Violent attacks by the Homeless are Rising; Dozens of fire safety violations found at LAX; 5 DMV Workers Admit Taking Bribes and Other Stories: Monday Morning Memo

Courts & Rulings

Supreme Court won't extend warrantless searches to people's homes

Police can't enter someone's home without a warrant except in an emergency, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, refusing to extend search authority that the justices have applied to motor vehicles. In a 5-4 ruling in 1973, the court had allowed prosecutors to use evidence police found in the warrantless search of a car they had towed after a drunken-driving crash.

San Francisco Chronicle

State Supreme Court rejects case of transient convicted of Alhambra murder

The California Supreme Court refused today to hear the case of a homeless man who was sentenced to 26 years to life in state prison for strangling a 78-year-old woman in broad daylight on the patio of her Alhambra condominium. Milton Chavez, now 29, was convicted in June 2019 of first-degree murder, along with an allegation that he personally used a deadly and dangerous weapon - shoelaces - in the Feb. 15, 2017, killing of Moon-Yung Cheung.

City News Service

Judge rules sheriff will remain defendant in skateboarder's lawsuit

A skateboarder won a round in court today when a judge ruled that Sheriff Alex Villanueva will remain a defendant in the plaintiff's lawsuit claiming he was falsely imprisoned by two deputies allegedly associated with an internal clique at the Compton station known as the Executioners. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Linfield denied a motion by Villanueva's attorneys to dismiss a supervisory liability allegation in plaintiff Jesus Alegria's suit, the only claim in the case against the sheriff.

City News Service

Salesman's racist wisecracks can be Unruh Act violation

An African American man who was singled out by a visiting speaker at his place of employment as having "banana hands" and otherwise derided has gained reinstatement by the Court of Appeal of his causes of action for intentional infliction of emotional distress and violation of the Unruh Act, with the court declaring that the act can be violated by off-premises remarks by a representative of a business establishment.

Metropolitan News-Enterprise

Amazon gets scathing rebuke from federal judge in counterfeit case

Federal Judge Liam O'Grady didn't mince words in his order denying Amazon's Motion for Summary Judgement in a counterfeit product sales case (Maglula, Ltd. v. Amazon.com). "...there are genuine issues of material fact in each of the [plaintiff's] causes of action, and that summary judgment is therefore inappropriate" and "The Court does not believe even the most persuasive presentation of Amazon's evidence would make one iota of difference to a jury," writes the judge.

The Counterfeit Report

Delivering money to gambler's bookie is money-laundering, Ninth Circuit says

A man who acted as a go-between, taking money from a gambler to deliver to his bookie, was properly convicted of money-laundering, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held yesterday. The opinion, by Circuit Judge Daniel P. Collins, affirms the denial of a motion by Gregory Silveira to vacate his conviction and sentence of one year and a day based on his assertion that he pled guilty based on ineffective assistance of counsel, saying his lawyer never discussed with him the meaning of the word "proceeds," which appears in the money laundering statute, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1955(a).

Metropolitan News-Enterprise

Calif. judge to Rose Bowl, Pasadena: Why are you fighting?

A California federal judge asked Pasadena and the organization behind the Rose Bowl Game during a hearing Friday why they are in court fighting over who has control of the famous annual college football game, asking if the century-old partners could resolve the issue on their own. During a remote hearing over the city's motions to toss the suit, U.S. District Judge André Birotte Jr. asked the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association to explain what relief it hopes to win from the court, pointing out that the parties don't dispute that the organization owns the trademark associated with the Rose Bowl Game.

Law360

Presiding Judge Eric C. Taylor: Last day deadlines for criminal trials and juvenile dependency matters extended as court maintains caution amid decrease in Covid cases

Presiding Judge Eric C. Taylor today received emergency authority from Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye to issue a new General Order extending last-day deadlines for Criminal trials and Juvenile Dependency matters. The extensions are a necessary tool to help the Court expand Civil and Criminal jury trials while maintaining effective Department of Public Health-approved safety measures in all courthouses.

Superior Court of California News Release

Voters can annul Calif. gov.'s decision to back tribal casino

A California appeals court has ruled that the people of the state had the power in a 2014 election to annul the authority of the governor to concur with a federal government decision that took land into trust for a North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians casino project. A three-member panel of the appellate court said in a Thursday opinion that it had in 2016 shot down a judgment of the Superior Court of Madera County favoring California and its governor's concurrence in a U.S. secretary of the Interior's decision to take 305 acres of land in the county into trust for North Fork so the tribe could build and operate a casino, which is now under construction.

Law360

What Newsom's revised budget would mean for Calif. courts

California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a revised budget last week that would allocate more than $1 billion in additional funds to the judicial branch. The May revision to the budget is "welcome news" for the courts, Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye said in a public statement last week. The governor had already allocated $381.1 million in new funds for the courts in January, making up for the $200 million he cut in 2020's budget.

Law360

Los Angeles District Attorney

Campaign officials: 'Recall Gascón' petition approved by LA County registrar, needs 590k signatures

A campaign pushing to recall George Gascón from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office says it reached a major milestone Thursday. The "Recall George Gascón" campaign announced via press release that the Los Angeles County registrar gave the organization's petition the green light to go out to the general public.

Fox11

Azusa, Santa Fe Springs pass votes of 'no confidence' in LA County DA Gascón

The City Councils of Azusa and Santa Fe Springs this week became the latest cities, both unanimously, to approve votes of no confidence in Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón. Azusa voted Monday, May 17 and Santa Fe Springs's decision came on Tuesday, May 18, as the city returned to in-person meetings for the first time since the pandemic kicked in.

Whittier Daily News

Fourteen cities vote no confidence in Gascón

The list of cities opposed to Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón's policies continues to grow. On Wednesday morning, LA County Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Hatami posted, on his Facebook page, about the cities that have voted no confidence in the elected DA. His post said this is the first time ever that 14 cities in Los Angeles county have voted no confidence in an elected DA.

Antelope Valley Press

More LA County cities vote no confidence in DA Gascón (Video)

More cities passing a vote of no confidence against District Attorney George Gascon - arguing the DA is placing the safety of the general public at risk.

Fox11

All five Lakewood councilmembers sign/send this letter critical of DA Gascón policies; letter surfaces without agenized council action; a dozen city councils have (thus far) voted "no confidence" in Gascón, facing recall

All five Lakewood City Councilmembers have signed and sent a letter on the City's letterhead to LA County District Attorney George Gascón, critical of specific actions by his office. LBREPORT.com publishes their letter text (dated May 13): The Lakewood Councilmembers' letter states that they express "deep concern" over certain policies that "we feel will, and indeed are beginning to have an adverse effect on the wellbeing of our community and its residents."

Long Beach Report

DA George Gascón is haunted by his past while victims suffer

The U.S. Attorney has indicted three members of a Los Angeles street gang accused of robbing a victim at gunpoint and injuring two others, one by gunfire. The victims were assaulted while dining at a Beverly Hills restaurant in the middle of the day. While armed robbery is not an uncommon occurrence in Los Angeles County, the federal prosecution of such crime is.

Joseph Charney

Will the spike in murder and violence undermine criminal justice reform?

In 1960, the U.S. violent crime rate started rising, and for three decades this was one of the most vexing and discussed problems in America. By the early 1990s, policy makers had mostly lost hope. And then violent crime started falling. And it kept falling. Meanwhile, the number of incarcerated Americans continued to climb. It was the crime decline that made possible a bipartisan movement to reckon with the injustice of mass incarceration and the failure of the war on drugs.

Reason

Inside George Gascon's justice revolution, a debate over what it is to be a crime victim

The crime was as gruesome as any committed by an adult. Firefighters discovered the bodies of 16-year-old Sierra Brown and her older sister, Uniek Atkins, in a burned-out Westchester apartment. Brown had been beaten and shot once at close range, while Atkins died from multiple gunshots, according to court filings. Police arrested Brown's 17-year-old boyfriend, alleging he had doused the apartment in bleach and torched it to cover his tracks.

Los Angeles Times

The real radicals aren't in Washington (Opinion)

Since President Donald Trump left the White House in January, the mainstream media has crafted a narrative that his radical supporters in Washington were hell-bent on compromising the safety and security of our democracy. But in reality, the elected officials who have compromised Americans' well-being the most can be found much closer to home.

Newsweek

Criminal Justice Legal Foundation research debunks DA Gascón claims on sentence lengths and recidivism

A new research project by the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation has debunked claims that "science and data" show that shorter sentences for violent and habitual criminals promote public safety has no basis in published research. This is important because when Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón was elected last November, within minutes of being sworn in, he announced he would be getting rid of all crime enhancements, eliminating cash bail, and would address sentences and recidivism, as the Globe reported.

California Globe

Prosecutors

Suspect charged with arson in Palisades fire that forced hundreds to evacuate

A homeless man who allegedly started the 1,158-acre brush fire in Pacific Palisades on Friday night was arrested after investigators sent to the scene saw him starting other fires in the area the following day, the Los Angeles Fire Department reported Tuesday. Ramon Santos Rodriguez, 48, was charged Tuesday with one felony count each of arson of a structure or forest and arson during a state of emergency.

NBC4

Deputy U.S. marshal charged with cyberstalking and perjury

A federal grand jury in the Central District of California returned an indictment Wednesday charging a Deputy U.S. Marshal with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking, cyberstalking, and perjury. According to the indictment, Ian R. Diaz, 43, of Brea, California, who serves as a Deputy U.S. Marshal with the U.S. Marshals Service, along with his former wife, agreed to and did pose as a person with whom Diaz was formerly in a relationship (Jane Doe) and, in that guise, sent to themselves harassing and threatening electronic communications that contained apparent threats to harm Diaz's former wife.

Department of Justice Press Release

California prosecutor: SWAT team saved 4th slasher victim

When Ryan Scott Blinston was arrested last year, authorities say he was trying to smash in a door with a hatchet to finish killing a man whose throat he had slashed. That man would have become the fourth victim of Blinston, according to officials who call the Northern California tree trimmer a serial killer. Officials say before a SWAT team arrived to arrest him, he had left a bloody trail in an area where violence is usually about drugs, gangs and domestic disputes.

AP

Orange County prosecutors dealt setback in Mexican mafia murder plot case

Orange County prosecutors have been dealt a legal setback in their murder case against at least one of five defendants, including reputed Orange County Mexican Mafia chief Johnny Martinez, due to fallout from the Orange County sheriff's evidence booking scandal. Unlike his co-defendants, Augustine Velazquez, 24, has pushed for a trial and does not want to waive any more time in the case so he will go on trial first.

City News Service

Doubt declared about competency of man charged in off-duty deputy's killing

Criminal proceedings were suspended Thursday after doubt was declared about the mental competency of a man charged in the shooting deaths of an off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy and another man, along with a series of robberies in Long Beach and the San Diego area. Rhett McKenzie Nelson, 31, of St. George, Utah, is expected to be examined by two doctors.

MyNewsLA

Newport Beach rape case: AG seeks to drop most charges against surgeon and girlfriend

The California Attorney General's Office on Friday asked to drop most of the charges against Grant Robicheaux and Cerissa Riley, the Newport Beach couple accused of drugging and sexually assaulting several women. Prosecutors with the Attorney General's Office filed a motion Thursday to amend the complaint against former reality TV star Robicheaux and Riley.

ABC7

41 elected district attorneys challenge early release of state prison inmates

District Attorney Dan Dow announced this week that he has joined Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert and 39 other elected district attorneys across California in filing a petition with the Secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) requesting the repeal of temporary emergency regulations awarding additional credits toward the sentences of more than 76,000 state prison inmates.

Paso Robles Daily News

Policy/Legal

Controversy over proposed crime bill to decriminalize some robberies

When prison reform bills make their way through the state Legislature, hundreds of letters pour in from inmates to nonprofits like Initiate Justice in Los Angeles. Greg Fidell, who serves as a policy manager, reads through many of them and learns about the sentences people face for various crimes. "This is a stack of 200 letters from people currently incarcerated. Every day we get large stacks of mail like this," Fidell said.

Spectrum News1

Sentence length and recidivism: A review of the research

The title of this post is the title of this notable new working paper authored by Elizabeth Berger and Kent Scheidegger of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. Here is the paper's abstract: "In response to increasing concerns about jail and prison overcrowding, many officials and legislatures across the U.S. have undertaken different efforts aimed at reducing the prison population, such as reduced sentence lengths and early release of prisoners."

LexBlog

American cops are under pressure to rely less on guns and take more personal risk

A couple of summers ago in Poulsbo, Wash., in a crowded park before a fireworks show, a man named Stonechild Chiefstick was bothering people, according to police. They got complaints about him seeming intoxicated and "doing crazy stuff." At first, the cops just talked to him about it. But when they got a report that he'd threatened someone with a screwdriver, they went to arrest him. The encounter ended with police shooting and killing him.

NPR

How much do police officers mirror the communities they serve? ABC News looked at the data

Before joining the local police force eight years ago, Ryan Tillman, a young police corporal in Chino, California, was like many other Black youths in America: He was no friend of the police. On multiple occasions, he had been harassed by cops because he looked "suspicious," as had those around him. When he had to find something to keep the bills paid because his wife had just become pregnant with their first child, and his father's friend, who was a police captain for many years, suggested he join the police force, his initial thought was, "I'm not working for the Man."

ABC News

Los Angeles County/City

Man who 'senselessly executed' LASD sergeant sentenced to life in prison without parole

A Lancaster man was sentenced Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the execution-style slaying of a Los Angeles County sheriff's sergeant five years ago. Trenton Trevon Lovell, 31, had two prior convictions and was on parole at the time of the slaying of Sgt. Steve Owen, 53, who was shot five times on Oct. 5, 2016, after responding to a burglary call in Lancaster.

City News Service

LA County Sheriff says he'll disclose names of officers who shoot people

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department will adopt a policy of releasing the names of officers who shoot people within 30 days of the incident, Sheriff Alex Villanueva announced Wednesday. Villanueva has said previously he would release names of officers only after the LA County District Attorney's office completed their review of police shootings.

Courthouse News Service

Dozens of fire safety violations reported at LAX

A David Goldstein investigation has found dozens of fire safety violation reports for Los Angeles International Airport, some of which inspectors said have been repeatedly ignored. "I'm concerned about the safety of LAX," John Vidovich, a former L.A. fire marshal, said after seeing the fire safety violations reports obtained from the Los Angeles Fire Department.

CBS LA

LAPD officer faces internal trial board over George Floyd meme (Video)

An LAPD officer will face an internal trial board over accusations he shared a social-media meme earlier this year that made light of George Floyd's murder at the hands of police in Minneapolis. Eric Leonard reports for the NBC4 News on Tuesday, May 18, 2021.

NBC4

Good news for jailed inmates: LA County may make pricey phone calls free from lockup

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to look at whether the county can offer free phone calls to jail inmates and also eliminate steep markups on basic items sold in jail commissaries. Supervisors Hilda Solis recommended that the county CEO work with the Sheriff's Department and Office of Inspector General to consider alternatives to the current phone contract - which charges 25 cents per minute and is up to be re-bid in October.

MyNewsLA

Public Safety/Crime

Shoplifting has forced Walgreens to close 17 stores

17 Walgreen locations in San Francisco have closed their doors within the last five years according to a report from the SF Chronicle. Ten of these closures transpired from 2019 to this year with the last Walgreens store to close its door as of this writing, back on March 17. The cause of the closures is due to rampant shoplifting and looting that has transpired at Walgreen locations in the city believed to be perpetuated by an organized crime ring.

San Francisco News

Violence in Long Beach then and now

Once upon a time in the '80s and '90s, Los Angeles County drug and gang violence was epic in the global imagination. Long Beach is no exception. In 1991, at the peak of our city's most violent year, there were 104 murders. No Long Beach resident who survived those decades wants to return to them. Thankfully, Long Beach is safer now than perhaps we've ever been. But for how long?

Long Beach Post

Bonin pushes back on identity of man charged in Palisades Fire as "homeless"

Councilmember Mike Bonin is pushing back when it comes to identifying the person said to have started a 1,158-acre brush fire in Pacific Palisades as "homeless". According to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, Ramon Santos Rodriguez, 48, was charged Tuesday with one felony count each of arson of a structure or forest and arson during a state of emergency.

Venice Current

LAPD says random, violent attacks by unhoused residents are on the rise

As the population of unhoused people continues to grow across the Southland, so too is the number of violent crimes. "He was just tired of being asked to leave, so he came randomly one day, charging at me with a, I don't know, a six-foot hard plastic guitar," Jeffrey Hicks, a victim, said. It was an attack Hicks, who owns a laundromat in Valley Village, said he saw coming.

CBS LA

Homicides surge in California as COVID shutters schools, youth programs

Amid a pandemic that left law enforcement agencies stretched thin and forced shutdowns that left young men with little to do, California registered a devastating surge in homicides in 2020 that hit especially hard in Black and Latino communities. The number of homicide victims in California jumped 27% from 2019 to 2020, to about 2,300, marking the largest year-over-year increase in three decades, according to preliminary death certificate data from the California Department of Public Health.

Kaiser Health News

Mother attacked by transient at Azusa park in front of two young children speaks out

The mother who was attacked by a transient at a park in Azusa in front of her two young children earlier this week spoke exclusively to FOX 11 about the terrifying experience. The mother didn't want her identity revealed and is asking why the suspect is facing minor charges and not the more serious ones that would keep her behind bars? She says, "I feel like we're not safe out there anymore."

Fox11

Summary of terrorism threat to the U.S. Homeland

The Secretary of Homeland Security has issued a new National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin regarding the current heightened threat environment across the United States. The Homeland is facing threats that have evolved significantly and become increasingly complex and volatile in 2021.

National Terrorism Advisory System

The Detective: Another bad week for car crimes

Here are some recent anomalies in Los Angeles Police Department data found by the Detective, our data-crawling robot, and aggregated by the robot's human assistant, Catherine Orihuela. This period covers April 19-25, 2021. A group of tourists got a not-so-friendly welcome to the city on April 20. According to the Los Angeles Police Department, the visitors were driving in the Westside neighborhood of Del Rey when someone fired shots at their car.

Crosstown

Dashcam captures brutal robbery, pistol-whipping of Los Angeles Lyft driver

A video capturing the alleged robbery of a 67-year-old California Lyft driver by a black man armed with a handgun is making the rounds because of the callous brutality on display. The entire incident was captured on the driver's dashcam video, which the gunman apparently not aware his actions were being recorded. "I was very scared," Paul Liao told KCAL-TV of the alleged robbery. "Very scared."

BPR

5 SoCal DMV workers admit to taking bribes to approve licenses for unqualified drivers

At least five California DMV workers have admitted to roles in a bribery scandal involving payoffs to issue licenses to unqualified drivers, according to federal officials and court records. Federal prosecutors say those employees at the agency's Torrance and Lincoln Park sites accepted tens of thousands of dollars in payoffs to approve licenses for unqualified drivers.

ABC7

Consumer

Amazon's battle against fakes may be too little, too late

Amazon buyers, beware. If you've purchased anything from Neutrogena soap to a Doona stroller, you may have gotten a counterfeit product. A new report from Amazon reveals it blocked 10 billion attempted counterfeit listings in 2020 - up from 6 billion from the year before-and destroyed 2 million fake goods in its warehouses. Researchers who study counterfeiting estimate that nearly $1 trillion worth of fake goods flood the global economy.

Fast Company

Is Amazon America's biggest consumer fraud?

Amazon's global empire is in a crisis. The invasive, manipulative superpower which controls over 50% of online sales is flooded with fakes, scams, phony reviews, and fraud. The e-commerce sales explosion made it easy for criminals to exploit consumers through online counterfeit sales, but Amazon's reaction is too little, too late. A study funded by the Center for Advanced Purchasing Studies found an entire underground economy devoted to creating every possible consumer product imaginable to fuel the estimated $1.7 to $4.5 trillion counterfeit product marketplace (USPTO).

The Counterfeit Report

Is your car spying on you?

Your car is spying on you. Most late model vehicles have the ability to log speed, when and where a vehicle's lights are turned on, which doors are opened and closed at specific locations as well as gear shifts, odometer readings, ignition cycles - and that is only the tip of the iceberg. As the U.S. Supreme Court has extended protections to the privacy of your smartphone, your car has unexpectedly become a safe haven for law enforcement to access your personal information without a warrant.

USA Today

California/National

Under California law, 'spousal rape' gets special treatment. A new bill could change that

Who would have thought, in the year 2021, that a man who rapes his wife in California is guilty of a lesser crime than a man who rapes someone to whom he's not married? Who would have thought that a man convicted of "spousal rape" in this state does not face a mandatory three-, six- or eight-year prison term and may instead receive probation?

Los Angeles Times

Is California's new police deadly force law making a difference?

On opposite ends of California, two women who have never met are united by grief and purpose. This month, Kathleen Bils laid a memorial stone in a flower bed on the San Diego street where a sheriff's deputy shot her son one year earlier. Some 500 miles north, at a marina on the eastern edge of San Francisco Bay, Addie Kitchen recently held a memorial in the city where a police officer killed her grandson.

CapRadio

Amid calls to 'defund the police,' most Portland residents want police presence maintained or increased, poll finds

Nearly a year after "defund the police" became a racial justice rallying cry in Portland and across the U.S., a vast majority of Portlanders and those living in the metro area reject the call to diminish police presence in the city. Three-fourths of Portland-area residents say they do not want to see policing in the city dip below its current levels, with a plurality supporting an increase in cops, according to a recent poll commissioned by The Oregonian/OregonLive.

OregonLive

Convictions/Sentences/Pleas

Convicted rapist, kidnapper's sentence recommended for recall, resentencing

The 320-year prison sentence of a man - convicted of kidnapping and raping a woman and two teenage girls, was reconsidered Friday in a Sacramento County superior courtroom. The judge who originally sentenced the man 13 years ago heard the resentencing request on behalf of Henry Chavez, now 54, which was submitted to her by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).

KCRA

Former Burbank teacher Sean David Sigler sentenced to 30 years in federal prison in child pornography case involving former student

A former Burbank teacher was sentenced Thursday to 360 months in federal prison for allegedly producing pornographic images of a former student he had a sexual relationship with for more than a year. Sean David Sigler, 56, was sentenced Thursday by United State district Judge John A. Kronstadt, who called his conduct "inexcusable."

CBS LA

State Parole Board rejects San Francisco DA's plea to keep notorious killer Tare Beltranchuc behind bars

A plea from the San Francisco District Attorney's Office to revoke the parole of Tare Beltranchu, who killed a San Francisco mother in front of her two small children in Oct. 2000, has been rejected by state prison officials. Joining the San Francisco prosecutor James Conger at the hearing were Claire Joyce Tempongko's two grown children who emotionally told the parole panel of watching their mother died when they were 10 and 5 years old.

CBS LA

California man who threatened 'bad day' for ex-girlfriend convicted of her murder

A California man was convicted Thursday in the beating and strangulation death of his ex-girlfriend. An Orange County jury convicted Jason James Becher, 46, of Anaheim, of first-degree murder in the December 2016 death of his former girlfriend, Marylou Sarkissian, 50, of Huntington Beach, The Orange County Register reported.

Cox Media Group National Content Desk

Articles of Interest

Bettors sue Medina Spirit trainer over Kentucky Derby win fouled by doping scandal

A group of bettors say in a federal lawsuit their horses lost the Kentucky Derby on May 1 thanks to Medina Spirit, a colt they argue was "doped" with performance enhancing drugs and now they are the suing the horse's trainer Bob Baffert for fraud and racketeering. Eight days after crossing the finish line at the 147th Kentucky Derby and winning the first race in the Triple Crown, Baffert revealed that Medina Spirit, a 3-year-old Protonico colt, tested positive for a steroid.

Courthouse News Service

Lawsuits won't get college students a $55,000 refund

Students displeased with remote learning have filed hundreds of lawsuits seeking tuition refunds from their colleges and universities. The defendants are mostly winning, and we should all be worried about how. As plaintiff after plaintiff argues that the schools have breached contracts requiring in-person classes, networking opportunities, and all the benefits of the bright, cheery campuses pictured in recruiting materials, the schools have behaved like fly-by-night used car dealers, blaming their hapless customers for not reading the fine print more carefully.

Bloomberg

Pensions

San Diego pension fund to undertake asset-liability study

San Diego City Employee's Retirement System plans to launch an asset-liability study this summer that is expected to include pension obligation and other plan changes, following the overturn of a successful ballot initiative, said Liza Crisafi, CIO of the $9.9 billion pension fund, in an email. The 2012 voter-approved initiative, Proposition B, had closed the city's defined benefit plan to all new hires except for sworn city police officers.

Pensions & Investments