uLOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles police officer is being treated for typhoid fever and another employee has typhus-like symptoms.
The LAPD reported the illnesses Wednesday involving employees of its Central Division office. There’s no word on how the officer got the bacterial disease, which can spread through contaminated food or drink or contact with a carrier.
Police say a specific diagnosis for the other employee with typhus-like symptoms hasn’t been determined. The LAPD says it’s working to disinfect any work areas that may have been exposed.
The office was also fumigated earlier this year as downtown struggled with an outbreak of typhus, which unlike food-borne typhoid fever can spread from infected fleas. Homeless people who live near City Hall and a deputy city attorney fell ill.
Critics blame squalid homeless camps nearby.
uCALIFORNIA VOTE-SHAMING MAILER UNDER INVESTIGATION: SACRAMENTO (AP) — The California secretary of state’s office is looking into a mysterious vote-shaming mailer that showed up days before a special election in Northern California.
KCRA-TV says the mailer sent to at least one woman in El Dorado County contained a chart of names showing who’d voted in the neighborhood in past elections and who hadn’t. The mailer warned that the woman’s voting record might also be revealed unless she votes in a June 4 election for California Senate District 1.
Susan Strand tells the station she feels “violated.”
The mailer came from a group called the Northern California State Voter Project that has no website or phone number, just a post office box.
uFEDS REPAY $13.4 MILLION STOLEN BY SACRAMENTO KINGS EXEC: SACRAMENTO (AP) — The Sacramento Kings say the U.S. government is repaying the basketball team $13.4 million that a former official stole to buy luxury beachfront homes.
The team announced Wednesday that the U.S. Justice Department is providing full restitution.
The Sacramento Bee newspaper reported that the government is using money it got from selling the homes purchased by Jeff David, the Kings’ former chief revenue officer.
Prosecutors say David diverted money that Golden 1 Credit Union and Kaiser Permanente paid to the team for stadium naming rights and sponsorship deals.
David pleaded guilty in January to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He’s scheduled for sentencing next month and could face up to 20 years in prison, but prosecutors are expected to ask for 8½ years.
uSUSPECT IN ‘BITCOINTOPIA’ FRAUD GETS PRISON: SAN DIEGO (AP) — A San Diego man has been sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for selling plots of land he didn’t own to unsuspecting investors he convinced would eventually live in “Bitcointopia,” a city of the future in the Nevada desert.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports Wednesday that Morgan Rockcoons, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur, lured investors with a slick website advertising his city-from-scratch as a Tomorrowland built on bitcoins.
Bitcointopia offered 500- to-1,000-acre plots at a half-bitcoin per acre. At least 10 people purchased land but never got their deeds.
Rockcoons was arrested last year and eventually pleaded guilty to operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business and wire fraud.
uSUSPECT ENTERS PLEA IN CALIFORNIA SCOOTER BEATING DEATH: LOS ANGELES (AP) — The man charged with beating a Southern California woman to death with an electric scooter has pleaded not guilty to murder.
The Los Angeles Times reports 27-year-old Amad Rashad Redding entered his plea on Wednesday.
Investigators say Redding attacked 63-year-old Rosa Elena Hernandez in Long Beach on May 13 and used the scooter as a weapon.
Hernandez died at the scene. Redding was arrested later that day.
uFAMILY OF MAN KILLED BY DEPUTIES IN CONTRACTOR FEUD SUES: LOS ANGELES (AP) — The family of a 65-year-old man who was killed by Orange County sheriff’s deputies during a dispute with a contractor in a retirement community has filed a federal lawsuit.
The suit filed Wednesday by Paul Mono’s widow and daughters says deputies fired on Mono’s Laguna Woods, California condo without speaking with a witness who could have explained Mono was blind and not dangerous.
The Orange County District Attorney’s office previously found deputies were justified in shooting as they saw Mono reach for a handgun inside the condo.
The incident occurred in February 2018 amid a dispute between Mono and a contractor.
uDEADLY CRASH SNARLS BAY BRIDGE TRAFFIC INTO SAN FRANCISCO: SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Authorities say a fatal crash on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge involving a box truck and a bus has shut down three traffic lanes, causing a miles-long backup into San Francisco.
The California Highway Patrol says officers responded to the crash at around 4:30 a.m. on westbound Interstate 80. It says a passenger in the box truck died at the scene.
Priya David Clemens, a spokeswoman for Golden Gate Bridge, says that a Golden Gate Transit bus was headed from BART’s MacArthur Station toward San Francisco when the box truck rear-ended it on the Bay Bridge.
Two other people in the truck and three people in the bus were injured. The CHP says four of them were taken to a hospital.
uPOLICE: BONES FOUND AT SAN FRANCISCO HOME WERE FROM A HUMAN: SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco police say bones discovered at a home last week were from a human and are being investigated as part of a “suspicious death.”
Police spokesman Officer Adam Lobsinger tells the San Francisco Chronicle the Medical Examiner has not yet confirmed an identity or cause of death.
The bones were found at a Victorian home in the city’s Mission District last Thursday, when police cordoned off the home while officials with the medical examiner’s office removed the bones and other evidence from the scene.
