Media Comments

• Los Angeles - Director of Antigang Group Sold Illegal Assault Weapons
  
  
• Los Angeles County - Third-Strike Inmate Wins his Freedom
  
  
• Orange County - Bail reduced in grand-theft case against slain millionaire's fiancee
  
  
• Riverside County - Ex-Army recruiter gets 16-month term
  
  
• Riverside County - Man gets prison in scam
  
  
• Ventura County - Jury convicts ex-CLU freshman of battery
  

Director of Antigang Group Sold Illegal Assault Weapons
Client was charged with separately occurring offences that encompassed multiple counts of illegal assault weapons sales, including sales of a machine gun and silencer, while in or for the benefit of a criminal street gang. Client also was charged with committing these crimes while out on felon bail on another gun crime case. Client was facing approximately 30 years in prison on the combined cases at 80% time as the gang allegations made the crimes serious felonies. Mr. Bernstein, during the course of preparing to defend these matters on the basis of illegal police activity and entrapment, was able to negotiate a plea agreement wherein client took responsibility, a no contest plea, for sales of three assault weapons in exchange for a dismissal of the gang allegations, the other weapons charges (machine gun and silencer), a dismissal of the other pending felony gun case and the allegations of committing a crime while out on bail. Client agreed to do 8 years at ½ time. He is expected to serve approximately 4 years or less in state prison. Mr. Bernstein, with the permission of and on behalf of the co-defendant’s attorney, who was out of the country at the time, was also able to negotiate a resolution for the co-defedant who was facing the same gun sales charges and approximately 25 years in state prison, wherein she took responsibility similarly to client’s and received a 4 year sentence, also at ½ time. It is expected that she will serve somewhat less than 2 years on this sentence.

By Rebecca Cathcart
The New York Times writer
January 19, 2008

LOS ANGELES — The director of an antigang organization here that sought to reduce gun violence and received $1.5 million from the City of Los Angeles pleaded guilty on Thursday to charges that he sold illegal assault weapons to a federal undercover agent.

Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested the director, Hector Marroquin, in May after video surveillance showed him selling weapons and silencers to an agent and an informant. The weapons included a MAK-90 and a Ewbank, both semiautomatic assault rifles, and a M-11, a smaller assault weapon that is like an Uzi, said Eric Harmon, who prosecuted the case.

“Here is a guy who represented himself to the city as being a former gang member helping others to get out of gangs,” said Gary Hearnsberger, head of the Hardcore Gang Division of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, “and he is convicted of selling illegal weapons as a side business.”

Mr. Marroquin, 51, pleaded guilty to three counts of possessing and selling assault weapons and was sentenced to eight years in prison. His companion, Sylvia Arellano, 26, was named as an accomplice in the sales and also pleaded guilty. She is to be sentenced on Tuesday to four years in prison.

Charges that Mr. Marroquin and Ms. Arellano were selling or holding the weapons on behalf of a gang were dismissed, said Barry Bernstein, Mr. Marroquin’s lawyer.

Mr. Marroquin founded the group No Guns in 1996, after he told the city and others that he had severed ties with the 18th Street Gang. The district attorney’s office, however, says it believes Mr. Marroquin is still active in that gang as a “shot caller,” a high-ranking member who gives orders but plays a less visible role.

Mr. Bernstein said the accusations of gang ties were false. “He had turned away from gang activity in the negative sense and was focused on helping people who were at risk of going into gangs,” Mr. Bernstein said of his client. “He was totally antigang.”

From 2003 to 2006, No Guns received $1.5 million from L.A. Bridges, a project financed by the city that tries to help youth at risk of recruitment into gangs. Mr. Hearnsberger said the city cut financing to the program in 2006 after Mr. Marroquin’s son, Hector Marroquin Jr., was convicted of a home invasion robbery. The younger Mr. Marroquin had headed outreach programs at No Guns.

The first time federal agents bought a rifle from the elder Mr. Marroquin was in September 2006. At the time, he was out on bail from a misdemeanor charge of unlawful gun possession, said Mr. Harmon. Agents arrested him after two more weapons sales.

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Third-Strike Inmate Wins His Freedom
The janitor's robbery conviction was reversed on appeal because of errors by trial judge and public defender. He was serving 70 years to life.

By Steve Berry
LA Times Staff Writer
February 1, 2003

A Los Angeles janitor who was serving a prison sentence of 70 years to life for a robbery that he denied committing won his freedom Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Jason Kindle, 34, whose conviction was reversed by an appeals court last year, has been behind bars for three years.

Wishing Kindle "good luck" and telling him to "stay out of trouble," Judge Lance Ito granted a motion by the district attorney's office to dismiss the case because it has grown weaker as new evidence has become available.

Defense attorney Barry Bernstein's office said Los Angeles County jail officials were processing Kindle's release Friday.

Kindle was convicted in October 2000 of eight counts of robbery and two counts of assault. Jurors found him guilty of taking $15,000 in cash and $7,000 in checks at gunpoint from Office Depot on South Figueroa Avenue on Nov. 22, 1999. The cash and checks were never recovered.

Kindle was sentenced to extra time because the conviction was his third strike; the first two arose from a single incident in 1988 in which he was convicted of assaulting a police officer and shooting into an occupied vehicle.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal reversed the Office Depot robbery conviction because it said errors by Ito and Kindle's former attorney had prevented jurors from hearing crucial evidence that probably would have persuaded them to find him not guilty.

One of the key pieces of evidence that led to Kindle's conviction was a "things to do" list that Kindle says he compiled during a training session on working as a janitor. At trial, prosecutors depicted it as a "recipe for robbery."

In its 2-1 ruling, the appellate panel said Ito's court "abused its discretion" by refusing to order a retrial after learning of evidence that the items on the to-do list were janitorial tips. It also said Kindle's lawyer at the time, Haydeh Takasugi, "rendered ineffective assistance" to Kindle during his trial by failing to call an expert witness to challenge testimony by five employees that Kindle resembled the robber, who was heavily disguised.

On Friday, Ito questioned why Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael J. O'Gara was asking for a dismissal after the district attorney's office fought strenuously during a post-trial hearing two years ago against Bernstein's motion for a new trial.

"Your office vehemently objected to the grant of a new trial," Ito reminded O'Gara. "The facts were the same."

At that time, defense attorneys and the prosecution knew that Kindle's supervisor had given a statement explaining that he knew firsthand that Kindle's to-do list consisted of notes from a meeting about the janitorial service and not a robbery plan. But, after the witness moved from Los Angeles to New York, Kindle's lawyer was unable to find him to have him testify at Kindle's trial.

The witness has since been located, and the defense was prepared to bring him to trial.

O'Gara told Ito on Friday that he didn't think the prosecution could win another guilty verdict because "additional facts will come forward" that would weaken the prosecution's case to the point where he felt it could not win a conviction. 

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Bail reduced in grand-theft case against slain millionaire's fiancee
COURTS: Judge halves bail, to $250,000, and attorneys say the Newport Beach woman could soon be free.

By: STUART PFEIFER
The Orange County Register
April 22, 1995

A judge Friday slashed the bail of a Newport Beach woman accused of stealing nearly $500,000 from the slain millionaire she had planned to marry, and attorneys said she soon could be free.

Harbor Municipal Court Judge Christopher Strople cut Nanette Johnston's bail from $500,000 to $250,000 _ a figure she might be able to reach with the help of friends and family, said her lawyer, Barry Bernstein. Johnston, 29, pleaded innocent Friday to grand-theft charges filed after police…

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Ex-Army recruiter gets 16-month term

STATUTORY RAPE: He had sex with a teen girl who was considering joining the service.
By GUY McCARTHY
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE
July 26, 2003

A former U.S. Army recruiter based in Moreno Valley was sentenced Friday to 16 months in prison for the statutory rape of a 17-year-old girl who was joining the Army. Staff Sgt. Carlos Humberto Avalos, 32, pleaded guilty in May to two counts of statutory rape. He was accused of having sex with the girl in a back room of the Army's recruiting station at the Canyon Springs Mall and in a government-issued sedan outside Moreno Valley. The girl, now 18, told authorities that the sex acts happened in the spring of 2002 when Avalos was her recruiter. She later decided not to join the Army. Avalos' conduct damaged the Army's image and credibility, and especially the morale of its recruiters, said Command Sgt. Maj. John Ramirez of the Army's Southern California Recruiting Battalion. "He's no longer in the Army, but because he was in uniform when this happened, it sheds a black eye on all of us," Ramirez said in a phone interview. "It casts a shadow of shame. Our reputation in the civilian community is fundamental to the positive image we're supposed to project." Avalos' attorney, Barry Bernstein of Burbank, argued that probation alone would be the appropriate sentence for Avalos because he had suffered enough by losing his military career. Avalos received an other-than-honorable discharge in April to avoid potentially time-consuming appeals in a court-martial proceeding, Ramirez said. "This appears to have been a mistake on Mr. Avalos' part," Bernstein said in a phone interview after the sentencing. Bernstein said five family members and four co-workers described Avalos as a devoted and caring father and husband. Avalos is separated from his wife, who is in the military and living in Germany with their children. She has stated that if she is deployed to Iraq or elsewhere, she would prefer that the children live with their father, Bernstein said. But Judge Michael Beecher said he wanted to send a message to all military recruiters that Avalos' conduct will not be tolerated, according to a transcript provided by court reporter Sheila A. Detwiler. "It looks as if he's using the recruiting position for daily trolling and making every effort possible to get young women . . . to be involved in sex with him as a by-product of their attempt to get into the Army," Beecher said. "In fact, the degree of corruption . . . is fairly shocking. . . . It really makes him probably one of the least desirable recruiting officers they've ever had." The girl's mother asked Beecher to impose the stiffest sentence possible. The Press-Enterprise is not naming the mother to avoid identifying the girl because she is a victim of a sex crime.

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Man gets prison in scam

COURT: A judge in Riverside orders Leslie Darwin Murdock to pay investors $13 million.

By GUY McCARTHY
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE
May 31, 2003

RIVERSIDE - Leslie Darwin Murdock, described by officials as mastermind of a $26 million pyramid scheme that duped more than 600 investors, showed little remorse when he was sentenced Friday to seven years and 10 months in a Nevada prison camp. U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Timlin also ordered Murdock, 61, to pay more than $13 million in restitution. Authorities seized $4.5 million in assets from Murdock before he pleaded guilty in April 2002 to three counts of mail fraud involving investors across the Inland area and other states. Before Timlin sentenced him, Murdock portrayed himself as an innocent businessman prevented from fulfilling his investors' wishes by paranoid bank officials. "Up until the government seized our funds, we had not received one complaint from participants," Murdock said. "It was shut down by agents of a suspicious bank. To those who think it was a Ponzi scheme so I could take the money myself, I ask, 'Where is the money?' "

That's exactly what some of Murdock's alleged victims wanted to know. Deputy U.S. Attorney Dan O'Brien said some investors' money was spent on racehorses, among other things. James A. Simms, 57, of Moreno Valley, who lost $20,000 he invested with Murdock, came to the U.S. District Courthouse in Riverside to watch the sentencing. Simms said afterward that he is glad Murdock will be behind bars. "There's a difference between investing money and getting ripped off," Simms said. "I'm pleased to see him get locked up. I don't feel sorry for him. He didn't feel sorry for me when he was blowing my money."

'Devastating effect' After Murdock told Timlin he would do whatever he could to pay restitution, the judge chided him for showing no remorse. "I've heard Mr. Murdock this morning . . . His comments suggest he doesn't understand the depth of his criminal conduct," Timlin said. "There has been a devastating effect on the economic situations of hundreds of people." Timlin said he reviewed victim-impact statements and listed some of his findings: lost savings and retirement funds; elderly victims having to return to work; broken or strained family relationships; psychological trauma; homes placed in foreclosure. But Murdock's attorney, Barry Bernstein of Burbank, said Murdock's so-called victims were motivated by greed. "The investors were loaning money to Murdock at 5 percent a week," Bernstein said. "Loan shark rates is what these 'innocent' investors were charging." Prosecutors said Murdock solicited loans from people who took investment seminars at his businesses, Nuevo Financial and LesInvest. Murdock said he was going to invest in stocks, commodities and real estate and guaranteed 5 percent weekly returns. But Murdock's promises amounted to a pyramid scheme, authorities said. He invested a small amount of the money, kept money for his personal use and paid investors returns from other participants. After sentencing, Murdock said his remorse was "implied" in his other statements. "I understand these people did suffer a loss," Murdock said. "I'll do my best to see they get their money back." Close to tears Murdock will turn himself in on or before Aug. 11. Timlin allowed Murdock the time before he starts serving his sentence because Murdock's 9-year-old son is on a Fontana youth baseball team that has qualified in a tournament to be played in late July and early August. O'Brien said authorities plan to monitor Murdock until he begins serving his sentence. He had multiple fraud convictions before the alleged pyramid scheme was uncovered, O'Brien said. Marilyn Pretzer, 59, of Ontario, was close to tears when she told Timlin she lost money to Murdock. Simms said he wants his $20,000 back.

"I was going to use that money to buy a house," Simms said. "I was told I couldn't lose, but I did. My wife and kids were devastated. Everything wasn't all right. It was all wrong."

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Jury convicts ex-CLU freshman of battery
ALEJANDRO CASTANEDA: He gets fine, year of probation; felony sexual assault charges were dropped earlier.

By Philippe Shepnick
Ventura County Star writer
September 22, 2000

A jury found a former California Lutheran University freshman guilty of misdemeanor battery Thursday, more than two months after prosecutors dropped felony sexual assault charges. Alejandro Castaneda, 18, of Wilmington was sentenced to one year of probation and ordered to pay a booking fee of $120, said his lawyer, Barry Bernstein.

Castaneda was to be tried for a misdemeanor sexual battery charge Thursday, but Deputy District Attorney Audrey Rohn made a motion to add a battery charge, which was granted.

After hearing the case and deliberating for two hours, the jury found Castaneda not guilty of sexual battery but guilty of battery, Bernstein said. Castaneda allegedly kissed and groped a female student, known as "Jane Doe 2," on Sept. 28, in the hallway of a CLU dormitory. Bernstein said he objected to adding the battery charge and was "very disappointed" that it was included. If the jury was not given the option to rule on a battery charge, "they would have acquitted him," Bernstein said. Rohn said she was satisfied with the verdict. She said she asked for the battery charge because the woman was offended by the way Castaneda touched her. Castaneda was initially accused of raping one female student, known as "Jane Doe 1" and sexually assaulting "Jane Doe 2." After a preliminary hearing Jan. 21, a Ventura judge ordered Castaneda to stand trial for seven rape and sexual assault charges. July 11, prosecutors dropped six rape and sexual assault charges in connection with "Jane Doe 1." Castaneda also was charged with felony sexual battery in relation to "Jane Doe 2," but it was reduced to a misdemeanor. The charges were dropped because they could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, Rohn said. The names of the victims were not released. Castaneda had been in jail since Nov. 4, on $100,000 bail, in connection with the sexual assault charges. He posted bail Jan. 24. Bernstein did not know if Castaneda would return to CLU. A spokeswoman from the university was not available.

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