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Victoria Kim

The federal obscenity prosecution of Los Angeles fetish film producer and distributor Ira Isaacs ended in a mistrial Tuesday after jurors deadlocked on charges that the filmmaker produced, sold and transported obscene material.

Mistrial declared in obscenity case over fetish film

Last updated Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - 10:41am

LOS ANGELES -- The federal obscenity prosecution of Los Angeles fetish film producer and distributor Ira Isaacs ended in a mistrial Tuesday after jurors deadlocked on charges that the filmmaker produced, sold and transported obscene material.

The panel deliberated for about a day after watching four films created or distributed by Isaacs, whose Internet-based business specialized in a niche of the pornography industry that included scatology and bestiality. The films, two of which Isaacs directed and appeared in, made up the bulk of the three-day trial last week.

Crime, Courts, Film, Obscenity, National Read more Comments

Jackson's doctor lied about drug orders, pharmacist testifies

Harriet Ryan, Victoria Kim Los Angeles Times

Last updated Tuesday, October 4, 2011 - 5:49pm

LOS ANGELES -- A Las Vegas pharmacist testified Tuesday that he shipped large amounts of propofol to Michael Jackson's personal physician in the months leading up to the singer's death.

Courts, Manslaughter, Trial, Michael Jackson, National Read more Comments

Attorney Bradford Bailey, left, and attorney Jeffrey Denner, right, stand with Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, in court on Friday July 8, 2011 in Alhambra, Calif., Gerhartsreiter, who masqueraded as a member of the famous Rockefeller family, faces charges that he murdered his landlord more than a quarter-century ago. Gerhartsreiter Pleaded not-guilty. Prosecutors believe he murdered Jonathan Sohus, who disappeared along with his wife Linda in 1985. Gerhartsreiter rented the couple's guesthouse in the wealthy Los Angeles suburb of San Marino, and left town soon after they vanished. (AP Photo/Sarah Reingewirtz, Pool)

Phony Rockefeller pleads not guilty to murder

Richard Winton, Victoria Kim Los Angeles Times

Last updated Friday, July 8, 2011 - 2:48pm

ALHAMBRA, Calif. -- The man known to the world as Clark Rockefeller appeared briefly in an Alhambra courtroom Friday and entered a not guilty plea to a charge he killed his landlady's son and buried the body in the Los Angeles-area community of San Marino three decades ago.

In the early 1980s, he was known as Chris Chichester, a relative of Lord Mountbatten and a would-be film producer who lived in a San Marino guest house.

A few years later, he was called Christopher Crowe, a bond salesman in Greenwich, Conn.

And by the early 1990s, he had turned up as Clark Rockefeller.

But Friday morning, he faced the charge under his birth name, Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter.

Crime, Murder, Courts, Fake identification, National Read more Comments

Victim says he was beaten because of Shaquille O'Neal sex tape

Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times, Victoria Kim

Last updated Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 10:24am

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in 2009 investigated allegations that Shaquille O’Neal was connected to a beating, robbery and kidnapping by gang members of a man claiming to have a sex tape of the basketball star, according to records reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.

Detectives found phone records showing a "flurry of calls" between the alleged ringleader of the assault and O’Neal’s business partner around the time of the February 2008 incident, a sheriff’s investigative report said.

O’Neal and his busi

Crime, Beating, Sports, Gangs, National Read more Comments

Judge rules in favor of letting autistic boy take service dog to school

Los Angeles Times, Victoria Kim

Last updated Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - 11:20pm

LOS ANGELES — By the time summer school starts in early July, Caleb will probably walk into class with a golden retriever at his side. Caleb Ciriacks is a 7-year-old severely autistic boy who for the most part doesn’t speak. He shrieks and paces when he gets anxious, and on occasion he pinches and scratches others. Eddy is Caleb’s service dog, tethered to the boy by a red strap. The dog keeps Caleb from running off into crowds or darting into traffic, and he knows to intervene when the boy starts to feel anxious.

Schools, Autism, Children, Court, Disabilities, Dogs Read more Comments

At the L.A. County Coroner's Office, Michelle Sandberg, acting supervising forensic scientist, holds a garrotte used in a murder. DNA technology has made "cold case" files that are stored here valuable to solving old crimes. (Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times/MCT)

Coroner's long-forgotten evidence unlocks old mysteries

Los Angeles Times, Victoria Kim

Last updated Thursday, June 9, 2011 - 10:36am

LOS ANGELES -- In 2002, two detectives arrived in the musty basement of the Los Angeles County coroner's office looking for any scrap of evidence that would help them crack a string of killings from three decades ago.

The killer, they suspected, had raped and choked at least three women as they left bars in the San Pedro area. He would come to be known as the Santa Strangler because the first of his victims was found the day after Christmas in 1972.

The detectives had a suspect in mind, a former taxi driver in his 70s with a big, white beard, but they needed biological evidence to prove his guilt. A search of the Los Angeles Police Department's evidence lockers had proved futile -- the evidence was either not preserved well enough to test, or had been thrown out.

Detectives Richard Bengston and Vivian Flores went to the coroner's office on a whim, without too much hope. They chatted with the evidence clerk, who remembered a dusty, green filing cabinet that had sat untouched for some time.

Features, Crime, Coroner, Evidence Read more Comments

Calif. man gets 25 years for conspiring to smuggle Chinese missiles

Los Angeles Times, Victoria Kim

Last updated Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 9:41am

LOS ANGELES -- On the surface, Yi Qing Chen appeared to be a straight-laced businessman exporting plastic junk from the U.S. to China.

Secretly, Chen was a smuggler willing to sneak into the U.S. whatever would fit into 40-foot shipping containers -- be it fake Marlboros, or ultimately, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles that could target F-15 or F-16 fighter jets, authorities say.

Chen, who was convicted last October of trafficking in counterfeit cigarettes, distributing drugs, and conspiring to import the missiles, was sentenced Monday to 25 years in federal prison.

China, Courts, Missiles, Smuggling, Military, National Read more Comments