The cyclical migration of top prosecutors back to Big Law continued Monday, with Nicola Hanna rejoining Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher following a stint as U.S. attorney for the Central District of California.
Wednesday, Jan. 6, and I’m your guest host, Tony Barboza. I’m filling in for Julia Wick and writing from Long Beach.
We made it through to the New Year, with the surging coronavirus making it the strangest, and perhaps darkest, holiday season in many of our lifetimes. But 2021 isn’t having much of a honeymoon period.
The pandemic in California is already at a point of crisis. Cases, deaths and hospitalizations in L.A. and other areas across the state keep rising, signs that we are well into a new spike in infections from holiday gatherings and travel. It’s the beginning of the dreaded “surge on top of a surge on top of a surge” warned of by health officials.
Photo illustration by Alexis Manrodt for The Real Deal (Getty, iStock)
It was the fall of 2017 and Los Angeles City Council Member Jose Huizar needed a word with a longtime staffer about two real estate projects pending before the council.
In advance of hearings, Huizar wanted to make sure the projects’ developers had funneled thousands of dollars to a fund set up to elect Huizar’s wife, Richelle Huizar, as his successor.
“All commitments have been made,” his staffer, George Esparza, assured him.
The exchange was one of many startling details in the 138-page superseding indictment of Huizar that federal prosecutors handed down Nov. 30.
Former California resident facing up to year in jail for gunning down elephant seal
Jessica Schladebeck
December 22, 2020, 11:08 AM
A man who used to live in California could spend up to a year in prison after he admitted to killing an elephant seal last year.
Jordan Gerbich, during a court appearance via video on Monday, pleaded guilty to one count of taking a marine mammal, the Santa Maria Times reported. The federal charge stems from the 2019 killing of a northern elephant seal near the Piedras Blancas Marine and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
Ciaran McEvoy, a U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman, said the 30-year-old was armed with a .45-caliber pistol when he drove to beach near San Simeon the evening of Sept. 28, 2019. When he arrived at the viewing area, he used a flashlight to find his target and then discharged his firearm.