Politics, Government & Business in California's Inland Empire
Thursday, April 18, 2019 - 09:45 a.m.
This morning US. Attorney General William Barr released a redacted version of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III.
To read the report, click the following link: https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf
Sunday, June 24, 2018 - 02:30 p.m.
A local developer has somehow achieved an unimaginable re-zoning of property in Adelanto, California, a city in the midst of an ongoing investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Department of Justice.
By Dan Morain | March 7, 2018 |
Most out-of-state politicians come to California to raise money. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions flew into Sacramento bearing a gift, in the form a lawsuit targeting this so-called sanctuary state.
By Franco Ordonez, Anita Chabria And Stephen Magagnini
Published: March 06, 2018 11:28 AM
Updated: March 06, 2018 07:20 PM
The Trump administration on Tuesday sued California over its sanctuary policies for undocumented immigrants, setting off a chorus of near-unanimous defiance from California lawmakers.
By Jim Erwin
Saturday, February 3, 2018 - 07:30 p.m.
Well the pot is boiling now that the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Intelligence memo, drafted by the committee majority, commonly-referred to as the Nunes-Memo, has been declassified by President Donald Trump.
By Tony Saavedra | [email protected] | Orange County Register
Published: May 22, 2017 at 5:06 pm
Updated: May 23, 2017 at 7:30 am
The day after the news show “60 Minutes” turned a national spotlight on local prosecutors’ misuse of jailhouse informants, an Orange County supervisor formally asked U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to take over the district attorney’s office.
Joseph Tanfani
April 21, 2017, 8:33 a.m.
Reporting from Washington—
The Justice Department on Friday fired an opening shot in the Trump administration’s crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities, sending letters to nine jurisdictions asking for proof that they are cooperating with immigration enforcement, and indicating they are at risk of losing federal grants.
Ruben Vives and Cindy Carcamo
March 27, 2017
Leaders from so-called sanctuary cities across Southern California struck a defiant tone Monday, stating that they would continue to protect people who are in the country illegally despite threats by U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to cut off and even claw back grant funding from the Justice Department.
Tony Saavedra / Staff Writer
Jan. 6, 2017 - Updated 9:18 p.m.
Community forums. Face-to-face meetings with leaders of the local deputies union and with local defense attorneys. Twitter.
Is this any way to conduct a civil-rights investigation?
Joel Rubin and Victoria Kim
December 24, 2016
The team of federal prosecutors was on a roll.
For nearly five years, the Public Corruption and Civil Rights section of the U.S. attorney’s office had been building and winning cases against a group from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department accused of carrying out a plan to obstruct a federal investigation into allegations of inmate abuse at the county jails.
By Kelly Puente / Staff Writer
Published: Dec. 15, 2016
Updated: Dec. 16, 2016 - 7:12 a.m.
The U.S. Department of Justice launched a civil rights investigation of the Orange County District Attorney’s Office and the Sheriff’s Department on Thursday over allegations that prosecutors and deputies withhold evidence and use jailhouse informants to illegally obtain confessions.
Maura Dolan
August 17, 2016
A U.S. appeals court decided unanimously Tuesday that the federal government may not prosecute people who grow and distribute medical marijuana if they are complying with state laws.
By Neil Nisperos, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Posted: 07/06/16 - 10:51 PM PDT |
ONTARIO >> Ontario-based Prime Healthcare medical group responded Wednesday to news the federal government is joining a Medicare fraud lawsuit against the company, denying charges it admitted patients needlessly.
By Harper Neidig - 07/02/16 12:26 PM EDT
Hillary Clinton was interviewed by authorities Saturday about the ongoing investigation into her email server, her campaign said.
By Willie Brown
Published: July 1, 2016
Updated: July 2, 2016 - 8:15pm
What in the world was Bill Clinton thinking when he dropped by to “just say hello” to Attorney General Loretta Lynch when they both had their personal planes parked at the Phoenix airport the other day?
Joel Rubin
June 20, 2016
Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, but he nonetheless should serve time in prison for lying to federal investigators during a probe into jail abuses by sheriff’s deputies, the U.S. attorney’s office has concluded.
Wednesday, June 15, 2016 - 10:45 p.m.
InlandPolitics.com has confirmed the existence of an active investigation, being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), into multiple San Bernardino County governmental agencies.
Paul Sisson
May 26, 2016
The U.S. Justice Department has joined a whistle-blower case against Prime Healthcare Services, adding significant weight to allegations of widespread Medicare overbilling at 14 of the company’s hospitals in California.
By Joel Gehrke (@Joelmentum)
Washington Examiner
05/19/16 - 5:22 PM
A federal judge has ordered annual ethics classes for Justice Department attorneys as a punishment for being “intentionally deceptive” during litigation over President Obama’s executive immigration orders.
By Joe Nelson, The Sun
Posted: 04/17/16 - 11:16 PM PDT |
Federal prosecutors and FBI agents investigating allegations of inmate abuse at a San Bernardino County jail have conducted follow-up interviews with about a half-dozen current and former prisoners in the last month, their attorneys said.
By Joe Nelson, The Sun
Posted: 04/07/16 - 1:34 PM PDT |
PASADENA >> A defense attorney in San Bernardino County’s Colonies corruption case and an assistant U.S. attorney battled it out in federal court Thursday over whether the government should destroy documents seized during a search of defendant Jeff Burum’s home and office in 2011.
Joel Rubin
April 6, 2016
A federal jury on Wednesday convicted former Los Angeles County Undersheriff Paul Tanaka of deliberately impeding an FBI investigation, capping a jail abuse and obstruction scandal that reached to the top echelons of the Sheriff’s Department.
Joel Rubin , James Queally and Paresh Dave
March 28, 2016
Federal officials on Monday dropped their legal fight against Apple after unlocking the iPhone used by an assailant in last year’s San Bernardino terror attack, leaving unsettled a vexing debate over privacy and security amid rapid advances in technology.
Joel Rubin
February 29, 2016
Apple won the latest round in its battle with the U.S. government over accessing iPhones in criminal investigations on Monday when a federal judge said he would not force the technology company to assist in a drug probe.
By Dan Levine
Technology | Mon Feb 22, 2016 - 11:24am EST
Some victims of the San Bernardino attack will file a legal brief in support of the U.S. government’s attempt to force Apple Inc to unlock the encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the shooters, a lawyer representing the victims said on Sunday.
Tami Abdollah and Bree Fowler | AP
February 21, 2016 - 03:17 PM
The county government that owned the iPhone in a high-profile legal battle between Apple Inc. and the Justice Department paid for but never installed a feature that would have allowed the FBI to easily and immediately unlock the phone as part of the terrorism investigation into the shootings that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California.
.
By: Gina Silva
Posted: Feb 17 2016 - 09:29 PM PST
Updated: Feb 17 2016 - 10:33 PM PST
Fox 11 News has exposed one case after another of children beaten, tortured, and left to die in abusive homes in our ongoing series, The Children Are Dying. Our sources say many of those children would be alive today if the San Bernardino County Department of Children and Family Services had done its job.
Tracey Lien, Brian Bennett, Paresh Dave and James Queally
February 17, 2016
Setting up a pitched battle between Silicon Valley and the counter-terrorism community, Apple’s chief executive said Wednesday that his company would fight a court order demanding the tech giant’s help in the San Bernardino attack investigation, turning what had been a philosophical dispute into a legal skirmish that could have major ramifications for the tech industry.
Joel Rubin and Cindy Chang
February 12, 2016
The sheriff’s lie came 25 minutes into the interview.
Shelby Grad and Richard Winton
February 10, 2016
At the center of the FBI’s investigation into abuses at the Los Angeles County Jail was a top-secret program known as Operation Pandora’s Box.
Joel Rubin, Cindy Chang and Harriet Ryan
February 10, 2016
Retired Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca pleaded guilty Wednesday to lying to federal investigators, a stunning reversal for the longtime law enforcement leader who for years insisted he played no role in the misconduct that tarnished his agency.
Joel Rubin
December 26, 2015
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department already was engulfed in a jail brutality scandal when a prosecutor in the district attorney’s office examined the beating of Gabriel Carrillo.
By Christie Smythe and Keri Geiger | December 17, 2015
Martin Shkreli, the boyish drug company entrepreneur, who rocketed to infamy by jacking up the price of a life-saving pill from $13.50 to $750, was arrested by federal agents at his Manhattan home early Thursday morning on securities fraud related to a firm he founded.
By Rex Dalton
November 18, 2015 at 2:00 PM
A coalition of national legal authorities is calling for a federal investigation of the Orange County District Attorney and Sheriff’s Department for alleged systemic violations of defendants’ rights involving jail informants.
By City News Service
Posted: 10/16/15 - 8:01 PM PDT |
LOS ANGELES >> In a case stemming from the beating of a handcuffed man at Men’s Central Jail, a sixth former member of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was indicted Friday on federal charges for allegedly participating in the cover-up of the incident.
Friday, September 4, 2015 - 09:00 a.m.
This week the San Bernardino County District Attorney announced the filing of charges against three out of ten suspended sheriff’s deputies involved in the apprehension and assault on Francis Pusok.
By Carol D. Leonnig, Karen Tumulty and Rosalind S. Helderman
August 14, 2015 at 4:51 PM
Late last month, Hillary Rodham Clinton stood before a line of television cameras at a rural Iowa campaign stop to deny reports that she had sent sensitive information over her private e-mail system.
John R. Schindler
08.12.15 - 4:50 PM ET
These weren’t just ordinary secrets found in Clinton’s private server, but some of the most classified material the U.S. government has.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - 09:30 a.m.
We’ve been saying for some time now that the Obama Administration is gutting the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
By Cindy Chang and Joel Rubin
August 5, 2015
Capping years of scandal, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has agreed to federal oversight of its jail system in an effort to end abuse of inmates by sheriff’s deputies and to improve chronically poor treatment of mentally ill inmates.
By Tony Saavedra / Staff Writer
July 22, 2015
Updated July 23, 2015 10:32 a.m.
Related stories
The U.S. Department of Justice is looking at the jailhouse informant scandal in Orange County, a move that could lead to a federal takeover of the District Attorney’s Office.
By Joel Rubin
June 25, 2015
Three Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies were convicted Wednesday of beating a handcuffed man bloody and then lying to cover up the abuse.
By Doug Saunders, The Sun
Posted: 06/05/15 - 8:49 PM PDT |
A former FBI agent indicted on several corruption charges alleging he stole over $100,000 in money from drug seizures has pleaded not guilty.
Published: June 2, 2015 - Updated: 10:08 p.m.
Two former Moreno Valley City Council members blamed a political corruption investigation for their removal from office, saying they were the targets of false allegations.
To read story by Imran Ghori in The Press-Enterprise, click here.
Published: June 1, 2015 - Updated: 10:59 p.m.
After two years under investigation by authorities and suspicion by constituents, the people whose homes and offices were raided during a public corruption probe in Moreno Valley felt vindicated Monday by the disclosure that no criminal charges would be filed.
To read story by Brian Rokos and David Danelski in The Press-Enterprise, click here.
By Paloma Esquivel
June 1, 2015
Former Moreno Valley City Councilman Marcelo Co was sentenced Monday to 60 months in federal prison for accepting a $2.36-million cash bribe from an undercover agent.
By Josh Gerstein
5/29/15 - 9:22 PM EDT
How did federal authorities get onto Dennis Hastert?
By Jaxon Van Derbeken
May 21, 2015
Updated: May 21, 2015 - 8:11pm
Investigators are looking into whether former PUC President Michael Peevey made deals with PG&E illegally.
By Cindy Chang, Joel Rubin and Richard Winton
May 14, 2015
What began more than four years ago as a federal investigation into brutality and corruption by deputies in L.A. County jails reached the highest echelons of the Sheriff’s Department on Thursday, with two top officials indicted on charges of orchestrating an elaborate scheme to thwart the FBI.
By Shelby Grad
May 14, 2015
The widening scandal at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has at its center a top-secret operation that federal prosecutors said amounted to an outrageous case of obstruction of justice.
By Jack Leonard and Richard Winton
May 13, 2015
Federal authorities are expected to announce indictments Thursday against former Los Angeles County Undersheriff Paul Tanaka and a retired sheriff’s captain in the ongoing investigation into excessive force and corruption in the county’s jails, according to sources familiar with the probe.
Wednesday, May 6, 2015 - 11:00 a.m.
Last week San Bernardino County Sheriff’s officials were disseminating an interesting spin in the Francis Pusok beating case.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - 09:30 a.m.
Former Secretary of State and Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is rapidly becoming the GOP dream opponent.
By Joe Nelson, The Sun
Posted: 04/26/15 - 8:07 PM PDT |
The FBI just can’t seem to stay out of the Inland Empire.
It began with early-morning knocks at the homes of city officials and business offices as federal and local agents served search warrants as part of a public corruption investigation.
To read story by Imran Ghori in The Press-Enterprise, click here.
By Paloma Esquivel and Richard Winton
April 19, 2015
Before he found himself being beaten earlier this month by San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies in view of a hovering news helicopter, Francis Pusok and law enforcement had clashed more than once.
Sunday, April 12, 2015 - 10:30 a.m.
Thursdays beating of suspect Francis Pusok by deputies from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department isn’t going away anytime soon.
Sunday, April 12, 2015 - 10:00 a.m.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has a problem with San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos.
It was bound to happen sooner or later!
By Doug Saunders, The Sun
Posted: 04/11/15 - 2:37 PM PDT |
SAN BERNARDINO >> A spokesman for the Southern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union says a federal investigation into the county Sheriff’s Department has been too long in coming.
Saturday, April 11, 2015 - 01:00 p.m.
Ripples from the epicenter of a videotaped assault on an unarmed High Desert man, who fled from Deputies from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, are expanding at an ever increasing rate.
Friday, April 10, 2015 - 03:45 P.M.
As expected, the U.S. Department of Justice has entered into Thursday’s tape recorded use of force incident caught on tape by Los Angeles-based KNBC-TV 4, involving San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies, who appear to use excessive force in the apprehension of a suspect after a long pursuit involving an automobile and horseback.
By Josh Richman
Wednesday, April 8th, 2015 at 5:32 pm
A bipartisan pair of California House members are insisting that the Justice Department back off from prosecutions of medical marijuana patients and providers in states with medical marijuana laws – as Congress mandated in a recent spending bill.
Saturday, April 4, 2015 - 11:00 a.m.
A reader forwarded a link to an exhaustive article, published in California Lawyer magazine, discussing alleged misconduct by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California and the California Attorney General, in a civil case stemming from the costly 2007 Moonlight Fire in Plumas County.
By John Bresnahan and Burgess Everett
2/22/15 - 6:17 PM EST
Late Monday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will force the fourth vote in three weeks on a bill to fund the massive agency that protects Americans from terrorists, floods and incursions across the borders. Senate Democrats will almost certainly block it again.
By Patrick McGreevy
February 21, 2015
A year after his indictment on federal corruption charges, former state Sen. Ronald S. Calderon awaits his day in court, working as a manager at a real estate firm and helping his attorneys sift thousands of documents that include transcripts from undercover FBI wiretaps.
By Jeff McDonald
Feb. 19, 2015 - 4:56 p.m.
The California Public Utilities Commission has hired one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the state to respond to investigations of improper contact between regulators and the utility companies they oversee.
By SHEA JOHNSON
STAFF WRITER
Posted Feb. 16, 2015 @ 3:02 pm
Updated Feb 16, 2015 at 5:05 PM
A federal grand jury is investigating claims of deputy misconduct at West Valley Detention Center nearly a year after the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and FBI launched separate probes into possible inmate civil rights violations at the jail.
By Jaxon Van Derbeken
Monday, February 16, 2015 - Updated 9:07 am
A Pacific Gas and Electric Co. executive exploited former state Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey’s intense interest in a Kern County alternative-energy project in making a backroom deal to win favorable treatment for the company, newly released e-mails show.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - 09:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - 03:00 p.m.
It’s safe to say last week wasn’t a good week for San Bernardino County Government.
Opinion
By Debra J. Saunders
Saturday, February 7, 2015 - Updated 3:43 pm
Thursday morning’s “Building community trust” roundtable discussion in Oakland with Attorney General Eric Holder, local law enforcement, elected officials and community leaders was designed to “build trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.” After brief remarks, Holder and company dismissed the press corps.
By Joe Nelson, The Sun
Posted: 02/04/15, 6:05 PM PST
A federal grand jury has been convened and is hearing testimony related to an FBI investigation into the alleged Taser gun torture of inmates at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, an attorney said Wednesday.
By Cindy Chang
January 11, 2015
It seems that federal prosecutors are after the “big fish” in L.A. County Jail obstruction-of-justice inquiry
Published: December 25, 201
Updated: December 26, 2014 - 10:49 a.m.
Buried in the $1.1 trillion, 1,603-page federal spending bill approved by Congress earlier this month is a little relief for medical marijuana advocates such as Jim Camper.
The spending package contains language forbidding federal agencies from using their resources to go after medical marijuana in states where it is legal.
To read story by Jeff Horseman in The Press-Enterprise, click here.
By Bob Egelko
Published: Monday, December 22, 2014
In a sharp reversal of federal drug policy, Congress has prohibited the Justice Department from interfering with laws in California and other states that allow the medical use of marijuana. And the turnabout caught the immediate attention of federal judges, who want to know its impact on some recent criminal convictions under the federal law that classifies pot as one of the most dangerous drugs.
By Evan Halper
December 16, 2014
‘The first time in decades that the federal government has curtailed its oppressive prohibition of marijuana’
By Timothy M. Phelps
December 11, 2014
The Justice Department will generally not try to enforce federal marijuana laws on Native American reservations.
Politics
The backstory of how Obama lost his ‘heat shield.’
By GLENN THRUSH
September 25, 2014
It’s oddly fitting that Attorney General Eric Holder – a stubbornly independent career prosecutor ridiculed by Barack Obama’s advisers for having lousy political instincts— would nail his dismount.
By Marc Lifsher
August 7, 2014
SACRAMENTO — A federal grand jury Thursday handed down new and expanded corruption charges against investment deal “placement agent” Alfred J.R. Villalobos, a central figure in the 2009 influence-peddling scandal that rocked the country’s largest public pension fund.
By Kevin Smith, San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Posted: 08/06/14, 7:20 PM PDT | Updated: 1 min ago
Bank of America has tentatively agreed to pay up to $17 billion to settle an investigation into its sale of toxic mortgage-backed securities leading up to the nation’s financial crisis, an insider said Wednesday.
By Jim Miller and Christopher Cadelago
[email protected]
Published: Friday, Jul. 25, 2014 - 2:16 pm
Last Modified: Saturday, Jul. 26, 2014 - 12:00 am
Federal prosecutors have added a charge of racketeering to the corruption and gun-running case against state Sen. Leland Yee, filing an amended indictment this week that includes new allegations that the San Francisco Democrat traded official favors for campaign cash.
By E. Scott Reckard and Jim Puzzanghera
July 14, 2014
With Citigroup Inc. agreeing to pay $7 billion for issuing toxic mortgage securities, the Justice Department now turns to settling its case against what analysts call the biggest mortgage miscreant of all: Bank of America Corp.
Victoria Kim and Cindy Chang
July 2, 2014
Former Los Angeles County Undersheriff Paul Tanaka was testifying in the case of a deputy charged with obstruction of justice earlier this year when the prosecutor asked if he was familiar with a common investigative tactic: Start with low-level criminals, then go after their bosses.
Victoria Kim and Cindy Chang
July 1, 2014
A jury Tuesday found six members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department guilty of attempting to impede a federal civil rights inquiry into the county jails, providing prosecutors with a decisive victory as they continue to investigate higher-level officials tied to the scandal.
By Fred Shuster, City News Service
Posted: 06/20/14, 6:02 PM PDT |
A prosecutor urged a jury Friday to convict six members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department of witness tampering, but their attorneys countered that the defendants were simply following orders from superiors when they helped keep an inmate informant hidden within the jail system during a federal probe of prisoner abuse.
Cindy Chang
June 18, 2014
A videotape of an encounter between two sheriff’s sergeants and an FBI agent outside the agent’s home, played in federal court Wednesday, showed a surprisingly polite exchange, even as the agent was advised she would soon be arrested.