Big Valley News
Central Valley's Independent News Source
FRESNO - After a six-day trial, a federal jury found Ramonchito Racion, 52, of Merced, guilty today of one count of attempted sexual abuse and one count of abusive sexual contact, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.
According to evidence presented at trial, Racion, who was working as a cook in Yosemite in the summer of 2019, sexually assaulted his roommate while the roommate was sleeping.
FRESNO - On Friday, Sept. 23, 2022, a jury found Israel Alberto Rivas Gomez, 27, a citizen of El Salvador unlawfully residing in Mendota, guilty of kidnapping and murder in aid of racketeering, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Rivas Gomez was a member of La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). This violent criminal street gang engages in racketeering, including murder, kidnapping, extortion, and drug trafficking. On Dec. 18, 2017, Rivas Gomez and other MS-13 gang members kidnapped a 19-year-old man in Mendota, drove him to a remote location approximately 30 minutes away, and used a knife and machete to murder him, all in furtherance of MS-13's criminal gang enterprise.
FRESNO - Ulises Pena, 39, a former California Department of Motor Vehicles employee in Bakersfield, pleaded guilty Monday to illegally producing California commercial driver’s licenses (CDL) in exchange for bribes, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.
According to court records, Pena was a Motor Vehicle Representative at the DMV and was responsible for processing driver’s license applications. From January 2015 through August 2016, he arranged for the passage of written tests for students from co-defendant Bikramjit Singh Pannu’s truck driving school who were having trouble passing the tests in exchange for payments from Pannu. Pena improperly accessed the students’ DMV records and altered them to show that the students had passed the tests when that was not true. His alterations caused the fraudulent issuance of CDLs to unqualified students.
LOS ANGELES - Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 1783 to close a loophole in state law that allowed former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez to influence decision-making at the Department of Insurance without registering as a lobbyist.
AB 1783 by Assembly Member Marc Levine (D - North Bay) arose from a government corruption scandal involving the Department of Insurance and the workers' compensation insurer Applied Underwriters.
FRESNO - For the third year in a row, Lozano Smith was named by Law360 as a leading law firm in the areas of diversity and gender equity within the 101-250 attorney category. The firm ranked first overall in Law360's Glass Ceiling Report, a data-driven review of female attorney representation at law firms, and third overall in the Diversity Snapshot.
Lozano Smith ranked first in diversity amongst its equity partnership, first in gender equity amongst its nonequity partnership, and in the top five throughout several other diversity and equity categories within Law360's national reports, including:
