Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/541130
The Associated Press SANFRANCISCO The case of a Northern California woman who said she was kidnapped for ransom only to have it called a hoax by local police took another bi- zarre twist Monday when federal prosecutors an- nounced they charged a man with her abduction. The allegations against Matthew Muller, of Or- angevale, California, 38, were contained in an af- fidavit that was unsealed Monday. He was charged last month after he was ar- rested in South Lake Tahoe in a home-invasion rob- bery in the San Francisco Bay Area that had similar- ities to the kidnapping, the FBI said. The case began when the woman's boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, reported that kid- nappers broke into the cou- ple's Vallejo home March 23, abducted her and de- manded an $8,500 ransom. Quinn's lawyers have said he awoke to a bright light in his face, and two kidnappers bound and drugged him. The 29-year-old woman turned up safe two days later in her hometown of Huntington Beach, where she says she was dropped off. She showed up just hours before the ransom was due. The Associated Press is not naming the woman be- cause she says she was a vic- tim of sexual assault. The FBI says they found no evi- dence of nonconsensual sex. After the woman re- appeared, Vallejo police said at a news conference that the kidnapping was a hoax. Police have since de- clined to comment other than to say they continue to investigate. A call to the Vallejo department was not immediately returned Monday. FEDERAL CASE Mancharged in kidnapping that police called a hoax By Amy Taxin The Associated Press LOS ANGELES More than 1,800 immigrants that the federal government wanted to deport were nevertheless released from local jails and later re-arrested for various crimes, according to a government report re- leased Monday. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement re- port — obtained by an or- ganization that actively op- poses illegal immigration — said the re-arrested im- migrants were among 8,145 people who were freed be- tween January and August 2014 despite requests from federal agents that they be held for deportation. More than 250 jurisdic- tions across the country — including some formally designated as sanctuary cities, such as San Fran- cisco — have stopped fully honoring so-called immi- gration detainers, saying they can't hold arrestees beyond their scheduled re- lease dates without prob- able cause. California and Connecticut have passed state laws to limit the use of immigration detainers and jails in states from Or- egon to Iowa also refuse to honor the requests. In the report pro- vided by the Washington- based Center for Immi- gration Studies, the top crimes for which immi- grants were re-arrested were drug violations and drunken driving. The re- port also cited six exam- ples involving more seri- ous offenses, including a San Mateo County case in which an individual was arrested for investigation of five felony sex crimes in- volving a child under 14. "This is a genuine safety problem, and also a cri- sis for immigration en- forcement," said Jessica Vaughan, the center's di- rector of policy studies. The controversy sur- rounding immigration de- tainers has re-entered the national spotlight since the shooting death of 32-year- old Kathryn Steinle on a San Francisco pier. Suspect Juan Francisco Lopez-San- chez was released from jail in April even though immi- gration officials had lodged a detainer to try to deport him from the country for a sixth time. San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi has argued he was upholding local law and that detainers are not a legal way to keep someone in custody and have been proven to erode police rela- tions with immigrant com- munities. Immigrant advocates said immigration agents already have information about who is in local jails, and they can make the ar- rests on their own. "It is not correct to point to the detainers as the rea- son why people are getting re-arrested," said Jennie Pasquarella, a staff attor- ney at the American Civil Liberties Union of South- ern California. "ICE has had, and continues to have and develop its tools to be able to prioritize people who it believes are priority for removal, and to pick up those people." So far this year, the Obama administration is on track to remove the few- est number of immigrants from the country since 2006. In 2012, the govern- ment sent home a record of more than 409,000 im- migrants, with help from a program that automati- cally alerts federal agents every time someone with an immigration record is arrested. Immigrant advocates complained that immi- grants arrested for investi- gation of minor violations were getting deported, not the dangerous criminals ICE claimed to target, and decried the use of detain- ers. IMMIGRANTS Report: Many re-arrested a er detainers declined By Don Thompson The Associated Press SACRAMENTO California on Monday began regain- ing responsibility for its prison health care system after nearly a decade of fed- eral control and billions of dollars in improvements. A court-appointed re- ceiver returned medical care at Folsom State Prison to the California Depart- ment of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the first of many steps toward ending a long-running lawsuit. "Basically, what I saw at Folsom was a reasonably well-functioning health care system in a prison context," receiver J. Clark Kelso said in a telephone interview. The decision comes a de- cade after a federal judge found that conditions in the state's prisons were so poor that an average of an inmate each week was dy- ing of medical malpractice or neglect. A receiver was appointed to run the sys- tem in 2006. Since then, the state has spent $2 billion for new prison medical facil- ities, doubled its annual prison health care budget to nearly $1.7 billion and reduced its prison popula- tion by more than 40,000 inmates. Kelso said he reviewed a 5-inch-thick binder of med- ical data and an April re- port by the department's inspector general that found Folsom provides ad- equate care to its nearly 2,400 inmates. Folsom, about 20 miles east of Sacramento, was the first prison to be inspected. U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson of San Francisco said in March that he will consider end- ing his oversight once all 34 adult prisons pass in- spection. "We're pleased and ready to start taking back con- trol of medical care," cor- rections Secretary Jeffrey Beard said in a statement. "We know that other CDCR prisons are ready to step up in the months ahead and we will continue collabo- rating with the Receiver's Office to ensure inmates at all of our facilities receive appropriate health care." Don Specter, director of the Berkeley-based Prison Law Office that represents inmates in the lawsuit, said it's good that care has im- proved at Folsom, but attor- neys will continue monitor- ing. "One of the things I'm most concerned about is whether the state has re- formed its processes so that all the improvements that the receiver has made over the last 10 or so years are sustained," Specter said. Kelso reported in March that conditions statewide have substantially im- proved, though some pris- ons are doing better than others and more work re- mains to be done statewide. Under the judge's rules, Kelso could retake control of a transferred prison if conditions decline, but the goal is for the receiver to eventually monitor rather than run the health care system. Once the state maintains control of all its prisons for a year, Henderson will con- sider ending the receiver- ship under the presump- tion that prison health care meets constitutional stan- dards. Inspections at 10 other prisons are scheduled through early September, and the process is expected to take more than a year. The Correctional Train- ing Facility in Soledad and California Rehabilitation Center at Norco also have re- ceived passing grades. There are no immediate plans, however, to restore state control at either facility. LONG-RUNNING LAWSUIT California begins to regain control of prison health care RICHPEDRONCELLI—THEASSOCIATEDPRESSFILE Inmate Chad Gailey is examined at the medical unit of the Deuel Vocational Institution near Tracy. | NEWS | REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2015 8 A