Photo by flickr user Rock and Roar

Just change the "D" to an "O."

In the wake of the County of Orange's 1994 bankruptcy, the largest municipal financial free-fall in U.S. history up to that point, I once offered as a marketing slogan: "Orange County: We're Not Just Morally Bankrupt Anymore." Well come June 7, 2016, the county may finally have a little bit of ethics to brag about as well.

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Photo by flickr user Louish Pixel

Big ballin'

One good list of the largest tax delinquents in Orange County deserves another, no? The California Franchise Tax Board and state Board of Equalization have separately listed the companies that are most delinquent in ponying up taxes. Unlike on the personal income tax delinquent list, none in OC made top 10 of either agency's list.

Barely.

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Photo by flickr user John Watson

Whaaaaa!?!

I don't know if the listicle craze is still a thing--I'm not much of a reader--but just in case it is let us note that the son of a Newport Beach billionaire (and most mega of Orange County mega-developers) finds himself atop a new list. Not that Irvine Co. chairman Don Bren's son Steven, whose company earlier this year took the No. 6 spot on the California Franchise Tax Board's list of corporate tax delinquents, wants to be anywhere near the FTB's latest grouping.

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Cybernetic organisms in Hollywood Sci-Fi movies and the District Attorney's office?

Inside the Orange County district attorney's office (OCDA) from the mid-1970s through 2001, homicide prosecutor Michael A. Jacobs apparently saw himself as the Terminator.

According to newly obtained court records, Jacobs bragged to other lawmen that they could not match his enthusiasm for executing defendants in capital cases, claiming at one point that his office was responsible for 50 percent of expected state-sponsored killings after California resumed enforcing the death penalty in 1992.

Weekly readers may recall Jacobs, who was highlighted in our May 6, 2015, cover story, "Double Jeopardy: Recent Proof of Prosecutorial Misconduct Mirrors OCDA's Bad Old Days." The article noted that evidence proved this prosecutor repeatedly withheld exculpatory evidence that would have weakened his cases and employed blatantly dishonest jailhouse informants to sell his claims to juries.

Incredibly, Jacobs won two convictions for the 1981 Laguna Beach murder of Ginger Fleischli by arguing diametrically opposing sets of facts to different juries for David Leitch, who was given a term of 15 years to life, and Thomas Thompson, who was executed in 1998 while proclaiming his innocence to the end.

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John Gilhooley / OC Weekly

Guess who wants to go to Washington: (L-R) Lou Correa, Joe Dunn, Bao Nguyen and Jordan Brandman

For 20 years, Loretta Sanchez owned her Anaheim/Santa Ana/Garden Grove district while, for most of her stint, serving as the lone Democrat in Orange County's Ayn Rand-ish, neocon-loaded congressional delegation.

Oh, how Republicans desperately wanted to topple her from the seat but somehow sent in losing opponent after trounced losing opponent, and now she's running to replace Barbara Boxer in the U.S. Senate.

The all-male, all-Democrat slate seeking to replace Sanchez--Jordan Brandman, Lou Correa, Bao Nguyen and Joe Dunn--participated in their first debate on Saturday.

Guess what?

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Blood-drenched Leon: Hands up, still got shot

Standing in public on Dec. 15, 2012, an unarmed Ignacio Leon, Jr. wasn't wanted for committing any crime and says he complied when an approaching Santa Ana Police Department (SAPD) officer issued commands, including for him to raise his hands, but the cop still unnecessarily fired three bullets, two striking his chest and torso.

Leon filed a federal lawsuit in 2014, alleging that SAPD officer David Garcia violated his constitutional rights by instituting a wrongful detention, using excessive--potentially lethal--force, postponing medical treatment for serious wounds, kicking the injured man and then writing a false report to justify the misconduct.

The Costa Mesa man's lawyers accused SAPD of failing to properly train or discipline rogue cops and Garcia of "acting with deliberate indifference and with the specific intent to harm Leon by delaying his need for medical care."

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Take a seat, Judge Kelly. We have an important intervention to conduct.

More news today that Orange County Superior Court Judge M. Marc Kelly has trouble knowing how to properly sentence criminal defendants.

As we reported in 2010, Kelly decided to go easy on Stephen Robert Deck, a 51-year-old California Highway Patrol lieutenant with a criminal fetish of cruising the Internet for sex with 13-year-old girls.

According to police records, Deck's documented moves included:

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If public integrity section officials at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. needed an alarming fact to finally prompt a formal investigation of law enforcement corruption in Orange County, they have one today.

In recent hours, four veteran Orange County Sheriff's Department deputies--Seth Tunstall, Bill Grover, Bryan Larson and Ben Garcia--have refused to testify under oath in connection with a Santa Ana murder trial and defendant Eric Ortiz.

Their fear?

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Jim Rugg / OC Weekly

Deputy-instigated jailhouse feeding frenzy?

The last you heard about Jared Petrovich may have been three years ago, when the Orange County man and several co-defendants received terms of 15 years to life in prison for the gruesome 2006 mutilation murder of John Chamberlain inside the Theo Lacy Jail.

Petrovich landed at the California Correctional Institution at Techapi and reports through a prison-pen-pal website that he's matured. He labels himself a green-eyed, straight, Christian Capricorn. Recent photographs suggest he has added ink all over his body, and perhaps rare for the gloomy surroundings, his face displayed a seemingly genuine smile, an expression missing from his 9-year-old mug shots stemming from a methamphetamine arrest at a seedy Costa Mesa hotel.

"Don't let the tattoos fool you," the onetime El Modena High School student now advises would-be female pen pals. "I'm just a local surfer and skater from the beach in Orange County."

Of course, Petrovich is much more. He is forever tied to one of the county's most notorious crimes. With jail deputies nearby and supposedly clueless, hoards of inmates punched, kicked, burned and sodomized Chamberlain, a Rancho Santa Margarita man awaiting trial for alleged child pornography possession. The victim's battered corpse didn't look human, and news of the horrific murder reached all corners of the nation.

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Photo by flickr user David Masters

Come and get it!

Full-career retirees from Orange County municipalities received average annual retirements from the state pension system that were 54 percent greater than the average salary of still-working area residents in 2014, according to just-released data that finds the three largest payouts went to the former top administrators of the cities of Anaheim and Santa Ana and the Santa Margarita Water District.

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