Nine people have been charged in connection with looting in the Palisades and Eaton fires, L.A. County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced Monday.

Speaking at an afternoon news conference, Hochman called the incidents “appalling” and “a direct attack on our community during a time of unprecedented loss and vulnerability.”

He did not indicate that looting or other criminal activity related to the fires was widespread, but warned that anyone caught engaging in such activity would face charges.

“Let me be clear, If you exploit this tragedy to prey on victims of these deadly fires, we will find you and we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law,” he said.

The charges

Two people are charged with first degree burglary and looting of a property in the Mandeville Canyon area near The Getty Center late Jan. 8 or early Jan. 9, according to the district attorney. They’re accused of stealing property exceeding $200,000.

A third person is accused of evading police while they were investigating the burglary. That person has since been charged with one count of felony hit-and-run, Hochman said.

Two other people are accused of entering two houses in Altadena on Jan. 8, Hochman said, and four people are charged with burglarizing a different house in Altadena that same day.

The latter group is accused of stealing an Emmy award statue that belonged to a person who lived there.

As of Monday afternoon, most of the people facing those charges had been arraigned in Superior Court.

Hochman also announced that one person has been charged with felony arson for allegedly trying to light a large downed tree on fire at Pioneer Park in Azusa….

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Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced Friday that he met with family of the Menendez brothers but has not yet decided whether he will recommend they be released from prison.

Hochman described the meeting with the family as “productive” but noted there is more work to be done to go through thousands of pages of information related to the high-profile murder case.

Lyle and Erik Menendez were both convicted of murder in the 1989 shooting deaths of their parents. They long maintained that they had suffered years of sexual abuse by their father.

Since then, the high-profile case has come back into the national spotlight, with some of their relatives calling for the pair to be resentenced and released.

Friday was the first time Hochman had officially weighed in on the case after his predecessor, George Gascón, recommended resentencing late last year.

A judge has to make the final decision, and a hearing date is set for late January.

At a news conference in downtown L.A., Hochman said he and his staff
were reviewing transcripts from two trials, appellate court decisions and confidential prison records. They are also speaking with prosecutors and defense lawyers who were involved with the Menendez case.

As part of that effort, Hochman said, he agreed to meet with the Menendez family.

“A number of the victims’ family members came in; it was a very productive session where they gave me all their thoughts about what should happen in this case, their experiences that they wanted to share, the ultimate direction that they wanted this case to go,” he said.

Hochman told reporters that the information the family members provided would be part of the “data set” he would use to determine what the right result should be.

Topline:

How they try to get you: The text will say you need to pay for use of a FasTrak lane to avoid late fees or potential legal action, and provides a link to a website that claims to be run by The Toll Roads, a California tolling agency. It may also ask you to respond to the text

Why it’s a scam: Bonta’s office says FasTrak, the state’s electronic toll collection system, does not request payment by sending you a text with a website link. The Toll Roads, a state tolling agency, does not send texts to people who don’t have an account with them.

What to do if you get this text:

• DO NOT reply or follow the link!
• File a report with the FBI, the Federal Trade Commission and Attorney General Bonta’s office and be sure to include the number the text came from and the website.
• Delete the text after you submit your complaints! If you want to delete it right away, take a screenshot so you have the number it came from and website link for when you report it.
• Log into your FasTrak or tolling agency account through their legitimate website to check your account. You can find a list of all tolling agencies in California and their websites here.
• If you did click on the link or provide any personal bank or credit card information, you may need to take steps to secure your info. These could include locking your credit or debit card and requesting your bank issue you a new one with a different number, disputing any unfamiliar charges or contacting your bank to inform them of potential fraud.

…

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Those who physically attack doctors, nurses and other emergency department workers in California face harsher penalties in 2025 thanks to a new law.

In September, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 977, which increased penalties from six months to a year in jail for those convicted of assaulting California’s hospital emergency room workers.

The bill’s author was Assemblymember Freddie Rodriguez, who spent 30 years as an emergency medical technician in the San Gabriel Valley.

Rodriguez, a Democrat whose term ended in 2024, said he was compelled to introduce the legislation after seeing too many of his friends and former colleagues attacked on the job. He felt that there needed to be tougher penalties to discourage future attacks.

As he made his case to lawmakers this year, he testified that his daughter, Desirae, a respiratory technician, was recently assaulted on the job. Other health care workers testified that they too had been attacked.

Recent polling shows they’re hardly alone. A poll from the American College of Emergency Physicians found that more than 90% of ER doctors said they’d been attacked within the last year.

Though the bill ended up passing overwhelmingly, some progressive Democrats either voted against or didn’t vote for the proposal which counts the same as a “no” vote. They, along with prison reform advocates and the California Public Defenders Association, argued that increasing penalties doesn’t deter crime and that many of those assaulting ER workers are mentally ill. They noted that laws on the books already prohibited assault.

Former Gov. Jerry Brown, who faced a U.S. Supreme Court order to shrink the state’s prison population, had vetoed an identical bill from Rodriguez in 2015.

The California Medical Association, the lobbying group for California’s physicians, was glad Newsom didn’t do the…

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A judge has vacated the first-degree murder sentences of two Angelenos who were wrongfully convicted in 2009, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced on Monday.

Charlotte Pleytez and Lombardo Palacios were in prison for 17 years for the murder of Hector Flores, a man who was shot and killed in his car in East Hollywood near a 99 Cent store. They’ve since been exonerated and released.

What led to the decision

Former D.A. George Gascón originally brought the case to the court in October when he was in office. He took issue with the way witness identification was handled, saying the conviction was not based on factual evidence.

Pleytez was identified out of a mug shot book with only two women in it, and two out of the three identifications were not definitive. Palacios was also 15-years-old when he was pressured into a confession during interrogation, a process that’s now illegal in California. (The interrogation video was not shown to the jury.)

However, on Monday, Hochman said there was no…

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Topline:

What do we know? Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Brian Williams allegedly made the threat earlier this year, according to Mayor Karen Bass’s office. Williams was named deputy mayor in 2023 and oversaw LAPD, LA Fire Department and other public safety departments in his role. He could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Why officials say: The Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement that it determined Williams was the “likely” source of the threat in an initial investigation, and then referred the case to the FBI. A spokesperson for the agency said they had no comment on the case.

What happened to Williams? He has been placed on immediate administrative leave, according to the mayor’s office. Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for Bass, said in a statement that the mayor “takes this matter very seriously. When the threat was reported, LAPD investigated and determined there was no immediate danger.”

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The U.S. government will pay nearly $116 million to resolve lawsuits brought by more than 100 women who say they were abused or mistreated at a now-shuttered federal prison in California that was known as the “rape club” because of rampant staff-on-inmate sexual misconduct.

Under settlements approved Tuesday, the Justice Department will pay an average of about $1.1 million to each of 103 women who sued the Bureau of Prisons over their treatment at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California.

The agreements were finalized the same day a federal judge was set approve a settlement in a separate class-action lawsuit that requires the Bureau of Prisons to open some facilities to a court-appointed monitor and publicly acknowledge abuse at FCI Dublin.

“We were sentenced to prison, we were not sentenced to be assaulted and abused,” lawsuit plaintiff and former Dublin prisoner Aimee Chavira said.

“I hope this settlement will help survivors, like me, as they begin to heal – but money will not repair the harm that BOP did to us, or free survivors who continue to suffer in prison, or bring back survivors who were deported and separated from their families,” Chavira said.

The Bureau of Prisons acknowledged the settlements in a statement Tuesday.

The agency said it “strongly condemns all forms of sexually abusive behavior and takes seriously its duty to protect the individuals in our custody as well as maintain the safety of our employees and community.”

Tuesday’s settlements cover an initial wave of lawsuits seeking monetary compensation from the Bureau of Prisons after former warden Ray Garcia and other employees at FCI Dublin went to prison for sexually abusing inmates. Subsequent lawsuits have yet to be resolved.

The Bureau of Prisons…

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Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday approved a motion to declare a state of emergency at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, which state authorities have said was unsuitable to house youths because of insufficient staffing and other problems.

The declaration authorizes the Probation Department to hire or move staff to the juvenile hall and offer incentives, like signing bonuses and other benefits.

Supervisors voted 4-1 to approve the declaration. It comes less than a week after the Probation Department blew a state Dec. 12 deadline to move more than 200 youths out of Los Padrinos.

The Board of State and Community Corrections said low staffing was leading to youths being kept in rooms too long, missing medical appointments and outdoor recreation time.

“It’s not about the physical location or the facility,” Supervisor Kathryn Barger told reporters at a Tuesday news conference. “The biggest issue continues to be staffing.”

In a statement, Probation Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa said he supported the supervisors’ emergency proclamation.

“Drastic and decisive measures are needed to root deep-seated issues plaguing our only secured youth facility, Los Padrinos,” Viera Rosa said.

But many who spoke during the public comment period at the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday said the declaration was a step in the wrong direction. Dozens of criminal justice reform activists with the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, the Youth Justice Coalition and other groups spoke against the motion.

Tyrique Shipp with the Anti-Recidivism…

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Topline:

The charge: Rundo, a member of the Southern California-based white supremacist group Rise Above Movement, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the federal Riot Act in September. Rundo was released Friday, Dec. 13 on time served, according to the Department of Justice.

The overview: Rundo trained with other members of his extremist group in hand-to-hand combat with the purpose of escalating political rallies into violence, tackling and punching protesters, according to prosecutors. Federal investigators also found he posted statements with hashtags such as “#rightwingdeathsquad.”

The details: Rundo was prosecuted in conjunction with three rallies held in 2017. The first was in Huntington Beach in March, the next in Berkeley in April, and the third in San Bernardino in June. During the investigation, Rundo fled the country and became an international fugitive, according to the Department of Justice. He was extradited from Romania to face federal charges.

The backstory: District Judge Cormac J. Carney, now retired, had dismissed the charges against Rundo and his associates earlier this year, saying that they were being treated unequally since members of “Antifa and far-left groups” were not similarly prosecuted. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed that ruling in July after finding the district judge’s claims lacked supporting evidence, opening Rundo up to prosecution.

Other cases: Two of Rundo’s alleged associates, Robert Boman of Torrance and Tyler…

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Los Angeles County authorities said Thursday that they had no intention of meeting a deadline to move more than 260 people out of a juvenile hall in Downey and instead would appeal a state board’s findings that the facility was “unsuitable” to house youth.

On the day of the deadline, the county Probation Department released a statement saying it had asked the Board of State and Community Corrections to rescind its findings from previous inspections of the facility.

The board found that the department repeatedly failed to meet minimum staffing requirements at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, which meant the young people held there were being confined in their rooms for too long and missing medical appointments.

“While we fully agree with safety and security standards, we disagree with [the board’s] application of regulations and overall findings, particularly around staffing ratios,” the Probation Department said in the statement. “The department fully intends to keep Los Padrinos open and operational.”

Findings from inspections

In October, the Board of State and Community Corrections notified probation authorities that Los Padrinos wasn’t complying with minimum staffing requirements.

“The continued lack of staffing continues to negatively impact delivery of required services and compliance with additional regulations, including education, outdoor recreation, youth being confined in rooms, and youth missing medical appointments,” the letter from the board to Probation Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa stated.

The board set a Dec. 12 deadline for L.A. County to vacate Los Padrinos, but the Probation Department did not reveal any plans…

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