February hearing set in Yolo infant murder case
WOODLAND A former Yolo County man accused of killing his five infant children is scheduled to undergo a three-day court hearing next month, where prosecutors will lay out their evidence supporting murder and other charges.
Nearly a year has passed since authorities announced Paul Allen Perez’s arrest in connection with the deaths, which they say occurred between 1992 and 2001. One infant boy’s body was found in Yolo County in 2007.
Perez’s preliminary hearing, rescheduled several times over the past year, was delayed about six weeks Monday after Deputy District Attorney Amanda Zambor told Yolo Superior Court Judge David Reed she’s still awaiting a pathologist’s report re-analyzing evidence in the decades-old case. The prior pathologist assigned to the case has since passed away.
Hit-and-run suspect claims victim ‘ran into me’
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The man accused of fatally striking his friend with a vehicle in Davis earlier this week claimed during his first court appearance Wednesday that “the guy ran into me.”
Scott Bryan Ekoniak shook his head from side to side while Yolo Superior Court Judge Tom Dyer read his pending felony charges of vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol causing injury and hit and run with injury.
Dyer then asked whether Ekoniak, appearing via Zoom from the Yolo County Jail, had a lawyer.
“I think my dad is getting me an attorney because the guy ran into me,” Ekoniak said of the Sunday night incident on Olive Drive, where 66-year-old Ernest Seyfert was struck by a westbound vehicle whose driver then fled the scene.
Convicted Sacramento after-school teacher charged with unemployment fraud, Yolo DA says [The Sacramento Bee]
Dec. 22 An incarcerated Sacramento man convicted of trying to lure a 12-year-old girl to have sex with him is now accused of working with an accomplice to receive more than $11,000 in fraudulent unemployment claims, Yolo County prosecutors said.
This week, Taylor Lewis Gholar and his girlfriend, Sonia Chan, were charged with felony counts of grand theft, making a false and fraudulent insurance claim and conspiracy to commit fraud, according to a news release from the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office.
The charges against Gholar and Chan were the result of a vast probe into a California unemployment scam that revealed at least $140 million worth of improper payments made to inmates and their outside accomplices, a group of county district attorneys announced late last month.
Another Yolo court commissioner retires
Yolo Superior Court officials announced last week the retirement of Commissioner J. Kent O’Mara, effective Saturday, Dec. 19.
O’Mara served the court in multiple positions over the past 13 years, including referee and court commissioner. He graduated from the University of San Fernando Valley College of Law and, after graduation, worked for a law firm performing civil litigation in state and federal courts.
After moving to Northern California in 1983, O’Mara had his own law firm in El Dorado County for 25 years before his hiring by the Yolo Superior Court. He was appointed referee in June 2009 and elevated to commissioner in June 2015, handling a variety of high-volume calendars including traffic, unlawful detainers and small claims, as well as criminal arraignments. O’Mara also played an active role in the civil settlement program.
Convicted sex offender, accomplice charged in Yolo County EDD fraud case Share Updated: 12:36 PM PST Dec 22, 2020 Hope Miller Share Updated: 12:36 PM PST Dec 22, 2020
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Show Transcript THE VIGIL HAS BEEN HELD. DEIRDR A CONVICTED SEX OFFENDER IS FACING NEW CHARGES OF TRYING TO DEFRAUD. HE WAS ARRESTED LAST YEAR. INVESTIGATORS FOUND OUT HE HAD RECEIVED OVER $11,000 IN UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE PAYMENT
TRACKING THE COVID-19 VACCINE Share Updated: 12:36 PM PST Dec 22, 2020 Hope Miller A man jailed for luring a child for sex and an outside accomplice have been charged in a California Employment Development Department fraud case out of Yolo County in which the pair is accused of swindling more than $11,000, officials announced this week. The events unfolded earlier this month when Taylor Lewis Gholar, 29, of West Sacramento, was sentenced to three years in state prison after being convicted of luri