucamonga-based attorney Willie W. Williams wrote in a letter on behalf of Cebrun.

Oakes allegedly gave the letter to neighbor Mike Ricker, who works as the warehouse supervisor for Rialto Unified.

“Judy did give me a letter in an envelope, a sealed envelope to give to (Deputy Superintendent) Wallace on the 14th,” Ricker said Friday. “I don’t know what the letter said. She just asked me to deliver it to him.”

And that’s just what happened, according to Wallace.

“I never opened it up. It was a sealed envelope,” Wallace said Friday.

Wallace, who along with Cebrun was placed on administrative leave in September, put the letter in an in-box in the superintendent’s office “back in August,” he said.

He and the superintendent weren’t present in the Aug. 14 closed session meeting, Wallace said.

“That was the board meeting that became a big mess,” Wallace said. “I never knew if that letter was utilized or not utilized. We were not there.”

According to Ayala, it wasn’t: “No, no,” he said Friday, saying he hadn’t heard of the letter before then. “I’m definitely not aware of that.”

Rialto police Capt. Randy DeAnda declined to say whether Oakes had confessed to police when she was arrested in August.

“Obviously, I can’t comment on anything involving whether Judith Oakes confessed or cooperated with the investigation,” he said.

Williams said Monday that he and Cebrun had seen the so-called Oakes confession letter and that the handwriting appeared to be Oakes’.

“(Cebrun) firmly believes it is her handwriting,” Williams said.

Williams denied his client had anything to do with the letter.

“He had nothing to do with Ms. Oakes writing the letter, directly or indirectly, and just recently became aware of it,” Williams said.

The timing has, however, raised eyebrows with Rialto police.

“It was kind of coincidental that letter came in when other people were getting that letter from Cebrun,” DeAnda said. “If it was a letter authored by her, we want to make sure it’s authentic and not something that’s been contrived.”

The letter is something the District Attorney’s Office may want to take a look at, he said.

The letter’s author expresses contrition on behalf of Oakes:

“Don’t blame others for what I have done as I am extremely sorry for my actions against the district,” the letter allegedly written by Oakes concludes. “I hope that this letter will help you and Dr. Cebrun to come together and give this district and community the leadership it deserves.

“Please forgive me and pray for me as I too will be praying for you.”

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Beau Yarbrough covers education for The Sun and the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. Reach the author atBeau.Yarbrough@inlandnewspapers.com or follow Beau on Twitter: @inlandEd.

Full bio and more articles by Beau Yarbrough

Joe Nelson covers San Bernardino County for The Sun, Daily Bulletin and Redlands Daily Facts. Reach the author at Joe.Nelson@inlandnewspapers.com or follow Joe on Twitter: @sbcountynow.

Full bio and more articles by Joe Nelson

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Will Equipping Police With Cameras Create Nicer Cops Or A Surveillance State?? Aug 15, 2013, by, Jessica Leber

Will Equipping Police With Cameras Create Nicer Cops Or A Surveillance State?

Constant self-monitoring by police officers could reduce civil rights abuses, but do we want even more video cameras on our streets? Now, the nation's largest police force may be forced to experiment.

Imagine thousands of new government-owned video cameras roaming the streets of New York City. Sounds like a huge leap towards a Big Brother state.
Surprisingly, civil liberties advocates are open to it. That’s because the cameras would be worn by police, and could be used to document their bad behavior, whether that is brutality or improper stops and searches. More importantly, cops--like reality show stars and convenience store clerks--might behave differently if there’s a video camera rolling.
From California and Arizona to Florida and Texas, some smaller police departments around the country have been trying out the use of body-worn cameras. But the NYPD is the nation’s largest force, with 35,000 uniformed officers, and this week a federal judge ordered the department start a pilot program. The demand was tucked inside the judge’s ruling that New York’s controversial “stop-and-frisk” policy violates minorities’ constitutional rights. The city bristled: Mayor Bloomberg told the Associated Press wearable cameras would be a “nightmare” for the NYPD, and some people wonder whether it would lead police to be too timid.
Experiments being undertaken around the country, however, are proving otherwise. In a full-year study with the police force in Rialto, California, that concluded in February of this year, researchers found that police used “force” half as many times as they had a year earlier when a tiny camera with a 12-hour battery life was worn on their shirt pocket, hat, collar or sunglasses. There were also only three complaints from the public during the study, compared to 28 complaints a year earlier.

“The study was able to expose what happens when the level of certainty of apprehension for professional misconduct was set at 100%. These are social circumstances that are characterized with an inescapable panopticonic gaze,” the paper, co-authored by Rialto’s police chief and University of Cambridge criminology researcher Barak Ariel.

Results like these, which were cited this week by the judge in the New York case, are why a number of civil liberties groups, including the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights, cautiously endorse body-worn cameras for the NYPD--despite some concerns about privacy. NYCLU has already fought for police to record full interrogations (not just confessions), and body-worn cameras would be an extension of that, says associated legal director Chris Dunn. While no one wants to see the police taping the general public’s activity, “we make a distinction,” Dunn says, “when it is designed to curb and document police abuse.”
No one knows yet how a pilot in New York City would take shape--for example, when exactly a camera would have to be turned on. If required to wear cameras, however, police officers might have an incentive to keep them running. By documenting the circumstances leading them to stop a person in the first place, they would be able to defend themselves against accusations of discrimination or improper use of force: “The more of it that’s on tape, the better for them,” said Dunn. Many police departments that use cameras like them as a defense against false accusations.
In theory, there would be strong privacy measures that restrict the use of the video unless there's a complaint, investigation or lawsuit--not, say, as evidence for a police officer having an affair with someone’s wife, says Dunn. In Rialto, for example, the video collected wasn't supposed to be randomly reviewed.
But sanctioning law enforcement’s use of body-worn cameras in one scenario could also lead down a slippery slope towards a stronger surveillance state. In fact, in most other situations, the NYCLU is quite concerned about the proliferation of surveillance cameras in public spaces--it sent a team to document 2,397 of them visible on the streets of Manhattan--and, given our recent history, privacy protections for policing cameras might not last in the face of pressure to use the tapes as evidence.
More importantly, the issues raised by these programs aren’t restricted to the expensive, specialized cameras that police departments might purchase. Already, the public is documenting more and more on their phones--and if wearable computers like Google Glass take off, ubiquitous monitoring could simply become a fact of life.
The authors of the Rialto study imagine that other fields, such as the medical profession, might also reduce cases of “alleged unprofessional conduct” if doctors taped their interactions with patients. “We acknowledge that this may pose ethical considerations, though we believe that, on average, the benefits outweigh the costs,” they write.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Inland Elections: Inland Voters go to the Polls in 32nd Senate District by Jim Miller March 8, 2013.. Press Enterprise

SACRAMENTO – The 2010 election was supposed to be the ballot swan song for Inland Southern California’s 32nd Senate District, a Pomona-to-San Bernardino seat crafted more than a decade ago and set to expire in 2014.

But the November election of former state Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod to Congress means the 32nd will be on voters’ ballots at least one more time. If no candidate gets a majority of the vote in a special election Tuesday, there will be a May 14 runoff between the top two finishers.

The latter seems likely with six candidates vying for the seat: Democrats Paul Vincent Avila, an Ontario councilman; Joanne Gilbert of Rialto, a retired teacher; Assemblywoman Norma Torres of Pomona; San Bernardino County Auditor-Controller Larry Walker, of Chino; and Republicans Kenny Coble, of Pomona, a planning commissioner; and Ontario Mayor Paul Leon.

The winner will run for re-election in 2014 in the new 20th Senate District, which covers much of the same territory as the 32nd.

Among the poorest districts in the state, the 32nd also has some of the lowest voting rates. Some Republicans say that creates the chance for a GOP upset in a special election. Democrats dismiss GOP prospects, noting the party’s nearly 25-percentatge point registration lead in the district.

Underlining the contest, meanwhile, is San Bernardino County’s divisive Democratic politics. Torres backed former Rep. Joe Baca over Negrete McLeod in last fall’s congressional race, and Negrete McLeod, D-Chino, is strongly supporting Walker against Torres.

Torres, Leon and Walker have emerged as the front-runners for the 32nd. The question is whether Torres and Walker will advance to the May runoff or which Democrat will face Leon.

It’s not the only state Senate district with a special election Tuesday.

Voters in the 40th Senate District, which includes part of the Coachella Valley, will vote for a successor to former state Sen. Juan Vargas, who also went to Congress. Assemblyman Ben Hueso, D-San Diego, seems likely to win outright Tuesday.

CANDIDATES

Torres has been endorsed by the California Democratic Party and has raised far more than any of the other candidates, collecting at least $352,000 as of earlier this week. Businesses, tribes and union groups have poured in another $365,000 in independent expenditures to help Torres.

Torres, a former police dispatcher elected to the Assembly in 2008, has never represented roughly 60 percent of the 32nd. In an interview, she said she is nevertheless confident that she will finish first Tuesday and again in May.

“They see me as someone who has always had an open-door policy for anyone and everyone. I’m very accessible,” she said of supporters. “I think that shows from the groups that are supporting me, from business groups, to labor organizations, to other constituencies.”

Of Walker, she said, “He is well-known by the political machine. But he is hardly known by the people who matter in this election.”

Walker, a longtime elected official in the country, has the support of San Bernardino County supervisors and other elected officials, as well as county employee unions and other groups in the county portion of the district.

Walker, though, has raised only about a third as much as Torres and has been the focus of critical mailers by independent expenditure committees.

“My goal has always been to serve the community and accomplish results,” he said. “I think people recognize that when there’s an avalanche of money, that Sacramento interests are not interested in having an independent thinker up there.”

Leon is another longtime local elected official and had raised more than $203,000 through early this week, which stands out in a district where Republican candidates – none bothered to run in 2006 – have collected almost no money.

The district includes the home of former Inland lawmaker Jim Brulte, the newly elected chairman of the California Republican Party who has said the party needs to compete in places it used to ignore. Leon is Latino and the 32nd’s population is mostly Latino.

Yet Senate Republicans so far have not invested money into the contest.

“We pretty much exhausted all our resources in the last election,” Minority Leader Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar said. Huff praised Leon, adding, “The fact that he can raise money from the district speaks a lot stronger than all of the money flooding in from Sacramento special interests that are trying to prop up business as usual.”

Leon said he has been disappointed by what he called a lack of caucus attention to his candidacy but said he thinks the special election “levels the playing field.”

“My friends and donors believe in me,” Leon said. “They believe my reaching this destination will improve the condition of the state Legislature.”

Jason Kinney, a spokesman for Senate Democrats, said the caucus has endorsed Torres and has “every confidence that Norma Torres is going to do extremely well on Tuesday and ultimately be this district's next senator.”

TURNOUT

A potential wildcard is that voter participation is expected to be dismal next week.

“What we all share is our biggest competitor is voter apathy,” Torres said of her fellow candidates.

During the 2009 statewide special election, less than 17 percent of 32nd District voters cast ballots — and that was after then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, legislative leaders and others spent weeks campaigning on television and radio for several budget-related measures.

Voters also could be confused. There was a March 5 election in Rialto, one of the largest cities in the 32nd, as well as in some Los Angeles County cities.

“I had one person call and wish me good luck today,” Walker said March 5.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

RIALTO: Rodney King drowns in own pool; autopsy report pending.... Press Enterprise, by Richard K. De Atley

Rodney King, whose videotaped beating at the hands of Los Angeles police officers set in motion events that would lead to the deadly Los Angeles riots of 1992, died after an apparent drowning in the backyard swimming pool of his Rialto home. He was 47.

The encounter with LAPD officers in 1991 brought King his unwanted fame. And it was law enforcement officers who provided the coda to his life early Sunday, June 17, when they jumped into the pool wearing their uniforms and equipment in an effort to save him.

His death was not regarded as suspicious, police said. But neighbors said it followed a Saturday night party that led into a late-night and early-morning argument, or at least noisy exchanges, between King and his fiancée that were loud enough to cause some neighbors to shout out a request to stop the ruckus.

An autopsy was scheduled for Monday morning June 18, said San Bernardino County Sheriff's spokeswoman Jodi Miller. She said toxicology tests were also being performed.

The results will take weeks to return, she said. The county coroner releases autopsy and toxicology results at the same time, she said.

Rialto police Capt. Randy De Anda said in a Sunday June 17 afternoon news conference that it was not unusual for King to go swimming at any hour, including the early morning.

He said that King's fiancée, Cynthia Kelley, discovered at about 5:25 a.m. that King was at the deep-end bottom of the pool. "She said she heard a splash in the rear yard … she found Mr. King … at the bottom of the pool. He was at the deep end," De Anda said earlier Sunday.

He said Kelley, whom he described as "not a strong swimmer," tried to pull King out, and called 911 when she could not.

Responding officers jumped in and retrieved King. They tried to give him cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Rialto Fire Department paramedics also treated King at the scene. He was taken to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, and pronounced dead at 6:11 a.m.

"Last night I heard a commotion," said neighbor Bob Carlberg, 53, who lives two doors away. "It really wasn't like a fight-fight-fight, but it was like yelling back and forth," he said. "He had a little party yesterday."

"He had something going on all night … the neighbors that live behind him were kind of yelling over to be quiet … the people who actually live next door to him said it was really loud," Carlberg said.

Carlberg said the disturbances were uncharacteristic of King, who lived on East Jackson Street, which is lined with single-story ranch-style and tract homes with well-trimmed lawns and shade trees. "He really kept to himself. The last couple of weeks he had more people over because he was planning his marriage. That's only my theory."

A neighbor of King said that around 3 a.m. she heard music and people talking next door and what sounded like someone who was very emotional.

"It seemed like someone was really crying, like really deep emotions," said Sandra Gardea, 31, a dental hygienist instructor who recently moved in. "And it just got louder and louder. Everybody woke up. Even the kids woke up."

She described the sound as "like moaning, like in pain. Like tired or sad, you know?"

Gardea said this went on for some time and then stopped.

"I heard someone say, 'OK, Please stop. Go inside the house.' … We heard quiet for a few minutes. Then after that we heard a splash in the back. And that's when a few minutes later we see the cops arrive and everyone arrive and we see him being taken in a gurney."

"You didn't see parties here or a lot of people. He was very withdrawn, and (kept) to himself," said neighbor Tondalaya Baker, 55, who lives around the corner from King's home. She said she most often saw him when he was working on his lawn or the front of his home.

De Anda said King was "poolside throughout the early morning, and he was in verbal contact with his fiancée throughout the morning. She was having a conversation through the rear sliding-glass door, and apparently when she heard the splash."

He said he did not know the content of the conversation. "At this time I do not know what Mr. King's toxicology was, or if he was intoxicated, or whether he was under the influence of any substances." He said detectives would try to determine what was going on at the moment King fell into the pool.

On Sunday afternoon, evidence was being carted away from King's home, including what looked like a marijuana plant. King had said in interviews last year that he had a doctor's recommendation to use medical marijuana. Medical marijuana users are permitted some legal cultivation.

De Anda said a coroner's investigation will include an autopsy and a toxicology report. He said there were no signs of drugs or alcohol near the pool when officers arrived, and that detectives had interviewed Kelley as a routine matter. Kelley had been one of the jurors who awarded King $3.8 million in his lawsuit against Los Angeles over the beating. King said recently he had spent most of the money.

Neighbors described King as friendly and willing to talk about anything except what happened in Los Angeles two decades ago. "The best neighbor in the neighborhood," said Baker, who said she spoke to him frequently.

Asked if King ever discussed his past, Baker said, "he never wanted to talk about that. He really just stayed to himself … he was extremely private." She said he often kept his drapes drawn at the home.

Carlberg said he liked to talk about cars with King.

"He was a pretty nice guy. Seemed like a real nice guy, I had no problems," Carlberg said.

Carlberg described the neighborhood "real quiet, peaceful, friendly. Everybody gets along. Everybody talks to everybody."

Two decades ago, King uttered five words that captured the sentiment of millions of Americans horrified by the scenes of death and destruction in the Los Angeles riots.

"I just want to say, you know, 'Can we all get along?'," King said in a quavering voice after rioters ravaged Southern California neighborhoods.

King was pulled over by LAPD officers in 1991 for speeding. He was drunk but unarmed. Officers responded to King's lack of cooperation by beating him with batons and kicking him repeatedly.

The beating was video-taped by a bystander, which elevated the case to international headlines.

Four of the officers, all white, went to trial. Their acquittal sparked the infamous Southern California riots on April 29, 1992. At least 53 people were killed, more than 2,000 were injured and more than $1 billion in property was damaged or destroyed.

King reflected in an interview with The Press-Enterprise in early April on how his lawyers handed him a four-page statement to read at a news conference. It was 1992, two days after the beginning of the disturbances that began when four Los Angeles police officers were acquitted of beating him.

But instead of reading the statement, King improvised.

"I spoke from my heart, you know," King said. "I felt there was a need to say something from the heart."

King moved to Inland Southern California from Los Angeles County in 1999 to escape some of the continued attention.

"At the time, I felt a little too much heat," he said. "The smoke hadn't cleared in Los Angeles for me. I thought it would be more comfortable for me to be in the IE."

Recently, King said he supported himself in part by doing handyman and construction work. He's also made money on reality-TV appearances, including "Celebrity Rehab."

The headlines that followed King during his 13 years in the Inland area generally had not been complimentary. He wasn arrested several times, including for driving under the influence and domestic violence.

In the latest case, he pleaded guilty in February to reckless driving after he was pulled over in Moreno Valley.

King acknowledged his mistakes. He wrote about them in his book, "The Riot Within," which was released in April.

He said his days of drinking heavily were over — although he said he hadn't quit alcohol entirely.

"I sip now," said King, whose father was an alcoholic. "I'm not guzzling drinks anymore. No one knows the future, but I sure feel comfortable where I am today with myself."

Staff writer David Olson, dolson@pe.com, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

RIVERSIDE COUNTY: Officials expect 450 more parolees... Press Enterprise Feb. 28, 2012

Riverside County must supervise nearly 450 more state parolees than first expected under a state law that shifts responsibility for low-level offenders to local authorities, the county’s chief probation officer said Tuesday.

Under the law, known as public-safety realignment or AB 109, Riverside County had expected to oversee 1,688 parolees this year, Chief Alan Crogan told supervisors.

But based on the actual number from October through January, that total is expected to grow to 2,136 by June 30, Crogan said.

Since the program began Oct. 1, Crogan said some early assumptions — including the number of parolees — are proving untrue.

For instance, many of the parolees are classified as low-level offenders, Crogan said. But that is only for their most recent crime, he said.

“Many of them have substantial history of violence in their background,” Crogan said. “This just happens to be the last crime that they committed. We are seeing a much higher-risk group of people.”

Those criminal histories and the higher estimate of parolee numbers add to concerns local officials have long had about whether the state will provide enough money for counties to adequately supervise the parolees.

Under realignment, counties take jurisdiction over inmates released from state prison whose most recent crimes were classified as nonserious, nonviolent and, for sex offenders, non-high risk. In addition, those newly convicted of those same crimes would serve their sentences in county jails rather than state prison.

All of it is part of a statewide plan to meet a federal court order to reduce California’s prison population by 33,000 inmates over the next two years.

The state provided the county about $21 million to fund the program for six months this year. Crogan said the estimated cost for a full year will top $44 million.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s fiscal 2012-2013 budget proposal includes $842.9 million to help pay for realignment statewide, Crogan said. Riverside County’s portion is estimated at $53 million, he said.

Still, without a constitutional guarantee for the funding, Crogan and other county officials remain concerned whether the state will come through with the money next year.

“There are some significant challenges,” Crogan said of implementing the realignment program.

Crogan’s comments came Tuesday as supervisors approved a final plan for the realignment program. The discussion on the number of parolees overseen by local officials moved into a debate on how the county should increase its jail capacity to handle the influx.

The county’s jails are 97percent full. As of Jan. 20, 402 people had been sentenced to jail who normally would have gone to state prison. Another 586 people are serving jail time combined with supervised release, such as home detention.

Supervisor Jeff Stone pressed Sheriff Stan Sniff on what option for increasing jail space he prefers and which would be the most efficient: a large regional jail or expanded facilities in Indio and French Valley.

The county last year backed away from a plan to build a 2,000-bed, $300 million regional jail in Whitewater and decided to focus on enlarging existing jails. Future expansions at the regional jail called for as many as 7,200 beds.

The county currently has 3,904 jail beds.

“Right now, I am kind of like a tin cup,” Sniff said. “Any additional capacity will help us.”

But when pressed by Stone, Sniff said the Sheriff’s Department prefers a new, larger jail in the middle of the county.

Rialto-PD

Wednesday, October 09, 2013