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Eighteen members of the big and notorious 18th Street Gang were indicted on federal charges of "selling" streets in Koreatown and the MacArthur Park district to drug dealers. The ring supposedly was run out of a federal prison in Colorado by an 18th Street member who is also in the Mexican Mafia. "It is a form of old-fashioned organized crime. Drug dealers would buy a street, say a section of Alvarado from 3rd to 4th street," said Bruce Riordan, assistant U.S. attorney.
Joe Francis and his Girls Gone Wild empire have agreed to pay $2.1 million in fines and plead guilty in federal court in Florida to violating the law that requires that makers of sexually explicit films maintain age and identity documents for performers and label their DVDs and videotapes. Most interesting thing about the L.A. Times story is the bottom credit line: "Times staff writer Claire Hoffman contributed to this report." She, of course, authored the West magazine piece last month about being manhandled by Francis.
Opening statements began today in the manslaughter trial of 89-year-old Russell Weller, the driver who killed ten people at the Santa Monica farmers market.