Orange County Criminal Attorney Blog

An Irvine swimming teacher, Todd Robert Sousa, pleaded guilty in late October to 13 felony counts of "lewd acts on a child" and received a 16-month state prison sentence. Sousa, 37, was charged with multiple counts related to a almost year-long relationship with a 15 year-old student. The case is the latest in a long series of high-profile cases of teachers accused of illegal sexual relationships with students. While these cases are undoubtedly tragic, they also demonstrate the inflammatory nature of alleged sexual misconduct in public discourse and the ease with which conviction in the media can affect a defendant's legal rights.

Sousa and his wife owned Swim Venture, a swimming school that taught classes at pools around Orange County. According to the criminal charges filed against him in March 2011, he met the 15 year-old girl through swim classes and carried on a relationship with her between April 2010 and February 18, 2011. At some point during that time, the relationship turned sexual. On February 18, 2011, he allegedly picked up the girl and her friend and drove them to the Swim Venture office, where he gave them alcohol and took the girl to another room while her friend waited. The friend told her parents, who told the girl's parents. The girl's parents notified authorities, who charged Sousa on March 23, 2011.

Sousa faced up to thirteen years in prison if he had been convicted. He initially pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in March. He had posted $100,000 bond in February, and the judge restricted him from any contact with females aged 14 to 18 years. By pleading guilty, he has significantly reduced his potential prison sentence and avoided even greater media scrutiny.

Each state sets its own laws regarding the age at which a person can legally consent to sexual activity, commonly known as the "age of consent." California sets that age at 18 years, so sexual activity between an adult and a minor is considered "unlawful sexual intercourse," also sometimes known as "statutory rape." The California Penal Code specifically addresses sexual contact between an adult aged 21 or older and a minor under the age of 16, imposing a penalty of up to one year in county jail or four years in state prison.

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The Connecticut Supreme Court reinstated the conviction for manslaughter and drunk driving against former teacher Tricia Coccomo earlier this month. Coccomo had appealed her 2007 conviction, arguing in part that the trial court had improperly allowed the prosecution to introduce irrelevant and prejudicial evidence. An appeals court agreed with her and reversed her conviction and 12-year prison sentence, but now the state's highest court has imposed the original punishment again. The case illustrates some interesting issues of evidence and due process.

This case originated with a July 2005 car crash that killed three people. Coccomo's sport utility vehicle crossed over the center line of Long Ridge Road in Stamford and collided head-on with a convertible. The driver and two passengers of the convertible died. Prosecutors charged her with manslaughter and driving under the influence. They presented evidence that her blood alcohol content at the time of the accident was .20, more than twice the legal limit of .08. Coccomo had allegedly requested a blood alcohol test in the hospital. Coccomo's attorney argued that the blood sample tested did not belong to Coccomo because staff at the emergency room mixed up the blood samples. Prosecutors also introduced evidence that, about ten days after the crash, Coccomo transferred her ownership interest in her home to her mother for the sum of $1. They argued that this demonstrated a "guilty conscience" on Coccomo's part. Based largely on the blood alcohol results, a jury convicted Coccomo in February 2007. In March of that year, she received a sentence of twelve years in prison.

Coccomo appealed the conviction and posted a $1 million bond, which led to her supervised release from jail. She argued to the appeals court that the trial court made an error in admitting evidence of the sale of her house, and in arguing that this sale, along with her request of a blood test, could serve as evidence of guilt. Connecticut's Appellate Court agreed with her, and in the summer of 2009 they reversed her conviction. The Appellate Court ruled that evidence of the asset transfer only served to inflame and distract the jury from the pertinent issues in the case. In an unusual move, the Connecticut Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, potentially setting a precedent on the question of whether a transfer of assets can prove guilt. The Supreme Court issued a 4-3 ruling in early November reinstating Coccomo's conviction and prison sentence.

Continue reading "Convictions for Manslaughter, DUI Reinstated for Fatal Car Accident" »

One of Orange County's most notorious murder cases was back in the news last month, when Omaima Nelson, convicted of murdering her husband and then dismembering his body and eating parts of it, came up for parole. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the grisly murder, which led prosecutors at the time to compare her to the movie villain Hannibal Lecter. After a lengthy hearing in early October of this year, the parole board denied parole.

The Egyptian-born Nelson reportedly endured abuse as a child that she described as "unimaginable." She met William Nelson in 1991 and married him within weeks. After only three weeks of marriage, William Nelson died. The prosecutor from the original trial, Randolph J. Pawloski, recounted the crime scene, where police found plastic bags and suitcases soaked with blood, body parts in a fry cooker, and Mr. Nelson's head in the refrigerator. In addition to a charge of murder, prosecutors accused Nelson of eating parts of her husband's body.

Nelson claimed at her trial that her husband revealed a violent side after their wedding, and that she killed him in self-defense when he tried to strangle her after violently abusing and raping her. The prosecution disputed this, claiming that Nelson had a pattern of trading on her sexuality to obtain favors and support from numerous men. They further argued that her "con games" had grown more and more violent. A psychiatrist who testified at Nelson's trial said that she admitted to cooking and eating her husband after spending hours chopping up the body.

After six days of deliberations, the jury rejected Nelson's claim that she acted in self-defense after weeks of constant abuse. They convicted her of second-degree murder and sentenced her to 27 years to life in prison. An appellate court upheld her conviction in 2000. She has served her sentence at California Central Women's Prison.

Nelson had previously requested early release from prison in 2006, claiming she had become a born-again Christian and had remarried. Commissioners denied her request, saying they found her "unpredictable" and a continued threat to the public. Nelson requested early release again this year, which led to last month's hearing. She told parole officials that she was a "changed woman," and vehemently denied committing any acts of cannibalism. She expressed remorse over Mr. Nelson's death but maintained that she acted in self-defense, and said that she would return to Egypt to live with her family if released. Pawloski took the rare step of attending the hearing in person and offering testimony in opposition to her early release. Mr. Nelson's daughter also attended and testified against Nelson's parole. The two-person board again denied the request for early release.

Continue reading "Parole Denied Twenty Years after Gruesome Orange County Murder Case" »

The tragic death of a child after a hospital pharmacy mixup resulted in a prison sentence for the pharmacist in charge. Cleveland pharmacist Eric Cropp was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for the 2006 death of Emily Jerry. Emily was undergoing cancer treatment at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital. Her parents brought her in for her final chemotherapy treatment in February 2006. She received an intravenous solution with the chemo drugs. A pharmacy technician had accidentally used twenty-three times the recommended amount of saline in the solution, which caused Emily to quickly go into a coma soon. She died a few days later.

The pharmacy technician's error turned up in the investigation of Emily's death, and authorities learned that pharmacist Eric Cropp had signed off on the technician's work. The Ohio Board of Pharmacy conducted an inquiry resulting in the revocation of Cropp's license. The Cuyahoga County District Attorney then decided to pursue criminal charges. The technician never faced criminal charges related to Emily's death, but Cropp was indicted for involuntary manslaughter.

Involuntary manslaughter, sometimes known as criminally negligent homicide, involves the unintentional death of a person arising from a person's negligent acts (or failure to act.) The California Penal Code defines the offense, in part, as "the unlawful killing of a human being without malice" and "in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death...without due caution and circumspection." The filling and administering of prescribed medications in a hospital, particularly when those medications are used to treat life-threatening illnesses, constitutes a risky activity that could lead to a charge of involuntary manslaughter. The question for medical professionals and defense attorneys to consider is when a mistake becomes a criminal offense.

Evidence presented by Cropp's attorneys showed a chaotic hospital environment, with a short-staffed pharmacy and an overbearing workload. The defense alleged that the pharmacy's computer system was down the day of the incident, causing a backlog of medication orders. They further claimed that Emily's case was a rush order and that the staff was under pressure to dispense her solution. The technician, on the other hand, testified that she had told Cropp something seemed "weird" about the solution she had prepared, but that Cropp approved it anyway.

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Federal drug officials arrested an Orange County physician on October 25, 2011, accusing him of illegally prescribing medications, including potentially dangerous opiates, outside of his normal medical practice. Dr. Alvin Mingczech Yee of Mission Viejo faces 56 charges of drug-related offenses. The indictment alleges that he prescribed drugs such as oxycodone and hydrocodone to people he had not properly examined, and had often just met, in exchange for cash payments. He allegedly often met these patients at Starbucks instead of his office. Police are also investigating the death of a woman who may have overdosed on drugs obtained from Yee.

Yee faces 50 counts of "illegal distribution of a controlled substance by a medical professional" and 6 counts of "illegal distribution of a controlled substance by a medical professional to a minor." Federal law defines a "minor" for these purposes as some under 21 years of age. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, up to one third of the people obtaining prescriptions from Yee were 25 years old or younger.

Authorities accuse Yee of meeting with up to twelve people a night, every night of the week after business hours, and providing prescriptions for medications like Adderall, Xanax, and OxyContin for cash. These drugs are highly addictive and potent, and are therefore tightly controlled by law. People came from all over the United States to meet with Yee, authorities say. DEA investigators in Seattle, Phoenix, and Detroit reportedly seized large quantities of prescription drugs in various arrests and traced the drugs back to Yee's prescriptions. DEA agents apparently posed undercover as buyers during their investigation of Yee. The government described Yee's practice as a "front for drug dealing." Authorities further link Yee to the death of Krista Davis, a young woman who died of a drug overdose in Huntingdon Beach in August, allegedly from drug obtained from Yee.

In a similar case, the FBI arrested Bakersfield physician Dr. Gonzalo Flores Ruiz in Los Angeles, charging him with 21 counts of unlawful distribution of hydrocodone, often sold under the trade name Vicodin. Federal agents raided his office in October and now accuse him of prescribing these medications for "no legitimate medical purpose."

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In a scene reminiscent of the Bernard Madoff scandal in New York, two Orange County men who held themselves out as investment and financial experts have pleaded guilty to multiple felony counts of theft, fraud, and more. Both were accused of taking money from investors and, instead of managing and investing it as promised, keeping it or using it to pay previous investors. In all, the two stole upwards of $10 million, according to the charges brought against them. Cases such as these, often known as "white collar" crimes, present many difficulties for criminal defense lawyers. The burden of proof for the prosecution is very high, but the risks to a defendant are also quite high, not to mention the risk of negative publicity.

Hitomi Tsuyuki initially faced 200 felony charges for stealing more than $2.8 million from his clients. This occurred over a 10-year period from 1997 to 2007. In September 2011 he pleaded guilty to 29 of the charges, including 17 counts of false statements regarding the sale of securities, 10 counts of theft from the elderly, and one count each of grand theft and using a scheme to defraud. Among the 33 clients he defrauded were family members, people he met through his father's church, and numerous elderly people. He had known some of his victims since childhood. Tsuyuki's legal problems began earlier than the criminal case. The same day the Orange County District Attorney announced the indictment of Tsuyuki in June 2008, a lawyer filed a judgment for almost $400,000 against him based on a securities arbitration claim filed in 2006. The claim related to a family of investors who accused Tsuyuki of fraud and theft. A judge sentenced Tsuyuki to the maximum of 18 years in state prison in early November.

Mark Alan Helsing pleaded guilty in October to 68 felony counts for defrauding twelve investors out of $6.9 million during a period from 2004 to 2007. The charges included 55 counts of grand theft, seven counts of false recorded documents, and six counts of financial exploitation of elders. He had previously pleaded guilty to six theft and check fraud charges in June 2009. Many of Helsing's clients were apparently his longtime friends. He operated as a "hard money lender," loaning money using private investor funds instead of banks. Authorities alleged that he would take investor money and, instead of lending the fund, use some money to falsify interest payments and embezzle the rest.

Continue reading "Two Orange County Investment Advisers Plead Guilty to Multiple Theft, Fraud Charges" »

A life-size statue of former president Ronald Reagan in a Newport Beach park sustained damage in a theft attempt. A witness reported seeing a man attach a rope or chain to the base of statue and attempt to pull it out with a pickup truck. The man only succeeded in breaking the bronze statue off of its foundation. Authorities found it tilting forward at about 5:30 the morning of Sunday, November 6, 2011, but lost the alleged perpetrator. The attempted theft occurred some time during the night. A Newport Beach police sergeant noted, "Either someone really didn't like Reagan or they tried to steal it so they can sell it for scrap metal." The City of Newport Beach has offered a $5,000 reward for information on the incident.

The statute was dedicated in Bonita Canyon Sports Park in Newport Beach on October 9, 2011, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the former president's birth. Nearly a year of controversy preceded the dedication, with dispute among residents about whether to rename the park for President Reagan. The $60,000 statue was financed entirely by private donations. Authorities have not said how much it will cost to repair the statue. City work crews removed the statue from its base in order to perform repairs.

Since the statue was a donation to a city park, it is publicly-owned property. The reward offered by the city certainly indicates that they wish to find the alleged culprit. The question then pertains to what crime was actually committed. California identifies theft of most types of property valued over $950 as "grand theft." At a cost of $60,000 and unknown repair costs, the statue certainly fits this definition. The penalty of up to one year imprisonment would not apply in this case, because no actual theft occurred. The Penal Code allows for a lesser punishment, usually one-half of the punishment prescribed for a specific offense, for an attempted offense. With the statue itself and witness testimony, a prosecutor may feel confident in bringing attempted theft charges, if the alleged perpetrator is ever found.

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A shooting at an Orange County hair salon that left eight people dead and one injured has led to both criminal charges and a series of civil lawsuits for the accused gumman, presenting an issue for criminal defense attorneys about how our civil and criminal justice systems intersect. On October 12, 2011, Scott Dekraai allegedly walked into an upscale hair salon in Seal Beach, California and opened fire, shooting eight people and wounding one. Among the dead was Dekraai's ex-wife, Michelle Fournier, the alleged target of the shooting. Authorities say Dekraai targeted Fournier because of frustration over an ongoing custody dispute. Dekraai and Fournier have an eight year-old son who is now living with relatives.

Prosecutors charged Dekraai with eight counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, one count for each shooting victim, and have announced their intention to seek the death penalty. Dekraai supposedly gave a confession to police after his arrest. He is scheduled for arraignment on November 29. How he intends to plead is not yet known, but his purported confession to police does not obligate him to enter a guilty plea. Some news analysts have speculated about a possible insanity plea, given news reports of a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, but nothing is certain yet.

Dekraai is also now the defendant in two civil lawsuits for the wrongful death of two of the shooting victims, including Fournier. First, Fournier's parents filed suit seeking to freeze Dekraai's assets in order to obtain compensation for Dekraai and Fournier's son. Next, the husband of victim Christy Wilson filed suit on behalf of Wilson's estate, himself, and their three children, requesting compensation for medical and funeral bills and "loss of companionship."

In both cases, the plaintiffs seek monetary damages from Dekraai, unlike the criminal case, which seeks imprisonment or the death penalty. The civil plaintiffs face a lower burden of proof than criminal prosecutors, needing only to show by a preponderance of evidence, essentially meaning "more likely than not," that Dekraai caused Fournier's and Wilson's deaths. Prosecutors must prove guilt "beyond and reasonable doubt," meaning jurors must find no reasonable alternate to the prosecution's theory of the case.

Continue reading "Shooting in Orange County Hair Salon Presents both Criminal and Civil Legal Questions" »

Police arrested former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on November 5. Sandusky faces charges of sexual abuse of multiple young boys. Two high-level administrators at Penn State, Athletic Director Tim Curley and Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz, face charges of lying to a grand jury about their knowledge of Sandusky's alleged crimes. The ensuing scandal is putting pressure on legendary head football coach Joe Paterno to account for his own role in the situation. While the criminality of child sexual abuse is hopefully clear to everyone, this case also illustrates the potential criminal consequences for people who might know of such abuse and who fail to report it.

Sandusky served as a defensive coordinator for Penn State's football program for twenty-three years, retiring in 1999. He maintained a presence at the school even after his retirement. Pennsylvania's Attorney General is accusing Sandusky of committing multiple acts of sexual abuse of young boys, sometimes on the Penn State campus, over a period from at least 1994 to 2009. Sandusky allegedly used his position within the famed Penn State football program to lure in children.

One alleged incident involved a graduate assistant who claimed to have seen Sandusky in 2002 in a locker room shower with a young boy engaging in an apparent sex act. The graduate assistant reported this to Paterno, who passed it on to the school administration in accordance with state law. The graduate assistant now says no one from law enforcement ever questioned him about the incident until he gave grand jury testimony in December 2010. Curley, during his grand jury testimony, characterized the incident as "horsing around" and denied that the graduate assistant reported sexual abuse at the time. It is worth noting that even mere "horsing around" in the shower is hardly appropriate behavior.

Paterno faces allegations of behaving inappropriately, if not outright illegally, if he knew of any alleged abuse and failed to act. State law in Pennsylvania requires employees of the university to report allegations of child abuse. This is particularly true for the university since it is a state-run educational institution. So far, prosecutors have given no indication that they have plans for charges against Paterno. His role in the scandal, however, will probably be key to the prosecution of both Sandusky and the two administrators.

Continue reading "Sex Abuse Scandal at Penn State Ensnares More than Just the Alleged Abuser" »

A Los Angeles jury convicted Dr. Conrad Murray, the personal doctor to pop star Michael Jackson, of involuntary manslaughter earlier today. The case involved allegations that Dr. Murray had given Jackson an excessive dose of anesthetic, causing his 2009 death. The jury issued its verdict after less than nine hours of deliberations. None of the jurors have spoken to the media yet, so it is not clear if they determined any specific actions of Dr. Murray, such as the actual administration of the drug, beyond his overall liability for Jackson's death. Dr. Murray's sentencing is scheduled for November 29, 2011.

Jackson died on June 25, 2009 while planning a comeback tour. The official cause of death was acute propofol intoxication. Propofol is an intravenously-administered sedative used in general anesthesia and milder sedation. Dr. Murray was giving it to Jackson for insomnia, although he did not have monitoring or resuscitation equipment at Jackson's home, according to prosecutors. Jackson suffered cardiac arrest the day of his death. Dr. Murray said that he found Jackson in bed, not breathing, and tried to administer CPR. Prosecutors said he waited 20 minutes to call 911 and did not tell responding paramedics that he had given Jackson propofol.

Dr. Murray's attorneys argued at trial that Jackson administered the propofol to himself when Dr. Murray was not present. Prosecutors argued that, under either their theory of the case or Dr. Murray's, he was guilty of involuntary manslaughter for failing to fulfill his legal and ethical duties as a physician. Failing to act can constitute involuntary manslaughter if a person had a legal obligation to act. In this situation, prosecutors argued, Dr. Murray had a duty as Jackson's doctor to monitor his care and to make sure Jackson received the correct dose of such a powerful drug. Whether Dr. Murray administered the propofol himself or allowed Jackson access to it without knowledge of how to use it, prosecutors argued he was criminally negligent. They further argued that he was criminally negligent in not immediately calling 911 and not fully informing rescue workers of Jackson's condition. The jury agreed with the prosecution's theory.

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The murder of Bill McLaughlin, a millionaire healthcare entrepreneur, in 1994 went unsolved for fifteen years. In a development straight out of a crime thriller, police arrested and charged two people with the murder in 2009: McLaughlin's girlfriend/fiancee, Nannette Johnston, and her ex-boyfriend Eric Naposki. Naposki, a former NFL player who played for the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts, was convicted of first-degree murder in July 2011 and awaits life in prison without parole. Johnston's trial is scheduled to begin later this month.

McLaughlin was an entrepreneur who invented a device used in medical labs to separate plasma from blood. The invention made him millions, and at the time of his death he was worth around $55 million. He met Johnston, twenty-five years his junior, through a magazine ad she had placed seeking an older, wealthy man. He offered her a life of luxury, taking her on trips around the world and providing her a considerable allowance. After one year of dating, even though family members would later say that they saw no real love between the two, McLaughlin proposed marriage. He also added Johnston to his will.

During the evening of December 15, 1994, someone entered McLaughlin's home in Newport Beach and shot him six times in the chest. Police in the affluent community had little experience investigating a murder, and the crime scene offered few clues. They looked at family members and business associates, ruling out many suspects. Johnston allegedly told investigators that she had attended her son's soccer game and then gone shopping, arriving home around 10 p.m., after McLaughlin was shot. Although she had receipts to show she had gone shopping, witnesses said she had been at the soccer game with someone else. That person turned out to be Naposki.

After the trail went cold, Johnston pleaded guilty to writing checks to herself from McLaughlin's bank account, including a $250,000 check on the day of his death. She spent a year in jail beginning in 1996 for that offense. New evidence obtained by police led them to Johnston and Naposki in 2009. Evidence in Naposki's trial indicated that he shot and killed McLaughlin after receiving a key to the house from Johnston. According to authorities, Johnston talked Naposki into the murder. She allegedly wanted to collect on a $1 million life insurance policy. She also stood to inherit about $150,000 from McLaughlin. Naposki continues to maintain his innocence, claiming so in a recent television interview.

Continue reading "Trial Set to Begin for 1994 Murder of Orange County Millionaire" »

Irvine, California's City Council voted unanimously on October 26, 2011 to allow the Occupy Orange County demonstrators to camp overnight on the lawn of the city's Civic Center, agreeing with the protesters' arguments that their tents are a form of free speech more than they are a public nuisance or safety issue. The decision came after several weeks of wrangling over the legal status of the encampments in Irvine and larger disputes nationwide about the intersection of First Amendment rights and state and local law. Regardless of how one feels about the issues presented by the now-global protests, the situation presents important issues for criminal defense attorneys to understand.

Occupy Orange County began in mid-October in Irvine with a group setting up an encampment in front of the Civic Center. In most cities with "Occupy" groups, city governments have made various attempts to move protesters (or occupiers, depending on how you view them) away from certain areas, sometimes temporarily and sometimes permanently. The legal justifications given by cities usually involves city ordinances or state laws relating to public health or cleanliness and public nuisances. The Irvine City Council's decision is one of the first to explicitly grant authority to an Occupy group to continue an overnight presence in a public space.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees a right to peacefully assemble, but courts have consistently held that governments may reasonably restrict that right as to the "time, manner, and place" of assemblies or demonstrations. Cities enforce these restrictions with a permitting system, which might deny a permit to a demonstration that would, for example, significantly block traffic or cause excessive noise at 4:00 a.m. Cities can also restrict access to public spaces, such as parks or sidewalks, at specific times for health or safety reasons. Some cities have attempted to clear demonstrators from an area in order to have sanitation workers clean the area, or they have cited protesters for health code violations relating to food or waste disposal.

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