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State Sen. Roderick Wright indicted on charges of voter fraud and perjuryThe Inglewood Democrat is accused of listing as his residence a home in the district he wanted to represent when his actual home was elsewhere. He has pleaded not guilty. By Jean Merl, Los Angeles Times September 17, 2010 A Los Angeles County grand jury on Thursday unsealed an eight-count felony indictment against state Sen. Roderick Wright (D-Inglewood), accusing him of filing a false declaration of candidacy, voter fraud and perjury beginning in 2007, when he changed his voter registration to run for the Legislature. Wright listed as his...

A Los Angeles city councilman and his wife were indicted on a total of 24 felony counts stemming from allegations he lived outside his district, prosecutors said Wednesday. Richard Alarcon, 56, faces 18 charges of perjury, voter fraud and filing a false declaration of candidacy. His wife, Flora Montes De Oca Alarcon, is charged with six counts including perjury and voter fraud. They both pleaded not guilty and were released on their own recognizance. It was not immediately clear how much prison time they would face if convicted but it could be "substantial," said Jennifer Lentz Snyder, a deputy district...

Six employees of Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon have been ordered to appear before a grand jury this week, six months after prosecutors obtained search warrants to determine whether the councilman has been living at his legal residence. Alarcon said Monday that his chief of staff, Saeed Ali, and five other workers in his office have received subpoenas instructing them to testify on Wednesday. Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley's office received permission in January to search two homes owned by Alarcon's wife, Flora Montes de Oca -- one on Nordhoff Street in Panorama City, the other on Sheldon Street in...

Behold one of the new "Fairness" Doctrines - "media diversity" - coming soon to a radio station near you. President Barack Obama's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released the names of the thirty-one members of their Advisory Committee On Diversity For Communications In The Digital Age. This May 7 gathering is made up of a laundry list of left-wing grievance groups, with a smattering of radio and television companies included to break up the monotony. Not a single conservative organization is taking part in this Commission - more than a dozen Leftist groups are. A little ironic for a "diversity"...

According to the speaker of Cuba's National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, 79-year-old Cuban President Fidel Castro is "very alive and very alert" after undergoing surgery and ceding power, at least temporarily, to his 75-year-old brother Raul. Alcaron told the radio program Democracy Now: " I met with him personally Monday before the announcement was issued, and … Tuesday I was in communication with him also. He is perfectly conscious, very good speech as always. We talked for over a half an hour on many things going on in the world, the impact that the announcement has had. … Of course, he...

Castro brothers laying low From correspondents in Havana August 03, 2006 05:34pmArticle from: Agence France-Presse NEARLY three days after Cuba's historic handover of power, neither ailing President Fidel Castro nor his brother Raul, to whom he temporarily ceded control, has been seen by an anxious Cuban public. Close aide Ricardo Alarcon told a US radio program on Wednesday that Castro, who had had a stomach operation, was "very alert" and resting after giving up power on the communist-ruled island for the first time in 47 years. No photographs or television pictures of Castro, 79, have been released since his operation...

“We’re going to close down Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Tucson, Phoenix, Fresno” on May Day this Monday, labor organizer Jorge Rodriquez told the British wire service Reuters. “We want full amnesty, full legalization for anybody who is here [illegally],” said Rodriquez, organizer for one of the unions of AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees of the AFL-CIO. “That is the message that is going to be played out across the country on May 1.”  Listen to the cynicism behind Rodriquez’s arrogant statement. Government workers who belong to AFSCME unions will not see their jobs taken...

<p>Where others see gloom, state Sen. Richard Alarcón sees opportunity. He dreams of ending poverty while California's social safety net is collapsing under the weight of a record budget shortfall.</p> <p>"It's exactly at this time when we should be looking at the widening chasm between the have and have-nots," said Alarcón, who created the Senate Select Committee on the Status of Ending Poverty in California.</p>

Havana (dpa) - The speaker of the Cuban National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, on Tuesday questioned those who have criticized Cuba's recent clampdown on dissidents and its execution of three hijackers but fail to do the same about Washington's policy of ``extra-legal executions''. In a front-page article entitled ``No problem'' in the official Communist party daily Granma, Alarcon referred to a remark made by U.S. President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address on January 28. In that speech, Bush spoke about the hunt for terrorists across the world, and Alarcon included a quote from the speech in...