Fate of Orange County judge charged with murdering his wife now in jury’s hands

• February 27, 2025

Juror on Wednesday afternoon began deliberating the fate of an Orange County Superior Court judge on trial for murder after he shot and killed his wife at their Anaheim Hills home following a heated argument.

The jury must choose between finding Judge Jeffrey Ferguson guilty of second-degree murder or a lesser count of voluntary manslaughter, or acquitting him entirely of any criminal charges. The jury ended deliberations for the day at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, and are scheduled to resume their work Thursday morning.

That Ferguson fired the gunshot that killed his wife, Sheryl, on Aug. 3, 2023 has not been disputed. The prosecution contends the judge purposely fired the fatal gunshot during a heated argument, while the defense counters that Ferguson accidently shot his wife.

The prosecution and defense agree that an argument over finances between the couple began at their home and then continued while the couple had dinner with their then 22-year-old son at a restaurant and after they returned home to watch some of the final episodes of the television show “Breaking Bad.”

While at dinner, Judge Ferguson made a “finger-gun” motion at his wife, both sides agree. The prosecution described it as a threatening motion, while the defense contended it was his way to indicate that the wife had won the argument. There was no dispute that Judge Ferguson was drinking alcohol at home and at the restaurant, and was drunk by the time they were watching television.

The couple’s adult son later described hearing his mother say “Why don’t you use a real gun?” to his father, an apparent reference to the “finger gun” motion earlier in the evening. Senior Deputy District Attorney Seton Hunt told jurors that Ferguson responded by immediately pulling a Glock .40-caliber pistol out of his ankle holster and shooting his wife.

Ferguson testified that his wife actually said something like “Why don’t you put the real gun away from me” and then made her own “finger gun” motion at him, addding “Pshew! Pshew!” sounds to apparently mimic gunfire. Ferguson said he took his gun out of the ankle holster and was trying to place it on a coffee table when his bad shoulder gave out and he fumbled the firearm and accidently hit the trigger, firing the weapon and fatally injuring his wife.

Shortly after the shooting, Ferguson texted the clerk and bailiff that worked for him in his courtroom at the Newport Beach courthouse, telling them “I just lost it. I shot my wife. I won’t be in tomorrow. I will be in custody. I’m so sorry.” The prosecutor described that text — along with many seemingly incriminating comments Ferguson made to police both outside his home and at the Anaheim Police station — as an effective confession.

“We all know what this means,” Hunt told jurors during closing arguments in a Santa Ana courtroom. “You lost your temper and you shot your wife.”

Attorney Cameron Talley, who is representing Ferguson, noted that Ferguson never told police that he murdered his wife or that he shot her on purpose.

“On this night, between episodes of ‘Breaking Bad’ with his son in the room, he decides this is the night I kill my wife?” Talley asked.

While he denied intentionally shooting his wife, Ferguson during his testimony admitted repeatedly breaking the law by carrying a concealed weapon while consuming alcohol, a violation of his concealed carry permit. The judge also admitted to drinking during lunch breaks once or twice a week before going back to court to hear criminal cases.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge is presiding over Ferguson’s trial in order to avoid a conflict of interest with Ferguson’s Orange County judicial colleagues.

​ Orange County Register 

Mike Trout hits first homer of spring but Angels fall to Reds

• February 27, 2025

THE GAME: Mike Trout hit a home run but the Angels lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 9-4, in a Cactus League game on Wednesday at Tempe Diablo Stadium in Tempe, Arizona.

PITCHING REPORT: Left-hander Tyler Anderson gave up one run in two innings, but he would not have allowed any if not for a misplay in the outfield. Anderson struck out one and walked one. “I actually felt pretty good about it,” Anderson said. “Obviously you don’t feel like you’re ready to go start the season right now, but luckily that’s not where we are. I felt like the things I wanted to accomplish are headed in the right direction.” … Right-hander Ryan Zeferjahn pitched a scoreless inning against the top of the Reds’ order, working around a leadoff double. He struck out Gavin Lux, got Elly De La Cruz on a grounder up the first base line and then got Spencer Steer on a flyout. … Right-hander Victor Mederos gave up three runs in an inning, including homers from Matt McClain and De La Cruz.

HITTING REPORT: Trout hit his first homer of the spring, a solo shot to left field. “Just having some good at-bats, seeing some pitches, and got a good result,” Trout said. Trout also walked and he was called out on strikes on a pitch that he clearly thought should have been ball four. Trout said it “would have been interesting” if that happened in a game using the automated ball-strike challenge system. Trout is 1 for 3 with two strikeouts and two walks this spring. Trout also attempted a stolen base, but he left too early and the pitcher threw behind him at first. He was thrown out at second. … Jo Adell went hitless in two at-bats. He’s is 0 for 9 this spring, with two strikeouts. … The Angels parlayed three ninth-inning walks into three runs.

DEFENSE REPORT: Left fielder Taylor Ward misplayed a fly ball over his head. It was scored a double. … Third baseman Yoán Moncada had a ground ball hit off his glove and deflect directly to shortstop Kevin Newman, who threw out the runner at first. … Catcher Travis d’Arnaud lost a pop-up in the sun. It dropped in foul territory. … First baseman J.D. Davis made a diving stop to prevent two runs from scoring. Davis is primarily a third baseman, but he’d likely be used at both corners if he makes the roster.

UP NEXT: Angels (TBD) at Chicago Cubs (LHP Jordan Wicks), Thursday, 12:05 p.m. PT, at Sloan Park, FanDuel Sports Network West, 830 AM

​ Orange County Register 

Why ‘Origin Stories’ author says being a little ‘invisible’ affords creative freedom

• February 27, 2025

Corinna Vallianatos’ latest book has been in the works for a long time. 

The author’s “Origin Stories” was published in February by Graywolf Press, 13 years after her Grace Paley Prize-winning debut collection, “My Escapee,” came out to rave reviews. 

“Some of these stories go back years,” Vallianato says. “A story collection is often a record of who you were as a writer, almost more than who you are now.” 

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The stories in “Origin Stories,” which mostly take place in Southern California and Virginia, are wide-ranging and often surprising, following various characters, many of them artists of some kind, as they try to navigate their relationships with loved ones and figure out where they belong in a changing world. They deal, Vallianatos says, with “obsessions, influences, places of origin, people who may once have been important to the protagonist or the narrator, people who shaped him or her.”

The book takes its name from “Origin Story,” one of the stories in the book. “It seemed to me that many of the stories were grappling with where we come from, the sort of inexorable pull of memory, and that it really applied thematically beyond the boundary of the single story, thus the slight tweak for the title of the collection,” she says.

Vallianatos answered questions about her book via telephone from her home in Virginia. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and length

Q: Some of the characters in the stories are writers themselves. Was that tricky at all to have characters that share your profession?

I don’t think it was tricky. I suppose I was grappling with a different issue, and that was when one writes autobiographically or dramatizes a character who bears some striking resemblance to oneself, it’s important to inject the story with the art and the life and the momentum and the surprise that the story requires, rather than the autobiography of the writer. So the fear is that it becomes too easy, actually, I would say. The stories that are perhaps written in a mode that might be more akin to autofiction have to find their own way to be free of the constraints of my autobiography. So there’s always that tension between taking perhaps what might be true and familiar in one’s life, and allowing the material to become chaotic and surprising enough to exist and do its own work as a story.

Q: Some of the stories in the book are about mother’s relationships with their children. What makes that such a compelling theme for you?

I suppose it’s a constraint, in that it injects the characters with such profound love and energy and connection and a sense of responsibility and caretaking and duty and attachment. Parents can’t ever quite understand their children the way they might hope to or want to or even think that they do, and that tension is so interesting to me. There’s this figure in a mother’s life that she loves with her whole being and wants to understand with her whole being, and yet can’t ever completely capture or understand. It’s that old adage about writing, make your characters want something and make that thing hard to get. I think that’s encapsulated in the mother-child relationship.

Q: In “Origin Story,” you write, “She thought writing came from seeing, and seeing came from never being seen yourself.” Is that a sentiment that you relate to at all as a writer yourself?

It’s absolutely a sentiment I relate to, and one of the reasons why I am not on social media. I am just not part of the machinery of self-promotion that very understandably many writers and artists partake of. I don’t judge, and I understand the need to be a voice in the world, and to be known, and to build a large following, et cetera. I’m sure I’m probably a nightmare for my publicist, but there’s a kind of view of the world that one loses, I think, when one is so much a part of the noise of it. I think being at the periphery, being a little bit invisible, affords you as a writer or an artist such incredible freedom. And I know that I wouldn’t have that if I were more seen myself.

Q: In some of the stories, the main characters go without names. What was behind that decision?

I’m always battling, as I compose a story, the feeling that what I’m doing is a little bit fake and fraudulent, and the artifice of the story is rearing its head, and getting in the way of my vision and my ability to grapple in the way I’d like to with language and structure and surprise and subtlety. An easy way to dispatch with a little bit of the artifice of the story, I’ve found, is just not giving my characters names or not naming the narrator. It’s funny, the weight that a name carries, It sort of harnesses the story to earth, and sometimes I’m just not interested in it being kind of fastened to earth in that way.

​ Orange County Register 

Anaheim woman charged with child abuse after toddler is hit by car

• February 27, 2025

A 31-year-old woman was charged Tuesday with child abuse and endangerment when police said a 2-year-old boy got out of her house in Anaheim and was hit by a car.

Jackalin Yanet Zayas was charged with one felony count of child abuse and endangerment for the toddler struck by a car and four misdemeanor counts of child abuse and endangerment for four other children under her care, according to court records.

Zayas called police about 5 a.m. Sunday to report the toddler missing, Anaheim Police Department Sgt. Matt Sutter said. Investigators later determined the boy was at a hospital where doctors and nurses had not yet identified him, Sutter said.

Zayas was outside talking to a friend nearby when the toddler got out of the house, Sutter said.

The toddler was struck by a car at West Street and Orangewood Avenue about 2:30 a.m. Sunday, said Garden Grove Police Department Sgt. Nick Jensen. The boy sustained fractures and road rash, Jensen said.

Matthew Joseph Torres, 31, of Garden Grove, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, Jensen said.

Torres pleaded guilty to misdemeanor reckless driving causing injury in October 2022 along with infractions for driving too fast for conditions, yielding to approaching traffic and unsafe operation of a vehicle causing injury, according to court records. He later got the misdemeanor dismissed after completing probation, according to court records.

​ Orange County Register 

Private company rockets toward the moon in the latest rush of lunar landing attempts

• February 27, 2025

By MARCIA DUNN, Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A private company launched another lunar lander Wednesday, aiming to get closer to the moon’s south pole this time with a drone that will hop into a jet-black crater that never sees the sun.

Intuitive Machines’ lander, named Athena, caught a lift with SpaceX from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. It’s taking a fast track to the moon — with a landing on March 6 — while hoping to avoid the fate of its predecessor, which tipped over at touchdown.

Never before have so many spacecraft angled for the moon’s surface all at once. Last month, U.S. and Japanese companies shared a rocket and separately launched landers toward Earth’s sidekick. Texas-based Firefly Aerospace should get there first this weekend after a big head start.

The two U.S. landers are carrying tens of millions of dollars’ worth of experiments for NASA as it prepares to return astronauts to the moon.

“It’s an amazing time. There’s so much energy,” NASA’s science mission chief Nicky Fox told The Associated Press a few hours ahead of the launch.

This isn’t Intuitive Machines’ first lunar rodeo. Last year, the Texas company made the first U.S. touchdown on the moon in more than 50 years. But an instrument that gauges distance did not work and the lander came down too hard and broke a leg, tipping onto its side.

Intuitive Machines said it has fixed the issue and dozens of others. A sideways landing like last time would prevent the drone and a pair of rovers from moving out. NASA’s drill also needs an upright landing to pierce beneath the lunar surface to gather soil samples for analysis.

“Certainly, we will be better this time than we were last time. But you never know what could happen,” said Trent Martin, senior vice president of space systems.

It’s an extraordinarily elite club. Only five countries have pulled off a lunar landing over the decades: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan. The moon is littered with wreckage from many past failures.

The 15-foot (4.7-meter) Athena will target a landing 100 miles from the lunar south pole. Just a quarter-mile (400 meters) away is a permanently shadowed crater — the ultimate destination for the drone named Grace.

Named after the late computer programming pioneer Grace Hopper, the 3-foot drone will make three increasingly higher and longer test hops across the lunar surface using hydrazine fueled-thrusters for flight and cameras and lasers for navigation.

If those excursions go well, it will hop into the nearby pitch-black crater, an estimated 65 feet deep. Science instruments from Hungary and Germany will take measurements at the bottom while hunting for frozen water.

It will be the first up-close peek inside one of the many shadowed craters dotting both the north and south poles. Scientists suspect these craters are packed with tons of ice. If so, this ice could be transformed by future explorers into water to drink, air to breathe and even rocket fuel.

NASA is paying $62 million to Intuitive Machines to get its drill and other experiments to the moon. The company, in turn, sold space on the lander to others. It also opened up the Falcon rocket to ride-sharing.

Tagalongs included NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer satellite, which will fly separately to the moon over the next several months before entering lunar orbit to map the distribution of water below. Also catching a ride was a private spacecraft that will chase after an asteroid for a flyby, a precursor to asteroid mining.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

​ Orange County Register 

Newsom talks LA recovery, job growth at economic forecast event

• February 27, 2025

Gov. Gavin Newsom traveled to the Los Angeles area on Wednesday, Feb. 26, to unveil what his administration called a first-of-its kind economic blueprint for job growth throughout the state.

During his visit, the governor also announced an additional $13 million to support economic recovery and small businesses in L.A. County following last month’s devastating wildfires.

“I’m not naive about the economic challenges, particularly here in Southern California. … I’m not naive about the imperative to remove debris concurrently to get people to feel optimism again, getting permits, getting people starting to rebuild their community,” Newsom said.

“But we also need to be rebuilding confidence in the economy here in Los Angeles and the broader region, particularly as we build up to the Olympics, build up to other large-scale events,” he added.

The governor’s remarks came during a news conference at East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park, where, moments before, he spoke at an economic forecast event put on by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation.

The statewide California Jobs First Economic Blueprint is intended to guide state investments in key sectors to spur economic growth, innovation and access to good-paying jobs in all 13 regions of the state over the next decade. It aims to streamline economic, business and workforce development programs to create more jobs and to do so more quickly.

The statewide plan was more than three years in the making and reflects ideas taken from 13 regional plans developed by stakeholders in different parts of California.

Given last month’s wildfires in L.A. County, Wednesday’s talk of economic development quickly turned to talks about rebuilding communities.

Newsom maintained that while the state is waiving certain environmental review processes as part of the California Environmental Quality Act for homeowners who are rebuilding after the L.A.-area wildfires, the state continues to have the highest building safety standards – regulations which aren’t being waived.

The goal, he said, is to rebuild smarter so communities are resilient amid climate change.

The governor also said the state has had a great working relationship with the city and county of L.A. and underscored the importance of maintaining partnerships with all levels of government – including President Donald Trump, with whom Newsom has frequently sparred.

“That’s why I have no problem calling balls and strikes and thanking (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator) Lee Zeldin and thanking President Trump for Phase 1 of the debris removal as he cuts the U.S. Forest Service, as he had his representatives out here attacking some state projects like the high-speed rail,” Newsom said.

“We can agree to disagree,” he continued. “But at the end of the day, it’s essential in this disaster framework and recovery that we all work together.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

​ Orange County Register 

Encino lottery player who won half of $394 million jackpot sues for the other half

• February 27, 2025

A lawsuit filed by a man who alleges he bought both winning tickets in a nearly $400 million California Lottery jackpot late in 2023, but lost the second ticket and still wants to collect the other half of the prize he has been denied, should be dismissed, the Attorney General’s Office states in new court papers.

Faramarz Lahijani states in his Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that he was granted 50% of the $394 million from the Dec. 8, 2023, Mega Millions grand prize. He says both tickets were bought at a Chevron station on Ventura Boulevard in Encino, and that Lahijani used the same numbers he has been playing the lottery for 30 years, which were chosen by his children: 21, 26, 53, 66, 70 and the mega number, 13.

But in court papers filed Monday with Judge Lia Martin in advance of an Oct. 29 hearing, a deputy attorney general representing the lottery states that Lahijani’s argument doesn’t add up.

“Payment of a Mega Millions prize without the submission of a valid winning ticket is expressly barred by the Mega Millions game Rules and by applicable California statutes and regulations,” the lottery attorney states in his court paper.

In Lahijani’s case, he admits that he does not have the second ticket, and deadline to submit it was Dec. 8, 2024, the suit states.

Lahijani filed the breach of contract suit Dec. 6 and filed a claim with the lottery commission two days earlier. Lahijani’s suit, which seeks the remaining $197 million, states he is the only winner because “by virtue of his having timely submitted the first matching ticket, plaintiff is entitled to the entirety of the jackpot.”

​ Orange County Register 

Thieves nab pricey bulldogs from a Colorado pet store after faking a seizure, sheriff says

• February 26, 2025

DENVER (AP) — Thieves nabbed a pair of high-priced bulldogs from a Colorado pet store after a man allegedly faked a seizure to distract employees while an accomplice grabbed the puppies from a pen and ran out, authorities said.

The theft, which was captured on surveillance video, happened Sunday.

Three men walked into a pet store in suburban Denver a few minutes apart, walked around and asked questions about the puppies, which sell for $4,299 each, the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office said. While a 37-year-old man appeared to be having a seizure, one of the other men lifted the lid off the pen where the puppies were kept, took two and began running out of the store. An employee tried to tackle him and the man dropped the puppies but managed to grab them again and run out with a second man, the sheriff’s office said.

They got into a gold Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows and no license plates that pulled up outside the store, the sheriff’s office said.

The man who allegedly faked a seizure was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit a felony, theft, and drug possession. Investigators are looking for the other two men and the getaway driver.

One of the puppies was later returned by a woman who bought it for $1,500 from a street vendor and realized it looked like the dogs in photos shown in news coverage of the theft, the sheriff’s office said.

​ Orange County Register