News

FRESNO COUNTY - The suspect shot and killed by a California Highway Patrol officer has been identified as a 24-year-old Clovis man named Billy Kongphouthakhoun (Kong-Putah-Coon). An autopsy has been performed and toxicology tests are pending.

Shortly before midnight on Wednesday, California Highway Patrol officers responded to a report of a vehicle collision. The driver of a Toyota Tundra pickup, Billy Kongphouthakhoun, crashed into the back of a Chevy Tahoe occupied by a man and woman, both in their 30s. This occurred on southbound Highway 41, just south of Manning Avenue. When officers arrived, they found the Tahoe upside down and Kongphouthakhoun to still be inside his pickup truck, which was right-side up.

MADERA - Madera Police Officers arrested Monique Munoz and Fernando Aguirre following a short pursuit and crash at the Freeway 99 Central Madera exit at North  I Street on Monday.
 
Police initially chased a car occupied by the two who were suspects in a carjacking in Gilroy. The chase ended when the suspects’ car crashed into a freeway exit guardrail. They subsequently fled on foot near Saint Joachim’s Catholic School.

SACRAMENTO  -   A federal grand jury returned a 27-count superseding indictment last Thursday against two brothers and five others, adding charges, including firearms and money laundering to an indictment first filed in May that charged them with a conspiracy to manufacture counterfeit pills containing fentanyl and other controlled substances, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced.

The superseding indictment charges Jamaine Barnes, 37, of Stockton, with engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise from at least Sept. 27, 2015 through May 16, 2019. Jamaine Barnes and his brother Jamar Barnes, 37; Kavieo Wiley, 23; Vincent Patterson, 26, Kadrena Watts, 39; and Chevele Richardson, 33, all of Stockton, are charged with conspiracy to manufacture, distribute, and possess with intent to distribute fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, and U-47700 (a synthetic opioid).

SACRAMENTO  -  Two defendants pleaded guilty today to their participation in a massive fraud scheme involving a solar energy company in Benicia, that defrauded investors of approximately $1 billion, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced. Those losses resulted from investment transactions in solar energy hardware valued at approximately $2.5 billion.

According to court documents, between 2011 and 2018, the solar energy company manufactured mobile solar generator units (MSG), solar generators that were mounted on trailers. The company touted the versatility and environmental sustainability of the MSGs and claimed that they were used by cellphone companies to provide emergency power to cell towers in the case of a power failure. They were also claimed to be used to power lights at sporting and other events.

FRESNO  -   Today Carlos Villa-Lozano, 31, and Paulina Silva Aguilar, 33, both of Fresno, Calif., entered guilty pleas to aiming the beam of a laser pointer at a California Highway Patrol aircraft, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced.

According to their plea agreements, on July 22, 2018, both Villa-Lozano and Silva used a dangerously bright green laser pointer, a Model 301, to strike a CHP fixed wing aircraft approximately 12 times. The laser strikes caused the CHP airmen to experience temporary blindness and disorientation. Villa-Lozano obstructed justice by materially misrepresenting to the FBI the nature of his involvement in the crime.

FRESNO  -   On Wednesday, after a two–day trial, a jury found Netzahualcoyotl Cerna, 40, of Fresno, guilty of one count of carrying a firearm during a drug trafficking crime, being a felon in possession of a firearm, and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced.

According to evidence presented at trial, on April 8, 2019, Cerna, a convicted felon, was arrested in Reedley for parole violations. Cerna was in possession of a loaded gun and approximately 121 grams of methamphetamine. Cerna admitted to law enforcement officers that he intended to sell the methamphetamine to make money and that he was carrying the firearm for protection because gang members were trying to tax his drug proceeds.