Please contact Attorney Max Gorby at (310) 200-9651 regarding any questions related to California Vehicle Code 23152 (A) and (B), Driving Under The Influence.

Where is Saturday’s DUI checkpoint in Sherman Oaks? – LA Daily News.

A Los Angeles couple and the man’s ex-wife have been charged with recruiting Russian call girls to work in local brothels, federal immigration officials announced.

Mher “Mike” Hakopyan, 38, and his wife Natalya Muravyeva, 31, of Los Angeles, were charged Monday in federal court in Santa Ana of suspicion of conspiracy to transport prostitutes.

Hakopyan’s ex, Alla Kassianova, 43, of Los Angeles, was also charged and is believed to have fled the country.

They were charged after a 10-month federal probe that alleged the defendants brought women from Eastern Europe to Southern California to work as prostitutes.

“The Department of Justice is committed to protecting vulnerable victims from ruthless profiteers,” said U.S. Attorney Andr Birotte Jr., in a statement.

“International prostitution rings like the one alleged in this case span jurisdictions and have a direct negative impact on both the woman involved and also on our local communities.”

The couple was arrested at their home in the 800 block of North Crescent Boulevard by agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Santa Monica police detectives. Both were held without bail.

If convicted, each defendant faces up to five years in federal prison.

According to the case affidavit, they employed recruiters in Russia and Eastern Europe to target 14 women who wanted to work in the U.S. sex trade.

They then bought them plane tickets and coached them how to enter the country via the Visa Waiver Program.

In Los Angeles, they got them homes, had them photographed in provocative poses and advertised their services on the Internet.

On Monday, agents searched a Los Angeles home and two apartments suspected as serving as brothels for the ring.

The federal investigation began in September 2011 after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers became suspicious of two Latvian women at Los Angeles International Airport. But their stories didn’t add up.

If you have been arrested for the crime of prostitution, contact experience Los Angeles Criminal Defense Lawyer Max Gorby at (310) 200-9651.

Feds bust Russian prostitution ring in L.A. – LA Daily News.

WASHINGTON — For most of his 12 years on death row, Anthony Graves lived in what he called an 8-by-12 “cage.” To see outside he would stand on top of his rolled-up plastic mattress and look through a small window at the top of the concrete wall in the back of his cell. He spent 22, sometimes 24, hours a day in this room.

“Solitary confinement does one thing: It breaks a man’s will to live and he ends up deteriorating. He’s never the same person again,” said Graves, who served over 18 years in a Texas prison before being exonerated of all crimes in 2010.

Speaking at what was described as the first congressional hearing about solitary confinement, Graves told a Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee that the practice was “inhumane and by its design is driving men insane.”

Psychological studies indicate that approximately a third of prisoners in solitary confinement suffer from mental illness and 50% of prison suicides occur in solitary confinement, said Craig Haney, a psychology professor at UC Santa Cruz.

This month, the Center for Constitutional Rights sued the state of California for its practice of isolating prison inmates suspected of having gang affiliations. The lawsuit focuses on 300 inmates who have been held at Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security Housing Unit for more than a decade.

Charles Samuels, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, told the committee that inmates were only placed in solitary confinement to protect the safety of the prison population. The bureau attempts to limit time spent in solitary confinement, which is not supposed to be used for seriously mentally ill inmates, he said.

“Inmates who are disruptive or aggressive to others endanger the security of our institutions,” Samuels said. “Removing and segregating them from the general population allows us to continue to operate institutions.”

Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), the committee chairman, said he planned to introduce legislation that would reform solitary confinement in federal institutions.

“I worry about those that end up in isolation for extended periods of time, who are subject to mental stress like none of us can imagine, and then go home to the general population,” Durbin said.

The emotional scars of solitary confinement still haunt Graves, who has trouble sleeping and often cries at night.

“We as American citizens are driving other American citizens out of their minds,” Graves said.

Solitary confinement ‘is driving men insane,’ former death row inmate testifies – latimes.com.

A motorist suspected of driving drunk behind the wheel of a Mercedes Benz led police on a high-speed pursuit Friday night from Burbank to Hollywood.

The chase reached speeds approaching 120 mph, authorities said, as the driver fled from the Burbank area onto three freeways — the 118, 5 and 101 — before getting off at Highland Avenue with his driver’s-side tire blown out.

Once on surface streets in the Hollywood area, the motorist sideswiped another car then came to a stop under an overpass, where California Highway Patrol officers arrested him.

Ambulances arrived on Franklin Avenue to transport the motorist and anyone else who may have been injured in the crash.

CHP Officer Tatiana Sauquillo said it was unknown yet if anyone was seriously hurt.

The chase, which lasted more than 40 minutes, began after an off-duty police officer noticed the black Mercedes driving erratically in the Burbank area.

DUI suspect pushes Mercedes past 100 mph in police pursuit – latimes.com.

If you have been arrested for the crime of DUI, contact experience Los Angeles Criminal Defense Lawyer Max Gorby at (323) 477-2819.

An Anchorage woman is being held on $1 million bond after being accused of setting a gasoline-fueled fire to kill her boyfriend.

Gina Virgilio, 25, was arraigned Monday on first-degree murder, reckless endangerment and assault and two counts each of arson and criminal mischief.

She’s charged in Friday’s death of her live-in boyfriend, Michael Gonzalez, 24.

“Sure,” Virgilio said when asked if she would like an attorney appointed to represent her. She appeared behind glass in the jail courtroom at the Anchorage Correctional Complex. She wore a yellow jail jumpsuit and her hands were shackled behind her back with metal cuffs during the hearing, which lasted just over three minutes.

According to charging documents, police claim Virgilio’s mother, Michelle, and a registered nurse at an Anchorage hospital both claimed she confessed to them that she committed the murder.

The judge on Monday ordered she have no contact with potential witnesses, including her mother.

“I’m like shocked, hurt that he said she couldn’t contact me,” Michelle Virgilio told reporters following the hearing. “She is my world.”

According to the charging documents, police allege Gina Virgilio went to a nearby convenience store and bought gas in a container, even though her vehicle was not working and tagged for towing in the apartment complex.

She returned to the apartment early Friday morning. Her boyfriend was asleep on the couch and she sat next to him and looked at him. According to the charging documents, she then doused the couch and the area around it, positioned herself at the front door, lit some paper and threw the burning paper into the apartment.

She then fled, walked to a nearby elementary school and borrowed someone’s cellphone to call her mother, the charging documents say.

At that time, according to the documents, Virgilio told her mother Gonzalez had been drinking with friends. Later, he began taking sips of the gasoline, spitting it out on the carpet and couch. Michelle Virgilio is quoted in the charging documents as saying that her daughter said Gonzalez was using an aerosol can as a flame thrower.

The Anchorage Fire Department responded to the apartment fire at 2:25 a.m. Friday, and found Gonzalez’s body after the fire was extinguished.

Police say they tracked Gina Virgilio to her mother’s house and she was taken in for interviews.

“Gina’s statements through the day changed when confronted with physical details from the scene of the fire,” the charging documents say.

Police released her about 7:30 p.m. Friday. By 10 p.m., she and her mother were at the emergency room for an undisclosed reason. Police Lt. Dave Parker said she wasn’t injured in the fire.

During the intervening 2 1/2 hours before arriving at the hospital, according to a summarized interview with Michelle Virgilio in the charging documents, she confronted her daughter about what happened.

Gina Virgilio confessed to her mother to getting the gas and setting the fire, according to the charging documents.

“Gina described the gas as igniting. Michael woke. Gina described Michael as saying, ‘hot-hot.’ Gina said that she closed the door with Michael inside the apartment and ran from the location,” according to the document’s summary of their interview with her mother.

Police returned to the hospital Saturday morning when staff members reported she had made confessions to the fire, according to the documents. A registered nurse told an officer Virgilio called her into her room.

According to a summary in the charging documents, the nurse “said that Gina was not medicated and that Gina told her, ‘I did it, I killed Michael.”

Talking to reporters outside the jail courthouse, Michelle Virgilio said she read that published account and disputed some of the facts, including that her daughter spread gasoline over the victim and couch. Instead, she says her daughter told her she spread the gasoline in front of the bathroom.

“Gina, she wouldn’t hurt nobody, she wouldn’t,” Virgilio said. “Something caused her to do that.”

She said for the past month, her daughter has been suffering severe mental depression.

“I know the last month or two, something was really wrong at that house,” she said.

Just days before the fire, Michelle Virgilio said she won court custody of Gina’s 3-year-old son, saying the apartment was not a safe place for a child.

via Alaska Woman Accused of Torching Boyfriend – ABC News.

If you or a loved one has been arrested for the crimes of arson and murder, call experienced Los Angeles Criminal Defense Lawyer Max B. Gorby at (310)200-9651.

Irvine is safest U.S. city for eighth straight year, FBI says – latimes.com.

Looking to avoid becoming a crime statistic? Move to Irvine.

In 2011, for the eighth year in a row, the Orange County city had the lowest violent crime rate of any U.S. city with a population larger than 100,000, the FBI said Monday.

Irvine — population 214,872 — reported only 120 violent crimes last year, the same number as the year before.

Among the crimes: two murders, 67 aggravated assaults, 11 rapes and 40 robberies. Random comparison: Similarly sized Modesto had more than 10 times the number of robberies.

“Eight straight years as the country’s safest city is truly something to celebrate,” Irvine Mayor Sukhee Kang said in a statement. “Public safety is a commitment we do not take lightly.”

The data were part of the FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report. Overall, reported violent crime in the United States declined 4% between 2010 and 2011, the FBI said.

Jerry Sandusky trial to start in Pennsylvania – CNN.com.

(CNN) — Opening statements in the trial of Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach charged with child rape, are scheduled to start Monday.

Sandusky, 68, has been under house arrest since being charged with sexually abusing 10 boys for at least 15 years. Prosecutors allege that he met some of his accusers through Second Mile, a charity he created for underprivileged children.

In interviews after his arrest, Sandusky acknowledged showering and “horsing around” with boys but denied being sexually attracted to them. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

A jury of five men and seven women, along with four alternates, was selected last week. Half of the 16 jurors and alternates have ties to Penn State, including one retired professor and one current professor, three graduates, two employees and one current student, showing the prominence of the university in the local community.

Authorities allege that Sandusky abused some of the boys on the Penn State campus. The case has shaken the school, raised questions about its response to the allegations and drawn criticism from those who claim Penn State put its reputation ahead of protecting potential child victims.

University President Graham Spanier and iconic head football coach Joe Paterno lost their jobs soon after Sandusky’s arrest amid criticism they did not adequately handle the matter when allegations involving Sandusky arose years earlier. Paterno died of complications from lung cancer in January.

Mike McQueary, a former graduate student considered to be a key witness in the Sandusky case, has testified that he alerted Paterno in 2002 that he’d seen what appeared to be Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in a shower in Penn State’s athletic facilities, an allegation that authorities didn’t learn of until years later.

Paterno apparently told the university’s athletic director, Tim Curley, but no one notified police. Curley and Gary Schultz, Penn State’s senior vice president for finance and business, are now facing felony charges of perjury and failing to report the allegations to authorities.

Prosecutors said later that the McQueary incident took place about a year earlier than what was originally alleged, causing defense attorneys for Curley and Schultz to argue that one of the charges should now be dropped. Both of them have pleaded not guilty, and their attorneys have said that prosecutors “charged this case before (they) knew the facts.”

The Sandusky trial is expected to last about three weeks.

Prosecutors plan to call more than 50 witnesses, and the defense plans to call about 100. Witnesses during the trial are expected to include Jay and Sue Paterno, coach Joe Paterno’s son and widow; and former university President Spanier, among others. Defense attorneys have said their list will also include seven Sandusky family members.

Several of Sandusky’s alleged victims asked to have their identities protected during the trial. But Judge John Cleland ruled against that request, saying “courts are not customarily in the business of withholding information.”

However, the judge noted, “It is also to be hoped that various news organizations that will report on the trial will use what has become their professional custom to protect the privacy of alleged victims.”

CNN generally does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault.

Cleland also told members of the jury pool that jurors in the case will not be sequestered, saying he will trust them not to read newspapers or follow the case online.

“It’s important nobody in the world will know as much about this trial as the people sitting in that jury box,” he said last week.

If you have been arrested for the crime of Child Molestation, call experienced Los Angeles Criminal Defense Lawyer Max Gorby at (323) 477-2819.

Killings by police in Los Angeles County jump sharply – latimes.com.