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Sheriff Mike Carona announced his resignation today “with a heavy heart,” saying it would be best for the department and the county if he was not distracted while defending himself against federal public corruption charges...

Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona has resigned from a prominent federal Homeland Security task force and lost his security clearance after a federal indictment against him was unsealed, Homeland Security officials said Thursday...

Sheriff Mike Carona ... gave five-minute interviews to two dozen print, radio and television reporters today. ... Here are their statements and the answers to the questions the attorneys allowed: Mike Carona: Last week, my department and I spent long hours working with our colleagues in law enforcement and the fire service, battling the fires that devastated Orange County. Today, I find myself in a firestorm of a different type. This is not a complex matter. Simply put, I have NEVER misused the office of the sheriff of Orange County for personal gain. Any fair review of the evidence can...

Sheriff Mike Carona and his wife Debbie, both in handcuffs, were ordered to pay $20,000 bail and will be released later today from federal lockup...

Sheriff Mike Carona, his wife and a woman identified as his "longtime mistress" have been indicted on charges of public corruption by a federal grand jury, The Orange County Register has learned. Orange County's top lawman has been charged with seven felony counts that he illegally accepted money, high-priced gifts and tickets to exclusive sporting events, and made loans to his girlfriend in exchange for favors, according to an indictment expected to be unsealed today. Carona's former top aide, George Jaramillo, in a separate agreement, pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion and corruption charges in March and assisted the FBI...

Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona has been indicted on federal corruption charges stemming from a lengthy investigation into allegations that he misused his office for financial gain, law enforcement officials said Monday. The indictment, filed under seal, is expected to be made public soon, perhaps as early as Tuesday, officials said. Carona's longtime political advisor and attorney, Michael Schroeder, said federal authorities had not questioned the sheriff, nor officially informed him that he was the target of a federal investigation. Schroeder, who was in Amsterdam on business, also said that rumors of the investigation had not distracted Carona from...

Ten percent of people arrested and sent to the Orange County Jail from Jan. 19 to Feb. 25 were flagged for possible immigration violations, according to statistics the Orange County Sheriff's Department released Wednesday. Jail deputies booked a total of 6,160 people through the Intake Release Center during that time. Of those, deputies interviewed 956 foreign nationals and detained 639 of them for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Of those detained for ICE, 56 were held for aggravated felonies, 425 for felonies and 214 for misdemeanors. The numbers are for the first month of a program that certified deputies to perform...

Orange County is poised to become the first local jurisdiction in the nation to have a hybrid, large-scale plan that calls for its law-enforcement officers to assume federal immigration powers over criminal foreign nationals. Sheriff Mike Carona's department, the county's principal police agency, has a draft contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that is expected to be approved by the Orange County Board of Supervisors this month. Although one city, Costa Mesa, has jumped in behind the Sheriff's Department and is working with federal authorities, most Orange County cities are reluctant to change decades-long policies that leave citizenship checks...

Scandals and controversies have clouded Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona's public and private lives, dimming the prospects of a man whose political future once seemed unlimited.

SANTA ANA – An Orange County sheriff's reserve deputy has been suspended from duty after he was arrested for allegedly flashing his badge, pulling a gun and threatening to kill a group of golfers at a Chino Hills course. Raymond Yi, a reserve deputy since 2002 and Sheriff Michael Carona's martial arts instructor, turned in his badge and his department-issued gun Tuesday. Prosecutors in San Bernardino County said Thursday that the charges against Yi will now include two counts each of assault with a firearm and making criminal threats. He had been initially charged with brandishing a firearm, a misdemeanor....

Friends, relatives were also among the 86 who received badges, even though some lacked training. Carona says there was no public risk. Shortly after he took office, Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona and one of his top assistants deputized 86 friends, relatives, political contributors and others, giving them badges, powers of arrest and in some cases guns — despite the fact that none had background investigations and some had not been fully trained. Three years later, the state's Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training removed all 86 of the reserve deputies from California's peace officer database, which meant...

Raul Garcia-Gomez, 19, is suspected of shooting two Denver police officers at about 1 a.m. Sunday after they refused to let him re-enter a baptismal party. Detective Donald Young, 44, died at the scene after being shot from behind three times in the back and head.

Behind the counter at the busy Hart Lane driver testing center here, Rosa King looked over the man's fistful of documents, including a Mexican birth certificate and a separate, typewritten English translation. The translation, Ms. King explained in Spanish, was not exact enough. It would have to be redone. When the man returned, he would be eligible for a card bearing his photograph, date of birth, height, eye color and the words "Not Valid for Identification." Tennessee is one of only two states that issue two different driver's permits: a license, for citizens and permanent residents; and a certificate for...

When opponents of the “Real ID” legislation announced a rally for illegal immigrants and their allies in Montgomery County, MD, there was one immigration-related group I was absolutely certain would not show up: The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the people responsible for actually enforcing our immigration laws. Casa de Maryland and others claimed 5,000 people would gather on Saturday to protest the “Real ID” Act working its way through Congress, and many of these people would be illegal immigrants themselves, we were told. If I were looking for immigration criminals, it’s exactly where I would be. That’s why...

Latino and immigrant support groups are mobilizing against the proposed Real ID Act, a federal law that would prohibit states from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Immigrant support groups say Real ID would make roads less safe and could erode national security, not improve it. "It will make millions of people that live in our nation hide even more," said Gustavo Torres, executive director of Casa de Maryland, a Latino advocacy group. "They are going to keep driving, keep working, but now they are going to be even more scared to participate in our society, to cooperate with police...

"Congressman Reconquista": Immigration Reformers Not Welcome In GOP by William Norman Grigg May 7, 2005 According to Utah Congressman Chris Cannon, a shameless flack for the illegal immigrant lobby, those committed to protecting our borders cannot be true Republicans. During a May 4 Washington, D.C. forum sponsored by the Latino Coalition, Representative Chris Cannon (R-Utah), a congressional point man for the Bush administration’s illegal immigrant amnesty proposal, suggested that fellow Republican congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado "ought to reconsider his membership in the Republican Party," reported the Rocky Mountain News. While Rep. Tancredo, like most politicians, has a lot to...

LIKE MANY other southern Arizonans, I am deeply grateful to the few dozen vigilantes calling themselves Minutemen who set up camp along the Arizona-Mexico border last month. That few people around here were much impressed with a bunch of retirees in camouflage playing soldier, and that there turned out to be almost as many reporters as patriots on the ground, was irrelevant: We were just thrilled by the publicity. We’ve been trying to get the rest of the country to notice what’s going on down here for years. U.S. immigration policy has turned the Arizona desert between Tucson and the...

A new opinion poll by Zogby International indicates Americans are hardly pleased with the Bush administration on the subject of illegal immigration. The poll, cited on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" program yesterday, noted a huge majority – 81 percent – believes local and state police should help federal authorities enforce laws against illegal immigration. Only 14 percent disagreed. Voters were also asked, "Do you support or oppose the Bush administration's proposal to give millions of illegal aliens guest worker status and the opportunity to become citizens?" Only 35 percent gave their support, and 56 percent said no. "A majority opposed...

Friday, May 06, 2005 - SACRAMENTO -- Stymied in his efforts to allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses, Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, has found a backdoor way around the ban with a proposal that would exempt undocumented motorists from vehicle-impound laws. Under current law, for 30 days police can impound the vehicle of a motorist caught driving without a valid license. Cedillo's bill would exempt those who don't have a license simply because they are not legal U.S. residents. Cedillo said law enforcement resources should be dedicated to going after serious driving offenses such as drunk driving, not...

WASHINGTON - Rep. Tom Tancredo ought to reconsider his membership in the Republican Party, a Utah congressman said Wednesday after the two GOP lawmakers put an intraparty rift over immigration policy on full public display. "I think he ought to consider his views and decide whether they're consistent with the Republican Party," Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, said of the Colorado congressman after the two clashed repeatedly during a forum sponsored by the Latino Coalition, a Hispanic business group. Advertisement Cannon, a leading proponent of President Bush's proposed guest- worker program, has had a running feud with Tancredo, an opponent of...

Many Hispanic activists, Mexican citizens and perhaps even members of the Mexican government believe the American Southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico. They refuse to accept the legality of the U.S. annexation of Texas in 1845, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo following the Mexican-American War, which gave large parts of Mexico to the U.S., or the 1852 Gadsden Purchase of Mexican territory now in Arizona and New Mexico. Story Continues Below A Zogby poll found that 58 percent of Mexicans agreed with the statement, "The territory of the Southwest U.S. rightfully belongs to Mexico," and therefore they believe they don't...

An illegal alien, Hernandez will be deported from the country at the end of his prison term for murdering his boss at a Utah job site ....... Some form of closure came Tuesday for two families as a man convicted of murdering his boss at a Lehi job site was sentenced to five years to life at the Utah State Prison. Jesus Hernandez, 34, pleaded guilty in March to shooting and killing his employer, Joseph Crummy, 38, of Salt Lake City, on Jan. 9, 2004, over a labor dispute at the Traverse Mountain development in Lehi. Crummy's widow, Brenda, and...

The violent MS-13 -- or Mara Salvatrucha -- street gang is following the migratory routes of illegal aliens across the country, FBI officials say, calling the Salvadoran gang the new American mafia. MS-13, which has a significant presence in the Washington area, and other gangs are spreading into small towns and suburbs by following illegal aliens seeking work in places such as Providence, R.I., and the Carolinas, FBI task force director Robert Clifford said. "The migrant moves and the gang follows," said Mr. Clifford, director of the agency's MS-13 National Gang Task Force. "If you follow the construction trade, this...

In the predawn semidarkness of a small West Toledo apartment, Dae and Yung Jung stumbled toward the thumping at their front door. Seconds later, officers in dark jackets emblazoned with Homeland Security crammed into the couple's living room demanding passports and drivers' licenses. Mrs. Jung was escorted to jail. Upstairs, the couple's son, Andrew, hid, stunned and baffled. Now, five weeks later, immigration officials still press for Yung and Dae Jung's deportation to their native land, South Korea. But the couple - Dae Jung is a sushi chef; Yung Jung is a longtime school volunteer - are finding that their...

A national pro-immigrant organization composed of religious, labor and union groups, to be unveiled today in San Antonio, is to call on leading Texas politicians to quit debating and enact laws giving legal work and residency to undocumented immigrants. The Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform will start in Texas and is to expand to other border states and the rest of the nation, said Luis Figueroa, an attorney with the San Antonio office of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. It was formed now because changing the country's current immigration system is expected to be a top issue...

SACRAMENTO – A new state police agency to patrol the border and crack down on businesses that hire illegal immigrants would be created by an initiative filed yesterday, adding to the debate over the emotional issue. The proposal from a conservative group comes after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger praised the controversial Minuteman Project and as Congress considers new restrictions sparked by terrorism concerns. The "California Border Police Act" is being pushed by Assemblyman Ray Haynes, R-Murrieta, and Rescue California, a group advocating tougher border enforcement. But neither could estimate the cost of creating a police force and special prison facilities. But...

LAREDO — The threat of another September 11-style attack and spreading gang violence have united Texas sheriffs along the Mexican border to seek more federal money for security. Members of the Texas Border Sheriffs' Coalition formed Wednesday said rural counties need more resources to fight national problems.

Saying, "We cannot wait any longer for the feds to get the job done," state Assemblyman Ray Haynes, R-Murrieta, called Wednesday for the formation of a state police force to patrol California's border with Mexico. The announcement came as Haynes sent the initial draft of the "California Border Police Initiative" to the state attorney general's office Wednesday, a first step toward getting the measure on the ballot in June 2006.

SACRAMENTO — California would create its own border patrol of more than 1,000 officers and volunteers under a possible 2006 ballot initiative introduced Wednesday by conservative activists and a state assemblyman. The California Border Police Act was submitted to Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer for legal review Wednesday, the first step in getting it qualified for next year's June ballot. Its main sponsor is Assemblyman Ray Haynes, a Republican from Murrieta, who must collect 600,000 valid signatures for the initiative to qualify. "The federal government has proven itself incapable of securing our borders, so it is time for Californians to step...

<p>NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) - The son of an Orange County assistant sheriff and two other teenagers have been charged with the videotaped gang rape of an unconscious 16-year-old girl.</p> <p>The 17-year-olds, who were all charged as adults, face 21 felony counts that include rape, rape by a foreign object and administering a drug to incapacitate the victim.</p>

SANTA ANA – Federal and local authorities are investigating whether fired Orange County Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo used department resources to help market an anti-crime device made by a company that paid Jaramillo and his wife $25,000. Investigators from the FBI and the Orange County district attorney's office have interviewed officials with CHG Safety Technologies Inc. about the firm's relationship with Jaramillo, the company's attorney said. Sheriff's officials are investigating whether Jaramillo improperly used patrol cars, deputies and a helicopter to market the company's system, said department spokesman Jon Fleischman. Jaramillo's attorney, Peter Scalisi, did not immediately return calls Wednesday...

Fox News: Arnold transition team to consist of David Dreier, George Shultz and Michael Carona