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TheAssociatedPress SANFRANCISCO The Cali- fornia Supreme Court ruled that two felony convictions stemming from a single act cannot be counted as sepa- rate strikes under the state's three strikes sentencing law. The 1994 law requires the doubling of a sentence if a defendant has a prior quali- fying felony conviction, and that the person be given a life term if there are two such convictions. The unanimous ruling on Thursday came in the case of Darlene Vargas, who was sentenced to 25-years to life for burglary on the basis of two prior convictions. The high court said those convictions for robbery and carjacking stemmed from the same act — taking a car by force — and should not count as two sepa- rate strikes and prompt a tougher sentence. Writing for the court, Jus- tice Kathryn Mickle Werde- gar said the case presented an extreme situation in which the convictions were based on the "same act, committed at the same time against the same victim." Werdegar said treating Vargas' convictions as two separate strikes was incon- sistent with the spirit of the three strikes law. "The voting public would reasonably have understood the three strikes baseball metaphor to mean that a person would have three chances — three swings of the bat, if you will — before the harshest penalty could be imposed," she said. "The public also would have un- derstood that no one can be called for two strikes on just one swing." CRIME Californiacourtclarifies 3 strikes law in ruling By Scott Sonner The Associated Press RENO, NEV. Long accus- tomed to dealing with bad news "garbage" bears that becomehookedonimprop- erly stored trash at homes and businesses around Lake Tahoe, Nevada wild- life officials say they're in- creasingly responding to a new kind of troublemaker they've started calling "drought" bears. Experts have been pre- dicting for months the lin- gering drought will lead to significantly more bear problems throughout the Sierra Nevada this sum- mer. Three consecutive years of abnormally dry conditions have reduced most mountain creeks to a trickle and elimi- nated many natural food sources, forcing bears to greatly expand their search for food into urban neighborhoods, said Carl Lackey, chief wildlife biol- ogist for the Nevada De- partment of Wildlife. On Friday, wildlife of- ficials captured their sev- enth problem bear in the last 10 days at Tahoe. An eighth was hit and killed by a car last week. "We're calling a lot of these 'drought' bears," Nevada Department of Wildlife spokesman Chris Healy told The Associated Press. "These are bears that want to be wild, they are doing their best to be wild and trying to stay up in the hills, but they just don't have any food." Many of the bears can be relocated and released to the wild, including a 3-year-old female trapped on Tahoe's east shore near Glenbrook early Friday. But another bear had to be killed on Wednes- day because it was trying to break into homes and cars, and even wandered onto a busy private beach in a gated community be- fore wardens shot it with a tranquilizer dart. The beach bear, a 3-year-old male, "was very bold in its behavior and not showing any fear of humans at all," Healy said. "It was approach- ing people on an occu- pied beach and actually opened a backpack and took food," he said. "He had become a dangerous bear because of the lure of human trash." Healy said it's a perfect example of how bears that typically don't cause any trouble in the wild will re- sorttoraidinggarbagecans when extended drought provides no alternative. WILDLIFE Dr ou gh t drawing bears at Lake Tahoe By Paul Elias The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO The for- mer head of the Califor- nia Public Employees' Re- tirement System, the na- tion's largest public pension fund, pleaded guilty Friday to bribery and fraud. Federico Buenrostro Jr., the former chief executive of CalPERS, entered his plea in San Francisco fed- eral court, and acknowl- edged receiving paper bags and a shoe box stuffed with $200,000 in cash along with casino chips and other ben- efits from Alfred Villalobos, a Lake Tahoe, California, investment manager who also served on the CalPERS board in the mid-90s. Buenrostro, CEO of CalP- ERS from 2002 through 2008, said he went to work for Villalobos the day after his state pension took effect and that he accepted an ad- ditional $50,000 after lying to federal investigators in 2010 about the pair's rela- tionship. Buenrostro, 64, said he used his influence to make investment decisions bene- ficial to Villalobos' clients. Buenrostro also said he gave Villalobos access to the pension system's con- fidential investment infor- mation. Further, Buenrostro said he forged letters that al- lowed Villalobos' firms to earn millions in commis- sions for investing $3 bil- lion in the pension fund's money. Buenrostro said he began forging the so-called investor disclosure letters after CalPERS legal and in- vestment offices declined to authorize them. Villalobos wouldn't have received commissions from the Wall Street equity fund Apollo Global Management without those letters. Villalobos has pleaded not guilty to fraud charges and other related counts. His attorney, Bruce Funk, said his client denies the al- legations contained in Buen- rostro's plea agreement. "If he's truthful, there is noth- ing he can say that will hurt Mr. Villalobos," Funk said. Buenrostro faces five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced in January. In ex- change for a lesser sentence, Buenrostro has agreed to cooperate with the continu- ing investigation of Villalo- bos, said Buenrostro lawyer William Portonova. "He got tired of lying," Portonova said. "He's ready to tell the truth." Aside from the cash and chips, Villalobos paid for Buenrostro's wedding and hosted it at his home in 2004, Buenrostro said. Buenrostro also said that Villalobos paid for first- class airfare, hotels, meals and entertainment for a business trips to Dubai, Hong Kong and Macau. The guilty plea is the product of an investigation into the role of placement agents such as Villalobos, middlemen hired by money- management firms to help them win business with in- vestors. The state attorney gen- eral filed a lawsuit in 2010 alleging that Buenrostro and Villalobos along with other former pension board and staff members partici- pated in kickback scheme. At that time, the attorney general obtained a court order freezing the assets of Villalobos and his company in an attempt to recover more than $40 million in commissions. The assets of Villalobos, who filed for bankruptcy later in 2010, included 20 bank accounts, two Bentleys, two BMWs, a Hummer, art worth more than $2.7 million and 14 properties in California, Ne- vada and Hawaii. State attorney general spokesman Nick Pacilio said a trial is scheduled for Sept. 8 in San Francisco Su- perior Court. The Securities and Ex- change Commission has also filed a lawsuit in 2012, which is still pending. In a related sanction, the state's campaign watchdog, the Fair Political Practices Commission, fined other executives and investment managers in 2011 for fail- ing to report gifts that in- cluded food, wine and base- ball and Rose Bowl tickets. CalPERS issued an un- signed statement saying the bribery scandal prompted it to take "aggressive steps to implement policies and re- forms that strengthen ac- countability and ensure full transparency." CALPERS Ex -c hi ef o f hu ge p en si on f un d gu il ty o f br ib er y The Associated Press LOS ANGELES A Republi- can assemblyman says he was refused membership in the California Latino Legis- lative Caucus and now the state attorney general has been asked to investigate the group and its policies. Assemblyman Rocky Chavez, R-Oceanside, said he was told last year that Re- publicans are not allowed in the 24-member caucus, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday. Thatrejectionhassparked debate in and out of the Leg- islature about the diversity of opinion in Latino politics and whether public money should support legislative caucusesthathaveapartisan agenda, the newspaper said. Sen. Joel Anderson, R-Al- pine, asked the state attor- ney general to investigate, saying the group's name im- plies equal access for all La- tino legislators. "The name Latino Cau- cus is intentionally mislead- ing, because it implies equal access for all Latino legis- lators," Anderson said. "Us- ing taxpayer-sourced, pub- lic funds to deny them their voice is wrong." Caucus chairman Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gar- dens, said there is nothing improper about the caucus' membership policies, which have been in place since the caucus was founded 40 years ago by five Democratic law- makers. SACRAMENTO Probe urged a er Latino caucus rejects Republican By Juliet Williams The Associated Press SACRAMENTO A lower percentage of voters went to the polls in the June primary in California than in any previous statewide election, the secretary of state said Friday as elec- tions officials in Imperial and Kern counties began recounting ballots in the contested race for state controller. Secretary of State Debra Bowen said the disappoint- ing 25.2 percent turnout was less than the previous low turnout of 28.2 percent in June 2008. Yet if there was ever a statewide election where every vote mattered, last month's contest was it, she said. "If there is any silver lin- ing, I hope it's a reminder to people who didn't vote in June to take note of close results such as the state controller contest and com- mit to going to the polls in November," Bowen said in a news release. The time-consuming re- count in that race came after a razor-thin finish for second place that left former Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, just 481 votes behind fel- low Democrat Betty Yee, a member of the state Board of Equalization. A total of 4.46 million votes were cast in the controller's race, with Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin, a Republican, finishing first. Under California's pri- mary system, the top two vote-getters advance to the November election, regard- less of party. Perez sought the recount — the first in a statewide of- fice election in modern his- tory — in 15 select counties in an effort to pull ahead of Yee. The process could drag on for weeks, even as dead- lines loom for the Novem- ber general election. California law allows a candidate or any registered state voter to request a re- count in any precinct in any county, but they must pay for it from campaign funds. The estimated bill is $4,019 a day in Kern County and $1,640 a day in Imperial County, an amount that must be paid in advance of each day's work. Each of those coun- ties could be counting bal- lots for two weeks or lon- ger. Both candidates sent observers to watch as elec- tions officials pored over hundreds of ballots on Fri- day. "So far it's been very non- controversial. It's very clear who the voters wanted to vote for, and the tallies are identical so far every time," said Yee campaign consultant Parke Skelton, who was overseeing the vote-counting in Imperial County. The controller serves as the state's chief fiscal offi- cer, and is responsible for managing incoming and outgoing payments. The recount doesn't have to be finished by a specific date, but county clerks are racing against other dead- lines ahead of the Nov. 4 general election. Voter information guides are set to go on public display starting July 22. Counties must trans- late ballots into other lan- guages, print them and be- gin sending vote-by-mail ballots Sept. 5. Bowen certified the pri- mary results on Friday. She said the election also had the highest rate of voting by mail, at 69 percent, beat- ing the June 2012 record of 65 percent. ELECTION Recount begins in state controller's race THEBAKERSFIELDCALIFORNIAN,FELIXADAMO—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Observers watch Micah Kagler, seated, second from le , of the Kern County Elections Division, reads a vote from a ballot in the California Controller race on Friday. 100JacksonStreet, Red Bluff (530) 529-1220 NEW Membership Specials CallorComeIn for details Deli-TastyBurgers-Wraps NewTo-GoSection Thursday,Friday&Saturday Lunch&DinnerBuffet Happy Hour with Cocktails, Food & Entertainment Saigon Bistro 723 Walnut St. Red Bluff 528-9670 SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2014 REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM |NEWS | 7 A
