Off the Record 8/05/2009
WE’LL GIVE CLINT SMITH next week’s front page because, as we went to press Tuesday afternoon, Judge Brennan hadn’t announced his likely finding that Smith be spared prison time for his months-long...
View ArticleLoving the Kids, Willits Style
Clint Smith's lawyer, Mark Kalina, asked, “Everyone here for Clinton Smith please stand.” Almost everyone in the packed Willits courtroom last Tuesday, stood. There were…
View ArticleOff the Record 8/19/2009
A VERY CRAZY MAN, a literal tin foil hat guy, named Anthony James Pelfrey, has been sentenced to 13 years in state prison for attempted…
View ArticleOff the Record 11/25/2009
A COUPLE of phone calls to Fort Bragg officials were not returned, silent confirmation that an outside investigator based in Danville has been hired by…
View ArticleMendo’s Polanksi?
I just finished Jeffrey Toobin's excellent—if totally disturbing—Clint Smith, the Willits high school teacher who carried on a nearly year-long extramarital affair with his 15-year-old…
View ArticleAn Interview with Mindy Galliani (VIDEO)
Mindy Galliani, sister of accused murderer Aaron Vargas, talks about vigilantism, the rights of sex offenders and much more.
View ArticleSaving Aaron Vargas – It May be Too Late
I don’t know Fort Bragg carpenter Todd Rowan, but I admire him. In a few short remarks quoted Sunday in the San Francisco Chronicle, Rowan…
View ArticleFallout Continues In Vargas Case
Is it “consensual” when a man as an adult engages in sex with another who began molesting him as a boy?
View ArticleA Sad Outcome No Matter What
So Aaron Vargas is going to state prison for killing the Fort Bragg businessman that he and a dozen other Mendocino Coast men said had…
View ArticleThere Are Chomos, And There Are Chomos
A jury has found Timothy Ryan guilty on three counts of child molestation. He'll get 15 years in prison. Everybody says they abhor child molesters, but in Mendocino County penalties depend on who you are.
View ArticleOff the Record
This week: RIP Louis Korn, budget cuts at the Sheriff's office, Captain Fathom back in the slammer and much more
View ArticleRichard Kruse & The Dumpster Divers
Debbie Kruse, beleaguered wife of Richard Kruse, the accused child molester from Albion, called the other day. In a chipper voice Mrs. Kruse thanked us…
View ArticleThe Case of the Ford Focus
Before the child molester put his victim and her mother out of his house, the mother of the victim said they wouldn’t press charges against…
View ArticleKruse: ‘She Invited Me To Molest Her’
The names of the child victim and her family will not appear in this story, but they were heard loud and clear in the County…
View ArticleA Flea In The Frog’s Ear
Imagine the fright mask that the Sofitel Hotel maid's face turned into when a black swan in the form of an international banking poobah waddled…
View ArticleLetters To The Editor
HE’S NOT A CREEP To Whom It May Concern, My name is Tanner Furia-Miller. I have been on the 101 Kids Water Ski Club since…
View ArticlePure Victims, Real Human Beings
Straight from Riker’s Island to the Elysée? There’s a political arc worthy of Brecht and Weill! Dominique Strauss-Kahn was sprung from house arrest in Manhattan…
View ArticleAt Last! The Head of Ghad… General Younis
It is surely one of the great strategic screw-ups in the history of war and intelligence analysis. In March, after the second UN Security Council…
View ArticleThe Rogue’s March
“This is the most repulsive case I have ever seen,” Judge Richard Henderson declared as he took up the sordid matter of Steven J. Henry,…
View ArticleOff The Record
This Week: Sprinkle's parole; Paying for Bassler; Bath salts gone way, way wrong; and much more
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