Police have located and arrested a suspect in a hit and run accident that killed a mother of three in Oxnard over the weekend.

19-year-old, Bernardino Gijada is being held on suspicion of homicide and felony hit and run and burglary after police tracked him down in San Diego where he had been living with relatives.

The accident happened around 11 p.m. Saturday night between Oxnard Boulevard and 6th Street.

According to authorities, Gijada blew through a red light killing 41-year-old Theresa Virgin of Port Hueneme in the collision and critically injuring numerous other passengers in the vehicle.

Voters have decided to ban alcohol consumption on the city’s stretches of beaches, making the temporary ban that was imposed after a massive beach brawl last year permanent.

Proposition D received 53 percent of votes with all precincts reporting Wednesday morning.

San Diego has had a back-and-forth debate about removing booze on its beaches for decades but efforts to prohibit alcohol consumption remained stagnant until now.

In a 2002 attempt, voters rejected a trial ban on some beaches that tend to attract large crowds. The City Council had approved the measure but a referendum forced it to the ballot.

A similar effort to ban alcohol on the beaches was rejected in 1991.

After a Labor Day incident the City Council passed a temporary booze ban last November after a drunken brawl in the city’s Pacific Beach neighborhood. 70 police officers, including some in riot gear, were needed to break up the melee.

The temporary ban was scheduled to run out on Jan. 14, 2009.

Advocates said they wanted to make beaches safer for families and tourists.

Opponents refuted the ban as an overreaction because most incidents are limited to big holiday weekends and to select beaches. They argued that the ban would hurt businesses in beach communities, which are magnet for tourists.

The ban applies to all city beaches and Mission Bay Park.

After plea agreements and sentencings were settled for co-defendants in the “Bird Rock Bandit” murder case, the trial for Seth Cravens began yesterday with a graphic depiction of the scuffle that killed a La Jolla professional surfer.

Jennifer Grosso, the girlfriend of surfer Emery Kauanui Jr., wept in court during her testimony yesterday. Kauanui died in May 2007 after an altercation outside his mother’s La Jolla condominium. “I heard his skull crack when it hit the pavement,” Grosso remembered. Defendant Seth Cravens and defense attorney Mary Ellen Attridge listened to court proceedings yesterday. Cravens, 22, is charged with murder as well as other felony counts.

Wiping away tears, the girlfriend of Kauanui described the horror of watching him fall after Cravens punched him once in the face.

“I heard his skull crack when it hit the pavement,” Jenny Grosso testified in San Diego Superior Court. “It sounded like something just pinged off the sidewalk, and then immediately there was a pool of blood coming from the back of his head. I thought he was dead right there.”

Kauanui, 24, lived for four more days in a hospital after a fight outside his mother’s La Jolla condominium at about 1:30 a.m. on May 24, 2007.

Cravens was arrested in connection with what Deputy District Attorney Sophia Roach said were a series of violent actions over many years in La Jolla.

The Kauanui case drew international attention after prosecutors said Cravens and four other La Jolla High School graduates involved in the fight were members of the gang, the Bird Rock Bandits. Prosecutors said the group was at the center of many alcohol-driven fights in the area. Previous court hearings were packed. But Cravens’ trial began yesterday with only a handful of spectators, including his parents.

Because of the attention, “This case became not a prosecution but a runaway train,” Cravens’ attorney, Mary Ellen Attridge, said yesterday.

Cravens’ four co-defendants accepted guilty plea deals in June to lesser charges. Two of the four – Henri “Hank” Hendricks and Matthew Yanke – will be called to testify in Cravens’ defense, Attridge said outside the courtroom.

Grosso recounted that Kauanui had been losing a fight with one of Cravens’ friends when Cravens “just walked up to Emery and gave him one extremely hard punch.” The punch knocked Kauanui to the ground “like the lights went out,” Grosso said.

Attridge told the jury that Cravens punched Kauanui in self-defense.

“What happened to Emery Kauanui was a tragedy . . . but it was not a murder,” Attridge said. She said Cravens struck Kauanui when Kauanui got “5 inches away from Seth Cravens’ face” in a threatening posture.

Yanke, 22, Eric House, 21, and Orlando Osuna, 23, all pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter as a result of the fight that led to Kauanui’s death. Yanke and House were sentenced to 210 days in jail. Osuna was sentenced to 349 days. Hendricks, 22, pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact and was sentenced to 90 days in jail.

According to his lawyers and officials, former baseball star Jose Canseco was detained by immigration officials at a San Diego border crossing as he tried to bring a fertility drug from Mexico.

Instead of being arrested, Canseco was issued a notice to appear in federal court “relative to a smuggling violation,” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Lauren Mack explained.

“It’s a discretion we have, to issue a notice to appear rather than make an arrest when a smaller volume of items are being smuggled,” Mack said.

Mack said no charges have been filed against Canseco, who was given the notice to appear and released Thursday night. She declined to elaborate further on the allegation.

His LA attorney told the press that Canseco, a former major league All-Star, was held for nearly 10 hours at the San Ysidro border crossing. It has been reported that immigration agents said they searched Canseco’s car and found human chorionic gonadotropin, which is illegal to possess without a prescription.

Emerson declined to say if Canseco was in fact in possession of the drug, which is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency for use in men. The drug helps restore testosterone production that is lost in steroid users.

Emerson went on to say that officials released Canseco after he agreed to allow ICE agents to search his Los Angeles-area home. ICE agents searched the home in the attorney’s presence yesterday as Canseco was returning from San Diego.

“They found nothing. They took nothing,” Emerson said.

Modern-day fingerprint analysis technology and a San Diego police intern helped solve a 37-year-old murder. Gerald Metcalf, 60, was arrested yesterday in Texas on suspicion of killing Gerald Jackson, 27, in Pacific Beach.

According to San Diego police, Jackson, a U.S. Postal Service carrier and part-time doorman at the Barbary Coast was found dead by his friends in his apartment after he hadn’t turned up to work for a number of days.

Officers determined Jackson had been stabbed to death sometime after Dec. 28 and his house had been tossed. According to homicide officer Lt. Terry McManus, Jackson’s Ford Torino was found days later in Mexicali, Mexico, and some of his property had been pawned by someone assuming his identification.

The case went unsolved until this past January. An intern assigned to the homicide unit’s cold case team examined the evidence, and investigators, using current fingerprint analysis technology, matched a print from the crime scene to Metcalf. McManus said the case was reopened with assistance from the San Diego and Henderson County, Texas, District Attorney’s Offices.

Texas Department of Public Safety officers arrested Metcalf before noon and he is currently being held in Henderson County Jail awaiting extradition to San Diego, McManus said.

Placed high on a prominent corner of Pearl Street and La Jolla Boulevard, Steven R. Liss advertises himself as an attorney who handles divorces and adoptions.

But former clients said their cases were mishandled by Liss.

When asked, “What did he do with your case?” one of Liss’ alleged victims responded, “Nothing!”

“I think his licensing needs to be taken away,” said another of his alleged victim.

In 1998, an investigation revealed a couple that claimed Liss took their money and then botched their adoption of a baby girl. The couple had to return the child after six weeks.

In checking his history, it was discovered that Liss’ official record is mediocre. His license to practice law was suspended but stayed. Liss is still permitted to handle client cases while he is on a 2 year probation.

The labor board which handles employee complaints reports that Liss has an additional 16 cases filed against him.

Erica Ambuelh hired Liss for her divorce, paying him $5,000 that she was loaned from her mother.

According to Ambuelh, Liss never filed paperwork and also lied to her.

“He didn’t show up in court, didn’t tell me about it. There was a default judgment, I never got child support or alimony, it was a horrendous experience,” said Ambuelh. She only found out about her divorce when her ex-husband told her.

Ambuelh’s complaint to the state bar led to Liss’ probation because he “intentionally, recklessly or repeatedly failed to perform legal services with competence.”  Liss has never paid her back.

“He seemed like he was up for the job,” said Anne Munday Vuzzo. Vuzzo said Liss still owes her money. She said she paid him a $12,500 retainer for her divorce but decided to fire him after a few weeks because he had not done any of the work he had promised.

Vuzzo wanted her money back and in three weeks, Liss left voicemail after voicemail, each one with another excuse.”I’m out of the office, out of town actually”, “I do have limited email access”, etc.

Liss eventually paid half of the money back but in the process he bounced a check. According to Vuzzo, Liss still owes her $5,000.

“He put me in a big hole, financially, I know I’ll never recover from it,” said Brenda Lacy.

Lacy is another unsatisfied customer of Liss. She said she paid him a $6,000 retainer.

“He asked for another $400 for a filing and he needed it right then. Within 30 minutes he had it in his hands, but nothing was filed,” said Lacy. After Liss missed 3 of her court dates, Lacy dropped him. However, she had to picket outside of his La Jolla office and shame him into giving the money back.

“He should absolutely be disbarred, without question; he should not be practicing any type of law, anywhere,” said Lacy.

“I think bad attorneys number in the thousands, not in the hundreds,” said Bob Fellmeth. Fellmeth, a professor of Public Interest Law at the University of San Diego, is not familiar with Liss but he is familiar with the law regarding retainers paid to attorneys. He said the retainer should go into a trust account and not into somebody’s pocket.”That could be criminal embezzlement and can result in disbarment of the attorney,” said Fellmeth.

The California State Bar, Fellmeth said, is supposed to vigilantly police attorneys but it often isn’t stringent enough. Vuzzo said she hopes with Liss that will change now that she has also filed a complaint.

“I hope this complaint protects other people from having to go through what I’ve gone through,” Vuzzo said.

Attorneys for the state said the settlement they examined that would end a county lawsuit over a San Diego redevelopment area  appears to be legal.

State Sen. Christine Kehoe asked the Attorney General’s Office earlier this month to investigate the June agreement regarding the Grantville redevelopment zone.

Under the terms of that deal, more than $60 million in redevelopment money was earmarked to be exchanged in a complicated swap that would use funds originating from Grantville to support a downtown portion of the San Diego Trolley.

In return, money slated for downtown redevelopment  would be channeled to the county for projects in the North Embarcadero. The city maintained that redevelopment tax proceeds from Grantville could be spent downtown because the Green Line trolley, which passes through Grantville, connects with downtown trolley lines.

The opponents who filed suit to stop the transfer of funds on Friday say the deal is a “sham transaction.”

In a letter yesterday, an attorney for the state wrote that critics raise “a legitimate question” about the trolley issue. However, contemporary laws prevent “judicial challenges to such expenditures.”

On another issue, namely the use of redevelopment funds to end a legal battle, the attorney wrote that it could be regarded as an end-run around changes in the law that bar such maneuvers. The city and county bypassed the provision by including $31 million in downtown funds to settle the county’s claim. Downtown redevelopment plans were passed a year before the law changed.

More than 300 people were arrested in San Diego and Imperial counties in a raid that targeted deportable immigrants. According to officials with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, the sweep was a part of a statewide operation that totaled over 1000 arrests.

Of the 267 men arrested and 34 women arrested, at least 102 of them were targeted as immigration fugitives who refused to comply with a deportation order. According to ICE spokeswoman Lauren Mack, others were sought after for violations including returning to the country illegally after being deported. Others were arrested who were not initially targeted, but their illegal status was revealed to the agents during the sweep.

Among the arrested were U.S. citizens as well as illegal immigrants.

The arrests came after a three-week operation that concluded last week. According to Mack, the operation was coordinated between ICE’s fugitive operation teams and led by San Diego agents.

The agency reported a total of 1,157 arrests statewide. Some individuals had criminal records for offenses ranging from sexual assault and narcotics to voluntary manslaughter, and at least one person accused of making a terrorist threat.

In part of a coordinated effort between ICE and the San Diego Police Department, a 72-year-old legal U.S. resident from Bayview Heights was arrested as part of on suspicion of child molestation. He has been charged and is being held without bail, Mack said.

The bulk of the local arrests were made in San Diego, where 248 people were picked up; 35 more were in North County and 18 were found in El Centro, the spokeswoman said.

Mack said that this effort was part of an ongoing operation to track fugitive immigrants who rarely maintain a permanent address.

A written statement from Julie L. Myers, an assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security said, “The deployment of more fugitive operations teams, together with enhancements in our ability to track leads in these cases, have resulted in the arrest of record numbers of immigration fugitives this year and we expect that trend to continue”. The agency oversees ICE.

Mack said the 10 most common home countries of those who were arrested are Mexico, Guatemala, Vietnam, El Salvador, Honduras, Iraq, Cuba, Laos, Somalia and the Philippines. People hailing from 34 countries were arrested statewide.

Many have been sent back to their home countries, while the rest are awaiting deportation or in custody, Mack said.

The San DIego Police have arrested a 17 year old under suspicion of sexual assault against a young lady in the College Area. The teenager, whose name was not released, was arrested Monday night, according to police. Details of the arrest were not available immediately. Police released a composite sketch of the attacker last week after a woman reported she was sexually assaulted in her home. The assailant entered the victim’s home through an unlocked window about 4 a.m. Wednesday, police said. Detectives are scheduled to release further information about the case later.

Hopefully this never happens to you, but as one of my friends can attest, people do get “lemons”.

The question is when does the The Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act or as we refer to it “Lemon Law” apply(read more about it here). If the dealer can not service or repair the car after a “reasonable number of repair attempts” then they are obligated to promptly replace the vehicle or return the purchase price to the lessee or buyer.

What is a “reasonable number of repair attempts”? Is it 3, 5, 12 attempts? Lucky for me and you there is someone to help us with California lemon law. If you need an attorney, and you will, contact the lemon law experts at Law & Kolakowski. They have more than twenty five years of legal experience and have handled thousands of lemon cases. They also boast a 99% success rate, and offer free consultations.

Having a car that breaks down all the time is terrible, I mean buying gas is bad enough even when the car is running great. Hopefully buying a lemon never happens to you but if it does get the California lemon law attorneys on your side.