Los Angeles News Blog

It's come to the point in Los Angeles where you can't even trust people to tell lies anymore. That's one of the bizarre situations spawned by the recent Swiss arrest of film director Roman Polanski. Last year an HBO-aired documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, alleged that Polanski bolted the United States when it became clear a judge was going to renege on a plea deal worked out between Polanski's lawyer and the District Attorney's office related to charges that Polanski had raped a 13-year-old girl. The doc more than alleged this scenario -- it had a retired deputy district attorney, David Wells, on camera telling the world he had urged Superior Court Judge Laurence Rittenband to toss the plea deal and throw more jail time Polanski's way. Even though Wells was not part of the prosecution team pressing the case against Polanski, such an ex parte conversation, without defense counsel present, is a massive breach of ethics.

This admission led Polanski's supporters to excuse his 1978 flight from America and to now denounce efforts to return him to Los Angeles. Yesterday, Wells made a new, though no less astounding claim to former L.A. deputy district attorney Marcia Clark. Wells told the Daily Beast writer that he had lied to filmmaker Marina Zenovich because he "thought it made a better story if I said I'd told the judge what to do." As the sympathetic Clark took all this down, Wells added,  "Look, after 30 years, I never thought they'd get the guy back here. I figured no one cared anymore, and no one here would ever see the film anyway. What can I say? . . . It seemed like a good idea at the time."

By the time Wells had gotten around to unburdening his soul to Jack Leonard at the L.A. Times, the old prosecutor was sounding a little more self-ennobling: "I'm known to the world as a liar. It's mortifying. But it's my duty [now] to tell the truth."
 
Today, Zenovich issued a statement questioning Wells' dishonesty.

Neon Tommy, the online news project of USC's Annenberg School of Journalism, came up with information yesterday that could complicate the prosecution of a married couple accused in a high-profile hit-and-run case. Last spring, students Adrianna Bachan and Marcus Garfinkle were hit by a car near the university and left on Jefferson Boulevard, allegedly by driver Claudia Cabrera, while her husband Josue Luna sat in the front passenger's seat. Bachan died, while Garfinkle was seriously injured.

Yesterday, Neon Tommy, referring to a coroner's autopsy report of Bachan, reported that the freshman was "double drunk" at the time of her being struck by the car -- that is, her blood-alcohol level, .17, was twice the legal driving limit. The two students had just left a party at a frat house that would later be suspended for unrelated matters connected to another party. Garfinkle has said neither he nor Bachan was drunk at the time of the accident.

Wikipedia

Say It Ain't So, Joe!

​After Joe Francis' lawyers from Munger, Tolles & Olson presented a plea deal worked out with federal tax prosecutors, Judge James Otero said he would consider the plea and pass sentence in November. Everyone had expected sentence to follow immediately, but Otero, whose arrival had been delayed by a nearby bomb scare, decided he would now delay the case's denouement. In the meantime, Francis would get his bail lifted and his passport returned. Otero looked at the Girls Gone Wild creator and admonished, "You understand you are to be on your best behavior?"

"Ha-ha!" exclaimed Francis, 36. "I'll try to stay out of night clubs!" Moments later an ecstatic Francis was slapping some Brooks Brothered backs and embracing family members. In the corridor outside of the Roybal Building courtroom, someone asked if he was going to Disneyland now.

"No," Francis said, "probably a corporate retreat in Mexico." Then he enumerated the immediate tasks at hand: "I'm hosting a bachelor party for Lamar Odom tomorrow night at Le Deux, then Sunday I've got a wedding -- whoa! I told the judge I wouldn't go to any night clubs. Take me back in for perjury!"

This morning Sanjana Alexander was scheduled to receive punishment from Judge David Wesley as part of the contempt of court citations he'd previously issued to her and Alvin Dymally. She had to wait, however, while Wesley conducted a pretrial hearing involving the two alleged animal right militants accused of harassing UCLA medical researchers. Linda Faith Greene, 62, arrived from her train wearing a long skirt that didn't quite conceal the monitoring bracelet that seemed to have scraped raw the skin above her ankle; Kevin Oliff, 22, was brought in from county jail in handcuffs.

Ninety minutes later Wesley turned his attention to Alexander and her attorney, Dana Cole. Alexander is the sister of fashion designer Anand Jon, who was convicted last November of 16 counts of sexual assault against young and under-aged women; Alvin Dymally is the rogue juror who, against Wesley's standing juror instructions, contacted Alexander during the trial with vague messages of support for her brother. Instead of reporting the outreach to Wesley or her brother's five attorneys, Alexander, who was a potential witness during the trial, reciprocated the contact. After the verdict she revealed her exchange of notes and phone calls with Dymally, setting off eight months of new-trial motions that only ended with Wesley denying them and sentencing Jon to 59 years to life in prison. Jon now awaits extradition to New York on similar charges. 

Most Angelenos never see the Brezhnevian Federal Building on Los Angeles Street. Fewer still have had a reason to brave the long security line to get inside, much less to visit its underground detention center. The latter's six holding pens, known, in affectionate governmentspeak as "B-18," are where suspected illegal immigrants are held before and after their hearings before upstairs magistrates. The spartan detention area would be challenging enough for a few detainees who were being kept for brief periods -- conditions for which the center was designed; for the packed crowds who have been routinely held for long periods (sometimes for 20 hours), it is a Dantesque hell.

Last April the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center sued those responsible for B-18's operation -- Janet Napolitano, head of the Department of Homeland Security, Attorney General Eric Holder and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Today, reports the Associated Press, the two sides settled on a plan to clean up B-18.

"The federal court agreement," AP says, "restricts detainees at the facility to 12 hours at a stretch except under unusual circumstances such as epidemics or natural disasters. It requires that they be provided with soap, access to attorneys and writing materials for those who need to prepare legal documents."

Claudia Cabrera and Josue Luna, the thirtysomething married couple accused of a horrific hit-and-run accident outside USC last spring, have been ordered to stand trial September 29, according to City News Service. Cabrera was allegedly behind the wheel in the early morning hours of Sunday, March 29, when her car sped through a red light and into a crosswalk, killing 18-year-old university student Adrianna Bachan and seriously injuring Bachan's friend, Marcus Garfinkle, 19, also a USC student. Eyewitnesses reported seeing a passenger, allegedly Luna, pull Garfinkle out of the shattered windshield, then toss him onto the street, before the couple drove off.

Cabrera and Luna are both in county jail in lieu of $1 million bond apiece; Cabrera was arrested days after the accident while Luna allegedly left the country and was arrested when he attempted to re-enter the U.S. City News Service also reports that, according to testimony from Cabrera's sister, the couple had earlier been drinking at a San Fernando Valley party and had become angered about comments made about the Kardashian sisters.

The class action lawsuit against Eden Memorial Park is going forward, plaintiff lawyers said today at a Century City news conference. The suit, brought last Thursday by the Newport firm of Eagan O'Malley & Avenatti, alleges that EMP, one of the country's largest Jewish cemeteries, "intentionally, willfully and secretly desecrated the human remains of certain deceased individuals interred at Eden Memorial Park and that Defendants had a pattern and practice of breaking concrete interment vaults with a backhoe, and then dumping . . . the human remains, including skulls."

According to CNN, plaintiff attorneys charge that as many as 500 graves may have been disturbed in the cemetery that is the final resting place for Groucho Marx, Lenny Bruce -- and Holocaust survivors. Eden Memorial Park, located on Sepulveda Boulevard in Mission Hills, is a subsidiary of Texas-headquartered Service Corporation International, which agreed in 2003 to pay out $100 million to settle a similar suit involving the company's Menorah Gardens cemeteries in Florida.

Alvin Dymally, the juror whose rogue conduct both before and after the Anand Jon trial seemingly threatened to upend Jon's November, 2008 conviction, has received his contempt of court punishment. L.A. Superior Court Judge David Wesley, who had presided over the fashion designer's sexual assault trial and a long, post-trial period of challenges to the verdict, ordered Dymally to pay a $1,000 fine and perform 120 hours of community service.

According to City News Service, Wesley told a contrite Dymally, "The taxpayers of this county lost a lot of money because of your actions . . . I don't think it was malicious or evil ... I think it was an ill- considered act on your part."

Hina/Wikipedia

Anand Jon: The Long Goodbye?

​In the end, nothing came as a surprise. Yesterday, well past the court's normal 4 p.m. closing time and following an all-day hearing, Judge David Wesley tersely rejected fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander's motion for a new trial. Wesley then sentenced him to an initial 14-year state prison term, which will then be followed by an indeterminate sentence lasting anywhere from 45 years to life. Throughout that morning and afternoon, Anand Jon, as he his known professionally, had energetically and, at times, defiantly attacked the process that had kept him imprisoned since 2007: He'd been racially persecuted because of his Indian birth, he said; a rogue juror had tainted his conviction, his five-member defense team had been incompetent, the cops and D.A. had withheld evidence, former business partners had framed him and the young and under-aged women who'd accused him of rape had ganged up on him and conspired to coordinate a case based on lies.

Jon, 35, was acting as his own attorney yesterday, and, despite the inevitable fumbling of an absolute beginner, managed at times to strike a compelling figure who believed he had been terribly wronged by the judicial system. But there were moments when he lashed out at the would-be young models who were drawn to him for professional advancement, as though daring them to challenge his high moral position. If Jon was issuing an invitation, it was answered around 4:30 p.m., when the door to the jury room opened and the jury box filled with a dozen or so of his accusers, young women who were incongruously dressed for a summer party, but were here to read victim's statements.

After hearing fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander argue before his court for an entire day for a new trial, Judge David Wesley declared there were no new grounds for granting such a motion. Then, following emotional victim statements delivered by three of the women the designer was convicted last November of sexually assaulting, Wesley imposed sentence.

Judge Wesley announced that Anand Jon, as he is professionally known, must serve 14 years in state prison -- before he next begins to serve a 45-year-to-life sentence. Under current rules, he must serve at least 85 percent of his sentences. Jon was denied bail while he prepares his appeal. He was immediately remanded to the custody of the state Department of Corrections.

Judge David Wesley recessed Anand Jon's new-trial hearing for lunch a little while ago. Jon used almost all of the morning session to passionately attack rogue juror Alvin Dymally, who had reached out to Jon's sister, Sanjana, in an apparent attempt to woo her or to offer his assistance in influencing jury deliberations in her brother's favor. The history of that fantastic story has been told before. Today Jon, by turns outraged, pleading and sarcastic, made his case before Judge Wesley for a new trial, and is clearly pinning his hopes on the maverick Dymally's questionable actions. In an ironic twist, Jon cited an L.A. Weekly feature written by me early on in the trial as a prejudicial attack that Dymally allegedly admitted reading - even though Judge Wesley admonished jurors not to at the time of its appearance.

Jon, who is now appearing as his own counsel, also heaped scorn on most of his former defense attorneys ("I was an idiot to think these people would save me!"), although Wesley declared he would not second-guess defense strategy and therefore would not consider inadequate legal representation as grounds for a new trial.

"Excuse me, can you please move down and make room?" the young woman asked her neighbors in the packed courtroom. "We have a very famous lawyer here." By that she meant Gloria Allred, who had just arrived at 9 a.m., the time scheduled for Superior Court Judge David Wesley to either sentence celebrity fashion designer Anand Jon in Department 102, or grant him a new trial. Jon, whose full name is Anand Jon Alexander, was convicted last November of 16 counts of sexual assault committed against a group of young or under-aged women who had been drawn to him by the promise of advancement in the fashion world or for simple companionship. Since July Jon has been representing himself as his own attorney.

Judge Wesley opened court at 9:10 a.m. He is now dealing with Jon's motion for a new trial based on what he claims is new evidence, including juror misconduct and prosecutorial misconduct. Apparently Jon filed some papers in support of the motion earlier this morning. There's now some delaying as Jon's assistant, his brother-in-law Richard Bernard Zera, collates some papers and readies a projection-screen display.

9:17 a.m.: Jon asks Wesley if the judge will grant him a new trial if Jon can prove he received an unfair trial. Wesley says, "Let's see what your evidence proves."

Jon now suggests he is a victim of racial prejudice. "In March, 2007," he says of his Beverly Hills arrest, "I found out what it means to be brown in the USA. I was called a brown sand nigger." Jon calls the presentation he is about to make his last stand.

Yesterday, RadarOnline and Entertainment Tonight announced, OctoMom Nadya Suleman was recuperating in an O.C. hospital following some unspecified surgery. Relax, though, she remembered to leave the lights on at home for her 14 children (including the eight babies) -- and to arrange for someone to look after them. One Suleman watcher wasn't surprised.

"I bet Nadya had a melt down because of the Fox special coming THE DAY BEFORE HER HEARING FOR DISMISSAL," wrote NadyaSuleman.com blogger Valkyre, in reference to next week's TV airing of Suleman-home footage shot by RadarOnline. "If I were her, I'd have done the same thing. She's probably out of her mind with worry, cause she KNOWS what's on that footage."

Meanwhile, L.A. attorney Gloria Allred's emergency motion to have a guardian appointed to oversee the finances of Suleman's kids during the upcoming Eyeworks reality TV shooting at Suleman's home was rebuffed in court.

​Witness Mildred Rohrback awaits her turn to testify in the murder trial of assistant district attorney David "Handsome Dave" Clark, accused of murdering L.A. racketeer and City Hall machine politician Charles Crawford, who was known as the Gray Wolf of Spring Street. After two sensational trials, Clark beat the charges with a self-defense strategy. Crawford's widow later  had the Crossroads of the World shopping center built on the site of her husband's murder.

LA Times/UCLA

It had to happen sooner or later: Lori Drew, the so-called MySpace Mom, is back at her terminal. In 2006 the Missouri woman created a young hunk in cyberspace whose fictitious MySpace posts led to a fragile girl's suicide. Last November Drew, 50, beat most of the federal

Ted Soqui

Drew With Attorney Dean Steward

​conspiracy and computer-fraud charges she faced in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, and had the remaining convictions later overturned. While Drew had never  been charged with directly causing or intending the death of 13-year-old Megan Meier, the girl's death hung like a cloud over Drew's trial, which was pressed by no less than U.S. Attorney Tom O'Brien and two co-prosecutors.

Associated Press reports that the Missouri mom recently took a job that requires her to use a computer and today received permission -- apparently from her trial's judge, George Wu -- to do so. Reaction has been swift and not as forgiving. "Folks, I DO have a problem with this," Elizabeth Bennett wrote in a post titled "Oh No! Lori Drew Is Back!" on BloggerNews. "For starters, this woman took the life of a young girl who suffered from clinical depression by using the internet,"

Yesterday an Orange County judge appointed a Santa Ana lawyer to act as the financial guardian for all 14 children belonging to "OctoMom" Nadya Suleman, in anticipation of a reality TV show's filming the La Habra single mother and her brood. Suleman and her attorneys had fought the petition for guardianship, brought by L.A. attorney Gloria Allred and child-actor advocate Paul Petersen. The OctoMom side claimed that Eyeworks, the U.K.-based production company that will begin shooting the series, had already signed agreements in accord with California's Coogan Act governing the employment of children in film and TV.

 It had always been hard to keep a straight face when typing the words "alleged gang member Richard Rodriguez." The only distributed photograph of Rodriguez, after all, is a police mug shot showing him with the name of an El Monte gang tattooed on his upper lip, along with other tell-tale markings just below his throat. Mr. Rodriguez became famous last May, when TV news footage showed him being kicked, as he lay surrendered on the ground, by a police officer. (That officer, George Fierro, himself became something of a celebrity when it came out he operated a business selling gang-themed T-shirts, although Rodriguez was not seen wearing one at the time of his beating.)

[Update: Associated Press reported Saturday that Suleman has signed a reality TV deal for each of her 14 children with Eyeworks worth $250,000 over three years. Eyeworks will contribute 15 percent of the gross compensation into a "Coogan account" for the children, who won't be able to access the money until they turn 18.] 

Well, it took them long enough, but Nadya Suleman's side has responded to a lawsuit filed by Los Angeles uber-lawyer Gloria Allred and former child actor Paul Petersen with its own suit. Last May Allred and Petersen petitioned the Orange County Superior Court to appoint a conservator to look after the financial interests of the infant octuplets belonging to Suleman, who is better known as OctoMom. The reason wasn't because Suleman was a childbearing-obsessed single mom without a job, but because she allegedly was exploiting her children for profit. Namely, by allowing RadarOnline into her home to record life at OctoCentral without paying too much heed to California's child-labor laws regarding film shoots. Petersen heads a child-actor advocacy group called A Minor Consideration.

Associated Press reports that Suleman's attorney, Jeff Czech, claims that an entertainment lawyer has been retained by Suleman, obviating the need for a court-appointed conservator. Suleman is reportedly still considering reality TV program opportunities, including proposals from U.K.-based Eyeworks.

According to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune's Octorazzi blog, Czech filed a motion Friday to dismiss the Allred-Petersen petition. Perhaps inadvertently striking at the very foundation of modern news reporting, Czech claimed the original lawsuit was "based on a bunch of blogs and interviews on the Internet."

Even in a town teeming with personal-injury lawyers, Juan Dominguez has stood out. Angelenos may not recognize their Senators, but they are familiar with an array of sympathetic or aggressive attorneys beaming at them from phone book covers and the backs of buses. (Dominguez is the one without facial hair.) "Accidentes" scream the letters on Dominguez's advertisements that have become part of the landscape in Latino neighborhoods.

So Dominguez seemed both a natural yet unorthodox champion of a group of Nicaraguan banana workers who were pursuing their claims against Dole Foods in American court. The former Dole employees say they were left sterile because Dole used a banned pesticide on its crops called DBPC. The Nicaraguan workers, like those in several other Central American countries, won huge judgments in their home courts, but needed to press their claims in America to force Dole to pay them.

Defense attorney Martin McManus tried to win obscenity acquittals for the owners of both Hollywood's Pickwick Books and a Farmers Market book store, but to no avail. A jury, which had listened to McManus read through Edmund Wilson's Memoirs of Hecate County, convicted the owners of selling lewd material. The offending book was banned in Los Angeles County.

LA Daily News/UCLA

Today the same Santa Barbara jurors who last week convicted former West Hills drug dealer Jesse James Hollywood of kidnapping and murder began deliberations over his sentence. He could be sent to the death house in San Quentin for his part in ordering the abduction and execution of 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz. The San Fernando Valley youth was reportedly ordered killed by Hollywood, 29, to send a message to Markowitz's half-brother, Ben, who owed Hollywood a drug debt.

Some initial media reports predicted a sentence would be decided by late this afternoon, but that did not happen. Nicholas Markowitz's mother Susan was expected to address the jury earlier in the day, along with members of Hollywood's family.

9:43: Judge Wesley returns to the bench, Jon enters court.

Wesley asks Jon if he has any questions and repeats his advice against representing himself. Says Jon will only get $40 to work on his case. Jon protests that will only get him a five-minute call to New York.

"Too bad," says Wesley, who is becoming increasingly curt. Moments later, he will raise it to $60.

Jon wants a court-recommended investigator and a paralegal. Judge Wesley says he does not provide paralegals to pro se defendants, but will allow him to choose a "runner."

"I'm not setting up a law office for you," Wesley says.

Jon: Can I be referred to in court as Anand Jon?

Wesley: Mr . Alexander, I'm going to address you as Mr. Alexander.

How does that old saying go? "A man who represents himself in court has a fashion designer for a client." Something like that - we're posting from the Criminal Courts Building and left our Bartlett's at home. We're in Department 102 this morning to cover a hearing on Anand Jon's request to dismiss his attorneys and defend himself. At 9:15 a.m. Superior Court Judge David Wesley takes the bench. Jon has just arrived, attired in an orange County Jail jumpsuit and white sleeves. Addressing the judge, Jon speaks in a strong voice that sounds somewhat agitated when referring to prosecutors. Defense lawyer Ronald Richards is present, along with prosecutors Frances Young and Mara McIlvain.

Wesley advises Jon he has the right to represent himself and tries to discourage him from dismissing his lawyers. The judge is stressing that once Jon takes over the task of representing himself, Wesley will not allow his counsel back in, should Jon decide, at the last moment, to change his mind before the August 31 sentencing hearing.

Update: Judge David Wesley has granted a defense motion for a Monday hearing to permit Anand Jon to dismiss his attorneys and represent himself. Wesley indicated that he will allow Jon's request to act as his own attorney. See motion here:
582106569 (2).pdf

Anand Jon, the Indian-born fashion designer who was convicted of multiple counts of sexual battery last November, has requested the court to allow him to dismiss his high-octane defense team and represent himself. Earlier today one of those attorneys, Ronald Richards of Beverly Hills, sought permission from Judge David Wesley to let Jon represent himself, but the request was denied. Moments ago L.A. Daily received a copy of a motion Richards was about to submit to the court formally requesting that Jon be allowed to dismiss his attorneys.

In his motion, Richards, who claims Judge Wesley declared that any such motion for discharge should be made at Jon's August 31 sentencing hearing, cites cases that affirmed the right of non-indigent defendants to dismiss their retained counsel. Richards later told the L.A. Weekly that Jon had telephoned all of his legal team's members, who include Leonard Levine and Donald Marks, to inform them of his decision to act as his own attorney.

"He said he wanted to represent himself," Richards said, adding that there are benefits for an unsentenced prisoner to do so. "If you're going without a lawyer it's easier -- you have access to the law library and other aspects of your case, which he doesn't have now. I think a policy of direct engagement will assist this defendant."

Update: See WG Films response to the Dole lawsuit described below: ResponseEDITED.doc

Scene from "Bananas!"

The fallout from a transnational suit against Dole Foods continues -- and in the most unexpected places. Last April, L.A. Superior Court Victoria Chaney threw out, in mid-trial, a class-action lawsuit against the Westlake Village-based conglomerate brought on behalf of Nicaraguan banana workers. The workers claimed to have been left sterile by Dole's use of the pesticide Nemagon, which has been banned since the late 1970s.

When it emerged during testimony that the victims were not plantation workers but simply Nicaraguans hired by attorneys to falsely claim damages, out went the case. (And with it, the reputation of one of the lead lawyers -- L.A. ambulance chaser Juan "Accidentes" Dominguez, whom Chaney has reported to state and federal authorities.)

Matters haven't ended there, however. Before Chaney dismissed the charges against Dole, Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten had completed a documentary about the case and trial that focused on Dominguez and was highly sympathetic to its bogus plaintiffs. Even after the charges were exposed as fraudulent, Gertten still showed Bananas!* at last month's L.A. Film Festival. According to Associated Press, Dole filed a defamation suit Wednesday seeking unspecified damages -- and to block future screenings of Bananas!*

JJ Hollywood Booking Photo

Jesse James Hollywood, the now-29-year-old West Hills man depicted in the film Alpha Dog, has been found guilty, it's just been announced, of ordering members of his young drug-dealing crew to kill 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz. After three days of deliberations, a Santa Barbara jury convicted Hollywood of murder and kidnapping -- although he was acquitted of kidnapping with the intent to commit murder.

Exactly how that verdict will shake out for Hollywood won't be clear until the jury finishes its next task -- to set sentencing for Hollywood. He could receive the death penalty.

In a story that was part Leopold and Loeb, part River's Edge, Nicholas Markowitz had been kidnapped by Hollywood's posse on August 6, 2000, held for hours and even partied with them at a motel. The San Fernando  Valley youth was eventually shot several times and his body buried in a shallow grave outside Santa Barbara. Markowitz, prosecutors had alleged, was killed to send a signal to the boy's half-brother, who owed Hollywood a debt. 

For someone who's declared his intention to never return to the United States, Roman Polanski is certainly keen on clearing his name in Los Angeles court. The 75-year-old film auteur (Repulsion, Chinatown, The Pianist) fled the country for voluntary European exile in 1978 after an L.A. judge indicated he was about to throw out a plea deal involving charges Polanski had sexual relations with a minor. Since then, a documentary film aired last year on HBO suggested judicial impropriety on the court's part, prompting Polanski to seek a dismissal of his case in late 2008.

A Catch-22 scenario worthy of Polanski's blackest comedies prevented the petition from going forward: Judge Peter Espinoza would not consider the motion unless Polanski was present in court -- and, of course, the director would likely be arrested on the basis of a 31-year-old warrant the moment he set foot in Los Angeles. Today, however, the Associated Press' Linda Deutsch reports that Polanski's lawyers have filed an appeal in California.

Attorney Chad Hummel  of Manatt, Phelps and Phillips, is claiming that in his January ruling Espinoza erroneously relied upon the "fugitive disentitlement doctrine," which says a fugitive like Polanski cannot seek redress in court while remaining at large.

According to an Associated Press report, former Mongols motorcyle club president Ruben "Doc" Cavazos pleaded guilty in January to a single RICO Act count that could land him in prison for 20 years. The plea, disclosed in court papers filed June 29, will result in Cavazos being sentenced in February, 2010. Cavazos was arrested last October in a massive government sweep of Mongol chapters in six states.

A controversial figure even within the  Mongols, Cavazos gained his "Doc" moniker from working as an X-ray technician at L.A. County General-USC Medical Center. A year ago Cavazos, a former member of Highland Park's Avenues gang, published his autobiography,  Honor Few, Fear None: The Life and Times of a Mongol.

For 100 intense minutes this morning the defense and prosecutors involved in the Anand Jon trial argued to persuade Judge David Wesley on the motion to set aside Jon's first trial and order a new one. The defense motion has kept the fashion designer, who was convicted of 16 sex-related charges last November, from being sentenced and has taken on a post-verdict life of its own, involving many twists. The issue's crux, however, has remained whether rogue juror Alvin Dymally's contacts with Jon's sister, Sanjana Alexander, had prevented Jon from receiving a fair verdict.

Jon, who has been wearing horn-rimmed glasses recently, arrived in court smiling. Lately he had seemed more confident as he sat with his brace of attorneys as they argued the new-trial motion. Also in court, with his lawyer, was Dymally, who briefly got on the witness stand but quickly took the Fifth Amendment when questioned by defense attorney Leonard Levine. Dymally was clearly a pinata for both the defense and prosecutors, as he was quoted many times declaring his affection for Sanjana Alexander. He had allowed romantic vanity to almost plunge the first trial into chaos and, now, he stood accused of helping to possibly undo all the work of both sides of that trial.

In a surreal moment, two versions of the same phone call placed by Sanjana to Dymally before last year's verdict were played in court. The recording, surreptitiously made through a pay phone by Sanjana with an MP3 player, was originally so muddy-sounding that both the FBI and the District Attorney's office had to have lab technicians separately clean up the audio. Even so, the pay phone conversation sounded like a shortwave broadcast beamed from outer space. Still, rapt listeners could detect Sanjana's soft voice expressing thanks to Dymally while the maverick juror's voice could be made out declaring something to Sanjana that was not the Fifth Amendment. No wonder Judge Wesley had insisted Dymally remain in court to hear himself on the recording.

After hearing both sides forcefully argue their cases for or against granting fashion designer Anand Jon a new trial this morning, Superior Court Judge David Wesley delivered his decision at 12:15 p.m.: The motion for a new trial is denied. Further, he has just cited Sanjana Jon Alexander and juror Alvin Dymally for contempt of court for their contact with each other during Jon's trial. A sentencing hearing has been set for August 31. Sanjana has risen and asked the judge permission to address the court but has been told to sit down.

As the arguments of deputy district attorney Frances Young and defense attorneys Leonard Levine and Donald Marks wore on earlier, it seemed as though Wesley was resistant to the idea of giving a second chance to Jon, who'd been convicted last November of 15 counts of sexual assault and a single count of rape. Yet the defense had a seemingly compelling argument: Toward the end of the 2008 trial, a rogue juror had reached out to Jon's sister, Sanjana Alexander, with apparently amorous intentions, with an offer to "help" her brother.

That juror, Alvin Dymally, was later caught in an apparent lie on the witness stand during a hearing this past spring. The defense maintained that at the very least Dymally's actions had forfeited the jury's claim to have been composed of 12 impartial members. More suggestively, Levine claimed that when Sanjana Alexander rejected Dymally's entreaties, he avenged himself by voting to convict Anand Jon.