Meet the federal worker who went rogue: ‘I hope that it lights a fire under people’

• March 10, 2025

By CLAIRE SAVAGE

NEW YORK (AP) — To billionaire Elon Musk and his cost-cutting team at the Department of Government Efficiency, Karen Ortiz may just be one of many faceless bureaucrats. But to some of her colleagues, she is giving a voice to those who feel they can’t speak out.

Ortiz is an administrative judge at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — the federal agency in charge of enforcing U.S. workplace anti-discrimination laws that has undergone tumultuous change since President Donald Trump took office. Like millions of other federal employees, Ortiz opened an ominous email on Jan. 28 titled “Fork in the Road” giving them the option to resign from their positions as part of the government’s cost-cutting measures directed by Trump and carried out by DOGE under Musk, an unelected official.

Her alarm grew when her supervisor directed administrative judges in her New York district office to pause all their current LGBTQ+ cases and send them to Washington for further review in order to comply with Trump’s executive order declaring that the government would recognize only two “immutable” sexes — male and female.

Ortiz decried management’s lack of action in response to the directive, which she said was antithetical to the EEOC’s mission, and called upon some 185 colleagues in an email to “resist” complying with “illegal mandates.” But that email was “mysteriously” deleted, she said.

The next day, after yet another frustrating “Fork in the Road” update, Ortiz decided to go big, emailing the EEOC’s acting chair Andrea Lucas directly and copying more than 1,000 colleagues with the subject line, “A Spoon is Better than a Fork.” In it, Ortiz questioned Lucas’s fitness to serve as acting chair, “much less hold a license to practice law.”

“I know I take a great personal risk in sending out this message. But, at the end of the day, my actions align with what the EEOC was charged with doing under the law,” Ortiz wrote. “I will not compromise my ethics and my duty to uphold the law. I will not cower to bullying and intimidation.”

Ortiz is just one person, but her email represents a larger pushback against the Trump administration’s sweeping changes to federal agencies amid an environment of confusion, anger and chaos. It is also Ortiz’s way of taking a stand against the leadership of a civil rights agency that last month moved to dismiss seven of its own cases representing transgender workers, marking a major departure from its prior interpretation of the law.

Right after sending her mass email, Ortiz said she received a few supportive responses from colleagues — and one calling her unprofessional. Within an hour, though, the message disappeared and she lost her ability to send any further emails.

But it still made it onto the internet. The email was recirculated on Bluesky and it received more than 10,000 “upvotes” on Reddit after someone posted it with the comment, “Wow I wish I had that courage.”

“AN AMERICAN HERO,” one Reddit user deemed Ortiz, a sentiment that was seconded by more than 2,000 upvoters. “Who is this freedom fighter bringing on the fire?” wrote another.

The EEOC did not feel the same way. The agency revoked her email privileges for about a week and issued her a written reprimand for “discourteous conduct.”

Contacted by The AP, a spokesperson for the EEOC said: “We will refrain from commenting on internal communications and personnel matters. However, we would note that the agency has a long-standing policy prohibiting unauthorized all-employee emails, and all employees were reminded of that policy recently.”

A month later, Ortiz has no regrets.

“It was not really planned out, it was just from the heart,” the 53-year-old told The Associated Press in an interview, adding that partisan politics have nothing to do with her objections and that the public deserves the EEOC’s protection, including transgender workers. “This is how I feel and I’m not pulling any punches. And I will stand by what I wrote every day of the week, all day on Sunday.”

Several veteran budget hawks are giving DOGE mixed reviews, including some who say Musk’s early targets demonstrate success and show more potential than previous efforts to downsize the government. A January poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that about 3 in 10 U.S. adults strongly or somewhat approve of Trump’s creation of DOGE while about 4 in 10 Americans oppose eliminating a large number of federal jobs.

Ortiz said she never intended for her email to go beyond the EEOC, describing it as a “love letter” to her colleagues. But, she added, “I hope that it lights a fire under people.”

Ortiz said she has received “a ton” of support privately in the month since sending her email, including a thank-you letter from a California retiree telling her to “keep the faith.” Open support among her EEOC colleagues beyond Reddit and Bluesky, however, has proven more elusive.

“I think people are just really scared,” she said.

William Resh, a University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy professor who studies how administrative structure and political environments affect civil servants, weighed in on why federal workers may choose to say nothing even if they feel their mission is being undermined.

“We can talk pie in the sky, mission orientation and all these other things. But at the end of the day, people have a paycheck to bring home, and food to put on a table and a rent to pay,” Resh said.

The more immediate danger, he said, is the threat to one’s livelihood, or inviting a manager’s ire.

“And so then that’s where you get this kind of muted response on behalf of federal employees, that you don’t see a lot of people speaking out within these positions because they don’t want to lose their job,” Resh said. “Who would?”

Richard LeClear, a U.S. Air Force veteran and EEOC staffer who is retiring early at 64 to avoid serving under the Trump administration, said Ortiz’s email was “spot on,” but added that other colleagues who agreed with her may fear speaking out themselves.

“Retaliation is a very real thing,” LeClear said.

Ortiz, who has been a federal employee for 14 years and at the EEOC for six, said she isn’t naive about the potential fallout. She has hired attorneys, and maintains that her actions are protected whistleblower activity. As of Monday morning, she still has a job but she is not a lifetime appointee and is aware that her health care, pension and source of income could all be at risk.

Ortiz is nonetheless steadfast: “If they fire me, I’ll find another avenue to do this kind of work, and I’ll be okay. They will have to physically march me out of the office.”

Many of Ortiz’s colleagues have children to support and protect, which puts them in a more difficult position than her to speak out, Ortiz acknowledged. She said her legal education and American citizenship also put her in a position to be able to make change.

Her parents, who came to the U.S. mainland from Puerto Rico in the 1950s with limited English skills, ingrained in her the value of standing up for others. Their firsthand experience with the Civil Rights Movement, and her own experience growing up in mostly white spaces in Garden City on Long Island, primed Ortiz to defend herself and others.

“It’s in my DNA,” she said. “I will use every shred of privilege that I have to lean into this.”

Ortiz received her undergraduate degree at Columbia University, and her law degree at Fordham University. She knew she wanted to become a judge ever since her high school mock trial as a Supreme Court justice.

Civil rights has been a throughline in her career, and Ortiz said she was “super excited” when she landed her job at the EEOC.

“This is how I wanted to finish up my career,” she said. “We’ll see if that happens.”

The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

​ Orange County Register 

The cute whiskers are back on. Rare Mediterranean monk seals are cared for in a Greek rehab center

• March 10, 2025

By ELENA BECATOROS

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Panagis hauls himself out of the pool at a rehabilitation center in Greece and scurries over for a delectable lunch: whole mackerel. It’s been about three months since the orphaned seal pup was found struggling in the coastal waters of Cyprus. Soon, he’ll be well enough to go home.

Panagis is one of dozens of Mediterranean monk seals, or Monachus monachus, that have been nursed back to health by Greece’s MOm, a charity dedicated to the care and protection of the rare marine mammal whose population had dwindled so dramatically that at one point it faced extinction.

Thanks to conservation efforts, the seals with the big, round eyes and prominent whiskers are now making a remarkable comeback. Nearly half of their estimated global population of 800 live in Greek waters, where the extensive coastline offers an abundance of sea caves that provide shelter for females to rear their young.

From near extinction to recovery

Sleek and remarkably fast in the water, the monk seal is a skillful hunter and can consume up to 3 kilograms (6 pounds) of fish, octopus and squid a day. But it’s not averse to a ready meal, and can rip through fishing nets to steal fish — which led fishermen to view them as pests.

For decades, they were hunted, contributing to a major population decline between the 1960s and 1980s that led the International Union for Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, to list them as critically endangered.

When conservation efforts began in the 1980s, combined with outreach programs to educate the public — and fishermen — “society gradually began to change … and the population began to recover,” said Panagiotis Dendrinos.

Dendrinos, a marine biologist and coordinator of the Hellenic Society for the Study and Protection of the Monk Seal — or MOm — that has pioneered the Monachus monachus conservation program, says the monk seal is the only seal species in the Mediterranean Sea and also “one of the rarest species of seal and marine mammal in the world.”

“To protect an animal like the Mediterranean monk seal in its natural environment, you essentially have to protect the entire marine ecosystem,” he said.

Conservation efforts have paid off, and in recent years, the species climbed down a notch on the IUCN’s Red List of threatened species to “endangered.” About a year ago improved one step further, to “vulnerable.”

A unique seal rehab

Usually contacted by members of the public who find an animal in distress, MOm specialists tend to adult seals on location where possible, and transport young seals to the organization’s rehabilitation center housed in the grounds of Athens’ zoo, the Attica Zoological Park, on the outskirts of the Greek capital.

There, the young mammals are looked after by veterinarians, fed a special diet to provide them with the best nutrition and hone their swimming skills in a pool.

Their carers give them names — often after the people who found them — but make sure contact with humans is kept to a minimum to prepare the animals for their return into the wild.

The young seals typically stay in the rehab center for several months, until they’ve put on enough weight and their natural hunting instinct kicks in, allowing them to fend for themselves. They are then tagged so they can be tracked, and re-introduced into the wild.

MOm, the only center of its kind in the region, has cared for about 40 seals from far and wide, both on location and in its facilities, Dendrinos said.

“This year, we had a really pleasant surprise,” he said. A female seal that had been treated and released four years ago was spotted nursing a pup.

Planes, boats and cars to the rescue

Panagis was found in Cyprus, near where the body of his mother had been found a few days earlier. Alerted by locals, the organization arranged for the seal to be flown to Athens.

“Transportation is carried out with whatever is available,” said veterinary assistant Nikitas Vogiatzis, shortly after feeding Panagis. “Either by plane, or by boat, or even by taxi. “Konstantina came in a taxi, Panagis by plane, Renos came on a boat,” he said, listing MOm’s most recent wards.

Weighing just under 15 kilograms (33 pounds) when he arrived, the now 3-month-old seal has reached over 40 kilograms (88 pounds). Panagis is nearly ready for his return trip home, which MOm experts hope will happen in May.

Back into the wild

Renos — short for Renos-Pantelis — was found in November in the small Aegean island of Anafi by a nurse and a military conscript whom he was named after.

The seal pup was shipped to MOm’s facility. He got medical treatment and was put on a special diet until he was old enough to move on to solid fish — the mackerel that Panagis is so fond of.

He recovered and on a cold, sunny February day, it was his turn to head back into the wild. MOm personnel loaded him into a crate and whisked him by speedboat to the uninhabited islet of Gyaros, the closest marine protected area to Athens.

The release location is chosen “based on there being enough food, and there being no disturbance by people, which is very important,” said Vogiatzis, the veterinary assistant.

The crate is placed near the water, he said. Then, “you open the door, you say a prayer and you say: ‘So long’.”

Renos’ crate was deposited on a beach and the door opened. The young seal sniffed the air timidly, and waited. Slowly, he inched his way out of the crate, then picked up speed as he belly-hauled his way down the beach, splashed into the sea and was gone.

Associated Press photographer Thanassis Stavrakis in Gyaros, Greece, contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register 

LA District Attorney Hochman moves for resentencing motion for Menendez brothers

• March 10, 2025

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced on Monday, March 10 that his office will move forward on a resentencing motion for Erik and Lyle Menendez, with a hearing for the brothers scheduled for next week.

At a morning news conference, Hochman announced his office’s response to a petition for resentencing the brothers, who are serving life-without-parole prison sentences for the Aug. 20, 1989 shotgun killings of their parents, Jose and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez, in Beverly Hills.

Hochman’s announcement said that the hearing for Erik Menendez, 54, and Lyle Menendez, 57, is scheduled for next Thursday, March 20 and 21, in Van Nuys, with L.A. Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic presiding.

“After a thorough and exhaustive review of the over 10,000s of pages of trial transcripts from two months-long trials, of the 1,000s of pages of prison records, of the 100s of hours of videotaped trial testimony, of all relevant pleadings, exhibits and statements, as well as interviewing victim family members, defense counsel, prior prosecutors, and law enforcement and the applicable law, the District Attorney’s Office is prepared to proceed forward with the hearing on the Court’s initiation of resentencing proceedings for the Menendez brothers but we are requesting that the prior District Attorney’s motion for resentencing be withdrawn,” Hochman said in a statement.

“The basis for that request is that the prior motion did not examine or consider whether the Menendez brothers have exhibited full insight and taken complete responsibility for their crimes by continuing for the past over 30 years to lie about their claims of self-defense, that is, their fear that their mother and father were going to kill them the night of Aug. 20, 1989, justifying the brutal murders of their parents with shotgun blasts through the back of their father’s head, a point-blank blast through their mother’s face, and shots to their kneecaps to stage it as a Mafia killing.

“As a full examination of the record reveals, the Menendez brothers have never come clean and admitted that they lied about their self-defense as well as suborned perjury and attempted to suborn perjury by their friends for the lies, among others, of their father violently raping Lyle’s girlfriend, their mother poisoning the family, and their attempt to get a handgun the day before the murders.

“The court must consider such lack of full insight and lack of acceptance of responsibility for their murderous actions in deciding whether the Menendez brothers pose an unreasonable risk of danger to the community.”

Hochman’s statement follows his announcement last month, when he said his office would oppose the brothers’ request for a new trial — one of three possible tracks for the brothers to be freed from prison.

Resentencing is another track, and clemency from Gov. Gavin Newsom in the third.

In February, Hochman said he questioned the admissibility and relevance of “new evidence” defense attorneys produced in support of their claim the siblings were sexually abused by their father, but he has yet to take a stance on their motion for re-sentencing. Defense attorneys are asking to have their sentence reduced in a way that would either make them eligible for parole consideration or for release on time already served.

The brothers are pursuing a variety of paths in hopes of being released.

Relatives of the Menendez brothers have backed the push for them to be released. They condemned last month’s announcement by Hochman that he would oppose the bid for a new trial.

“District Attorney Nathan Hochman took us right back to 1996 today,” according to a statement released by the Justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition, which includes Menendez family members and supporters. “He opened the wounds we have spent decades trying to heal. He didn’t listen to us. We are profoundly disappointed by his remarks, in which he effectively tore up new evidence and discredited the trauma they experienced.”

The family continued, “To suggest that the years of abuse couldn’t have led to the tragedy in 1989 is not only outrageous, but also dangerous. Abuse does not exist in a vacuum. It leaves lasting scars, rewires the brain and traps victims in cycles of fear and trauma. To say it played no role in Erik and Lyle’s action is to ignore decades of psychological research and basic human understanding.”

In response to their petition, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last month that he had directed a state parole board to conduct a “risk assessment investigation” of Erik and Lyle Menendez, a move that was lauded by the prisoners’ family members.

“This is a pretty exciting time for us as the family of Erik and Lyle Menendez,” their cousin, Anamaria Baralt, told reporters Thursday afternoon, calling it “a positive step toward Erik and Lyle’s release.”

“We are incredibly grateful that Governor Newsom is paying attention to this case,” she said. “For us, it is a huge sigh of relief that someone in a seat of power is paying attention to what we have seen up close since Erik and Lyle have been incarcerated. We have seen their rehabilitation. Erik and Lyle have changed countless lives since their conviction in 1996. Inmates have seen it, corrections officers have seen it and now we need the entire criminal justice system to see it.”

She said it has been “three painful decades” for the family.

Another of the brothers’ cousins, Tamara Goodell, noted that they are “not kids any more” and said that relatives wished that Hochman would have spoken last week about the groups that the brothers have led behind bars when he announced that he would oppose their request for a new trial.

Newsom could rule on the brothers’ request for clemency or commutation of their sentences at any time.

The governor described the probe as a common procedure carried out by the state, but he had previously indicated he would defer any decision on the Menendez brothers’ case to local courts and prosecutors. The brothers’ attorneys have filed court motions seeking a new trial or re-sentencing in hopes to have them released, with a hearing set next month in a Van Nuys courtroom.

“The question for the board is a simple one: Do Erik and Lyle Menendez — do they pose a current what we call ‘unreasonable risk to public safety?”‘ the governor asked in videotaped remarks first reported by TMZ. “The risk assessment will be conducted as they are typically conducted — by experts in public safe as well as forensic psychologists.”

Newsom said the findings will be shared with the Los Angeles Superior Court judge presiding over the case, as well as with the district attorney and defense attorneys.

“There’s no guarantee of outcome here,” Newsom said. “My office conducts dozens and dozens of these clemency reviews on a consistent basis, but this process simply provides more transparency, which I think is important in this case, as well as provides us more due diligence before I make any determination for clemency.”

In a 2023 court petition, attorneys for the brothers pointed to two new pieces of evidence they contend corroborate the brothers’ allegations of long-term sexual abuse at the hands of their father — a letter allegedly written by Erik Menendez to his cousin Andy Cano in early 1989 or late 1988, eight months before the August 1989 killings, and recent allegations by Roy Rosselló, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, that he too was sexually abused by Jose Menendez as a teenager.

Interest in the case surged following the release of a recent Netflix documentary and dramatic series.

During their two highly publicized trials, the brothers did not dispute that they killed their parents, but claimed self-defense, citing decades of alleged physical and sexual abuse by their father. Prosecutors countered that the killings were financially motivated, pointing to lavish spending sprees by the brothers after the killings.

​ Orange County Register 

With jury deadlocked, mistrial declared in case of OC judge who shot and killed his wife

• March 10, 2025

The murder trial of an Orange County judge who pulled a pistol from his ankle holster and fatally shot his wife during an argument at their Anaheim Hills home ended in a mistrial Monday after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict despite more than 40 hours of deliberations. Prosecutors said they plan to retry the case.

A year and a half after Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ferguson, while sitting in a police station, said aloud to himself “I killed her. Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, convict my ass. I did it,” the actual jury tasked with deciding his fate announced they were deadlocked during their ninth day of deliberations, which lasted longer than the trial itself.

The jury foreperson told the judge that they were hung 11 to 1 on a second-degree murder charge, with the majority of the jurors backing a guilty verdict. Had they unanimously agreed that Ferguson was not guilty of second-degree murder, the jury could have considered either a lesser involuntary manslaughter conviction or acquitting Ferguson of all charges.

Ferguson — who at times seemed to be holding back emotion during the weeklong trial — did not show any obvious reaction to the announcement of the mistrial.

No one disputed that Ferguson fired the gunshot that killed his wife, Sheryl, from a Glock .40-caliber pistol he constantly carried in an ankle holster and only took off to shower or sleep.

Instead, jurors had to decide whether the judge purposely killed his wife during a heated argument, as alleged by the prosecution, or if he accidentally fired the fatal gunshot after fumbling the weapon, as argued by the defense.

Hours before the shooting, Ferguson got into an argument with his wife over money they had given the judge’s adult son from a previous marriage, Kevin, that Sheryl felt the son hadn’t been appreciative of. The argument continued, according to testimony, as the couple went to dinner with the judge’s other son, Phillip, who was home from college for the summer.

At one point at the restaurant, Judge Ferguson made a “finger gun” motion at his wife. The gesture angered her enough to walk away from their table for a few minutes. But the judge later testified that he meant it as a way to indicate that his wife had won the argument.

When they got back to their Anaheim Hills home, the couple and their son sat down in a family room to watch the final episodes of the television show Breaking Bad. Judge Ferguson would later admit to being drunk at the time — having had drinks at home and at the restaurant — but claimed he was trying to apologize to his wife.

Phillip, the couple’s son, later described his mother saying “Why don’t you use a real gun?” to his father, an apparent reference to the “finger gun” gesture at dinner. According to prosecutors, Judge Ferguson immediately pulled a Glock .40-caliber pistol out of his ankle holster and fired a single gunshot, killing his wife.

Ferguson told a different story. He testified that the wife actually said something like “Why don’t you put the real gun away from me?” and followed up by making her own “finger gun” motion at him and making a “Pshew! Pshew!” sound to apparently mimic gunfire. Ferguson described taking his gun out of his ankle holster and trying to place it on a coffee table when his bad shoulder gave out and he fumbled the firearm and his finger accidentally hit the trigger, firing the gun.

The son in his initial police interviews described seeing his father take the gun out, aim it and fire. He also initially told police that the gunshot came moments — perhaps as quickly as a second — after his mother made a comment about a gun. But in testimony during the trial, the son changed his story slightly to say he only saw the gunshot and to describe an up to 30 second delay between his mother’s comment and the gun firing.

Ferguson went outside the home to wait for paramedics, leaving his son to perform CPR on his dying mother. The judge texted the bailiff and clerk who worked in his Fullerton courtroom, 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.”

For more than an hour, Ferguson made a series of seemingly incriminating recorded statements, first while handcuffed outside his home and later while sitting at the Anaheim Police station.

At times he wept for his wife and his son. At other times he castigated himself with self-loathing. And at some points he bragged about his accomplishments as a DA and a judge.

The prosecution argued the text and statements were effectively a confession. But, as the defense pointed out, the judge in the midst of those comments never directly said he intentionally shot his wife.

During closing arguments last week, Senior Deputy District Attorney Seton Hunt told jurors that Ferguson’s description of the shooting was “ludicrous.” The shooting wasn’t an accident, the prosecutor argued, but the violent culmination of the ongoing argument.

“He lost it, grabs his gun,” Hunt said. “She says something that bothers him and he shoots her.”

“His explanation doesn’t even make sense internally, as a story,” the prosecutor added. “It is just nonsense.”

Attorney Cameron Talley, who is representing Ferguson, told jurors that it made no sense that Ferguson would pick that particular night to kill his wife while watching television with their son. Talley argued that the ballistic evidence matched his client’s testimony, and noted that according to testimony the judge didn’t say anything to his wife before the single gunshot was fired.

“If it is a drunken rage, don’t you expect him to say something?” Talley asked jurors. “And only one shot. Is that consistent with an accident or drunk rage?”

Ferguson’s familiarity with criminal law gave him an advantage when speaking to police and testifying, the prosecution argued.

“That puts him in a unique position as a defendant,” Hunt told jurors. “He knows how to answer certain questions and evade others.”

The defense denied that Ferguson was a “mastermind” who perfected a post-shooting story for investigators and jurors.

“All the times he talks about what he did, he feels tremendous guilt,” Talley said of Ferguson’s comments while in police custody. “He never says he murdered his wife or he did it on purpose.”

“It is not a confession,” the defense attorney added.

During the course of his testimony earlier this week, Ferguson admitted repeatedly breaking the law by carrying a concealed weapon while consuming alcohol, a violation of the concealed carry permit he has had since the mid-1980s. He also admitted to drinking during lunch breaks once or twice a week when he was a sitting judge before going back to court to hear criminal cases.

Ferguson spent more than 30 years involved in the criminal justice system, first as a prosecutor with the Orange County District Attorney’s Office and then as a criminal court judge.

Sheryl Ferguson also had law enforcement ties, working for a time with both the Santa Barbara and Orange County probation departments.

Sheryl Ferguson’s death, and her husband’s arrest, sent shockwaves through the local legal community. Those who knew the couple said he seemed calm and funny, while she was supportive and dedicated to her son. The couple was planning a move to Texas, where their son was attending college.

The case was quickly assigned to a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, in order to avoid any potential conflicts of interest with his judicial colleagues in Orange County. But the trial itself included an Orange County jury hearing the case in a Santa Ana courtroom.

The prosecution following the mistrial confirmed that they plan to retry the case, something the judge presiding over the case said would happen “sooner rather than later.”

But complicating plans for a retrial are statements made by Sheryl’s family earlier on Monday.

Larry Rosen, Sheryl’s brother, announced in a statement released through his victim right’s attorney that he believes the shooting “was entirely accidental, that consumption of alcohol was not a contributing factor in my sister’s shooting and that Jeff’s arm would have given out regardless.” The brother has been present for the entire trial, including all of the testimony and attorney arguments.

“I have been conflicted since day one — this all would have been so much easier if the shooter were a bad guy,” Rosen said in a statement.

“I have great respect for Jeff and have known him for many years,” Rosen added. “I would trust him with my life.”

Rosen, in his statement, argued that Ferguson should face a lesser charge then murder. Rosen said such a move by prosecutors would prevent Ferguson’s adult son from having to testify in a retrial and would allow him to inherit his father’s pension. The brother also said that the DA’s office “has not given any consideration” to his opinion or feelings about the case.

“Accepting responsibility for an act does not necessarily make the act criminal,” Rosen said. “Jeff has great remorse and guilt for fumbling the gun resulting in Sheryl’s passing. And I see this outcome as bringing closure to the entire family.”

A representative for the DA’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the brother’s statement.

Ferguson soon after his arrest posted $1 million bail and spent months free with an ankle monitor while awaiting trial.

Last year, Los Angeles County Judge Eleanor J. Hunter doubled Ferguson’s bail to $2 million after she determined he lied to her to cover up consuming alcohol while awaiting trial. Hunter described Ferguson’s claim that his use of cortisone cream and hand sanitizer had caused a false-positive reading for alcohol on his ankle monitor as “ridiculous” and accused him of lying to her. Ferguson spent several weeks in lockup before posting the higher bond.

As an elected judge, Ferguson has continued to draw his salary while awaiting trial. But a felony conviction would mean that the Commission of Judicial Performance — an independent state agency tasked with investigating allegations of judicial misconduct and disciplining judges — could suspend him from office.

​ Orange County Register 

Homeland Security overhauls asylum phone app — now it’s for ‘self-deportation’

• March 10, 2025

By The Associated Press

The Trump administration has unveiled an overhauled cellphone app once used to let migrants apply for asylum, turning it into a system that allows people living illegally in the U.S. to say they want to leave the country voluntarily.

The renamed app, announced Monday and now called CBP Home, is part of the administration’s campaign to encourage “self-deportations,” touted as an easy and cost-effective way to nudge along President Donald Trump’s push to deport millions of immigrants without legal status.

“The app provides illegal aliens in the United States with a straightforward way to declare their intent to voluntarily depart, offering them the chance to leave before facing harsher consequences,” Pete Flores, the acting commissioner for U.S Customs and Border Protection, said in a statement.

Moments after Trump took office, the earlier version of the app, CBP One, stopped allowing migrants to apply for asylum, and tens of thousands of border appointments were canceled.

More than 900,000 people were allowed in the country on immigration parole under CBP One, generally for two years, starting in January 2023.

The Trump administration has repeatedly urged migrants in the country illegally to leave.

“The CBP Home app gives aliens the option to leave now and self deport, so they may still have the opportunity to return legally in the future and live the American dream,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on the social platform X. “If they don’t, we will find them, we will deport them, and they will never return.”

Some people living in the U.S. illegally chose to leave even before Trump’s inauguration, though it’s unclear how many.

But earlier mass crackdowns on illegal immigration — most famously a quasi-military operation in the mid-1950s that Trump has repeatedly praised — also drove many immigrants in the U.S. legally to leave.

​ Orange County Register 

Orange County Soccer Club opens season with win against Oakland Roots SC

• March 10, 2025

Orange Soccer Club kicked off the new season Saturday with a 4-2 win against Oakland Roots SC at Championship Stadium in Irvine.

It was OCSC’s first opening day win since 2017.

Ryan Doghman opened the scoring in the 28th minute.

In the second half, OCSC wasted little time in increasing its lead. First, Ethan Zubak opened the scoring in the 47th minute, assisted by Cameron Dunbar. Four minutes later, Nico Benalcazar converted a free kick for a 3-0 lead.

After an Oakland Roots penalty kick, Kyle Scott re-established OCSC’s three-goal lead in the first minute of stoppage time, assisted by Tristan Trager.

“We are very pleased to come away with a first win of the season, first home game in front of a very good crowd of fantastic supporters who came to give us their backing tonight,” OCSC coach Danny Stone said. “I think we gave them an exciting game to watch. We’ve obviously scored some good goals in the game, more than anything, we came away with three points and a first win of the season. That was the task that we set out to achieve tonight, and the players have done just that.”

​ Orange County Register 

$50 million donation to Mission Hospital will help fund new tower, campus expansion

• March 10, 2025

A new tower at Providence Mission Hospital that will re-center the Mission Viejo campus and provide more patient rooms, a state-of-the-art surgery center and the latest in cardiac care for a growing South Orange County is getting a funding boost from the largest donation in the hospital’s history.

Announcing the $50 million gift from the family descendants of the owners of the sprawling ranch known as Rancho Mission Viejo, hospital officials said the gift will go toward an overall $712 million expansion project and they hope it will kickstart the philanthropy-funded portion of the campaign.

Work on the new Tower 3 will begin this year; demolition of the storage area where the tower will go has already started. The three-story tower — a portion will be subterranean because it’s being built into a nearby hillside — is expected to be completed by 2030. A 3-acre park will surround the tower – available for use by patients, visitors and hospital staff, reducing the feel of a concrete jungle, officials said.

The Rancho Mission Veijo family also donated in 1969 the land on which the hospital is built.

“Our first donor has become our largest donor 50 years later,” said Nicole Balsamo, president and chief philanthropy officer of the Providence Mission Hospital Foundation. “It’s pretty incredible.”

The O’Neill and Flood families – descendents of James Flood and Richard O’Neill who in 1907 became partners on the working ranch that later became known as Rancho Mission Viejo – owned much of the land that South Orange County has been built on and helped develop the communities of Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margaria, Coto de Casa, Ladera Ranch and Talega in San Clemente. The namesake Rancho Mission Viejo community is still being built out.

In all, development of the former ranch has already brought 75,000 homes to the area.

The last community’s development — located on 8,000 of the still 24,000-acre ranch with 16,000 acres remaining as open space — is already at 20,000 residents. The full community buildout, said Jeremy Laster, president of Rancho Mission Viejo, will be about 42,000 people.

“We now have about 225,000 people who live on lands that were once Rancho Mission Viejo,” he said. “When you look at a hospital in Mission Viejo, which is a community we developed, 40% of the patients there come from residential units that we developed. So, part of the genesis of why we think it’s important to be a leader is because we kinda created the problem. We are the reason there is a need for a hospital in South Orange County.”

A couple of years ago, hospital officials announced a master facilities plan that discussed the overall expansion, including the new tower, of the Mission Viejo campus.

The tower, which will be named the Rancho Mission Viejo Family Tower, will have 100 private patient rooms. It will also have the hospital’s first hybrid operating room and an expanded emergency department with a Level II pediatric and adult trauma center and acute care operations.

Cardiac care will be enhanced with cardiac catheterization, electrophysiology suites and an entire new cardiac department, hospital officials said.

This will pair well, said Seth Teigen, CEO of Providence Mission, with the hospital’s Comprehensive Cardiac Care certification, which it recently received from the Joint Commission, a nonprofit that accredits hospitals nationwide. The hospital is one of four in the state to have the accreditation.

“It’s a really big deal, we’re only one of two in Orange County,” Teigen said. “Our sister ministry at St. Joe’s in Orange also has that accolade. That informed part of the focus around cardiac.”

The certification indicates the hospital has met certain criteria of clinical outcomes, physician and nursing staff expertise and infrastructure that supports patients and promotes best practices and the most current care guidelines, said Dr. Melanie Spencer Wolf, chief medical officer.

“It’s a significant honor,” she said. “It’s one of numerous certifications we have from the Joint Commission. We’re really proud of that.”

Wolf said the hospital has been seeing a higher rate of cardiac admissions, thousands of people a year, especially with the aging population, and there has been a focus on using a less invasive approach to treatment. As an example, she said 10 years ago, a valve replacement required open heart surgery. Now, she said, surgeons have procedures where they can go into an artery and use a guidewire that goes into the heart for placing a new valve.

“They can essentially do a valve replacement the same way as getting a needle into your arm or leg.” she said. “This allows for easy recovery and a return to quality of life almost immediately. We’re really moving away from these aggressive interventions and moving toward less invasive measures.”

Teigen illustrated another example of how the new tower’s facilities will help the hospital meet patient needs: the increase in the number of surgeries doctors have performed since the opening of the Leonard Cancer Center in 2019. The tower will offer another facility for doing more surgeries.

“We have seen cancer activity going up 30% year over year,” he said. “We’re really blessed to have a medical staff that touts themselves surgically as one of the best medical staffs in the country in types of oncologic surgery. “

The tower will feature state-of-the-art surgery facilities that will help attract and retain the next generation of “brilliant physicians” to the community, added Teigen.

“We want to give the scientists and clinical experts the tools in the toolbox, the type of facilities, equipment and technology to really deliver on our promise to our patients,” Teigen said. “That is a big driver also in this expansion plan adding all these new operating rooms.”

The construction of the new tower will also reorientate the campus. Today, the entrance used by patients who go to the Emergency Department is the same as the entrance used by fire trucks, ambulances, police, and all the pedestrian traffic. In the future, first responders will use the current ER entrance only. The new ER entrance will be flipped around to the front of the campus, where the hospital’s main lobby is today.

Hospital officials are calling the family’s donation “transformational” for the hospital. And said they are hopeful it will inspire others to contribute.

“We’ve been very fortunate and blessed over the last 60 years,” Laster said, speaking for Tony Moiso, who has headed up the family ranch for decades. “We also recognize our successes are, in part, because we’ve developed great schools, great parks, great amenities, and we also recognize a big piece of that is also having a world-class hospital. And, it’s something people see; it’s a reason why they feel comfortable moving to the community.”

“We helped originally to get the hospital off the ground,” he added. “Now we think, it’s our responsibility and, in a way, our obligation to help Mission Hospital to grow because we have grown.”

​ Orange County Register 

They tried to pay overdue rent, but their landlord wouldn’t accept it

• March 10, 2025

By Felicia Mello | CalMatters

Crouching on the sidewalk in front of his apartment building in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood last Monday, Bradford Berger shuffled through legal papers in a wrinkled manila folder.

It was a stressful morning; he was scrambling to get ready for a chemotherapy appointment with his wife, who’d been diagnosed with lymphoma the month before.

In two days, sheriff’s deputies were scheduled to evict the two of them from the subsidized apartment they’d shared for the last 15 years — even after a local rental assistance program offered to pay the landlord, an affordable housing nonprofit, the back rent they owed.

It was a gloomy way to mark their anniversary for the couple, who’ve been married 19 years as of this month. It was also a fairly common situation, legal aid attorneys say.

California law allows landlords to evict tenants for nonpayment regardless of whether they are willing and able to pay their overdue rent. Tenant advocates say that undercuts the effectiveness of rental assistance programs, a key strategy local governments and nonprofits use to keep people housed. They’re pushing a proposal in the Legislature that would bring California in line with 21 other states that ban nonpayment evictions for tenants willing and able to pay up.

The California Apartment Association, which represents landlords, says the legislation is unnecessary because tenants can already delay evictions if they’re facing financial hardship, and has dubbed it one of its top five “rental housing killer” bills this year.

Nonpayment evictions plummeted during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when California banned them for tenants with pandemic-related financial challenges. They’ve since spiked in many areas. Of the 166,463 eviction notices filed in the city of Los Angeles between February 2023 and mid-November 2024, for example, 94% were for nonpayment of rent, according to the city controller’s office. Rent delinquency accounted for more than 85% of eviction cases in San Mateo County in 2023, a Stanford study found.

Statewide data on eviction causes, and how often landlords reject tenants’ attempts to pay, is difficult to obtain because eviction records are sealed, court statistics do not always include the cause of the eviction, and much of the negotiation takes place in mediation sessions and informal conversations in courthouse hallways.

Cities and counties have also expanded their rental assistance programs in recent years, helping to cover payments for tenants who fall behind due to temporary hardships such as a job loss or medical crisis.

In theory, the programs prevent homelessness. But payments can be slow in coming. Jacqueline Patton, supervising litigation attorney for San Francisco’s Eviction Defense Collaborative, says the average time from when one of her clients applies to payment actually reaching the landlord is about three months. The landlord needs to cooperate by sharing information about the debt owed and agreeing to accept the payment.

Meanwhile, California tenants have just three business days to respond to a landlord’s initial notice that they must pay rent or be evicted. After that, the property owner can proceed with the eviction regardless of whether the tenants have paid their bill. Tenants experiencing hardship can petition the court for a temporary stay to give them more time to find new housing, but it’s not always granted.

“(Tenants) missed a shift, they’ve applied for rental assistance and time just runs out,” said Juliet Brodie, director of the Community Law Clinic at Stanford University. “And they end up being displaced and homeless instead of giving that money to the landlord. And the landlord ends up chasing a money judgement that’s uncollectible and incurring the cost to turn over the unit.”

A ‘right to repair’

Landlords can work with tenants who’ve applied for help, and many do, often requiring that tenants commit to a payment plan or pledge to pay on time in the future. “Owners would rather have the rent than go to court,” said Debra Carlton, executive vice president of government affairs for the California Apartment Association.

But tenant attorneys say it’s also common for landlords to refuse payment once they’ve decided to evict. They say that because the property owner can choose whether to allow the tenants to catch up on rent, factors such as the tenants’ relationship with an onsite manager, or even their race or disability, can sometimes play a role.

“Discriminating in housing on the basis of a protected class is illegal and we don’t want landlords to have a workaround by saying I’ll accept rent from some tenants and not others,” Brodie said.

Property owners who file a nonpayment eviction may have other reasons to want to evict particular tenants, such as if they are not keeping their unit clean or antagonizing other tenants, said Daniel Bornstein, a San Francisco attorney representing landlords.

“The easiest type to prove is nonpayment of rent,” he said.

If tenants can wait to pay their back rent until a sheriff is knocking at their door, he said, there’s no incentive to pay on time, rendering the lease meaningless. “There has to be a line in the sand from a public policy standpoint or there never is an end point when the debt has to be paid.”

The bill pending in the Legislature would require a court to dismiss a nonpayment eviction if at any point before tenants are actually removed from their home, they can pay all the rent accrued up to that date. A court would also dismiss the case if the tenants provides proof they’ve been approved for rental assistance in that amount.

“If you are struggling and able to recoup the funds and pay what you owe, that eviction proceeding should have stopped immediately,” said bill author Sen. Aisha Wahab, a Democrat from Fremont.

The bill, sponsored by the renter advocacy group Tenants Together, is one of a number of efforts in recent years to extend the legal timeline for eviction cases, which in California unfold more quickly than a typical civil lawsuit. State lawmakers last year passed a measure doubling the time tenants have to file their official response when a landlord sues them to evict. Backers of those efforts point out that property owners who fall behind on their mortgages or utility bills often have months to catch up before facing consequences. Tenants, they say, should get the same grace.

The 21 states that allow renters to redeem their tenancy by paying back rent include blue and red states, according to a survey by the Stanford Community Law Clinic. Some allow tenants to pay their bills all the way up until they are physically evicted, while in others, they must pay before the case goes to trial. In some states, tenants also have to reimburse landlords for at least part of their attorneys’ fees.

Falling behind

Eviction sagas are often convoluted, punctuated by the kinds of misfortunes that disproportionately affect people on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder. Berger, for example, has supported himself on disability payments since his back was crushed while he worked at a mechanic’s job years ago. He said he took in about $900 monthly after deductions, the sole income for the couple and their two cats since his wife stopped work after falling ill; their rent was about $250. “There’s not a lot left for food and cat supplies and laundry,” he said.

Last year, the couple fell behind on the rent, according to court documents. “I was juggling a lot of balls, and I guess I dropped one,” Berger said. Their landlord, the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, offered a payment plan with the condition that they pay on time going forward. They made two on-time payments, the couple said in court filings, but in December Berger lost his wallet and they again fell behind. The city’s rental assistance program deemed them eligible for help, and Berger’s wife, Kimberly, wrote to their landlord asking for leniency.

“I am sure that you can imagine the impact that eviction and homelessness would have on me at this moment, given the severity of my disability,” she wrote, attaching a record of her cancer diagnosis.

Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation proceeded with the eviction. Through their attorney, Bornstein, they declined CalMatters’ requests for an interview.

To a landlord, the Bergers might simply look like unreliable tenants, who have more than once failed to pay rent on time. But Bradford Berger says he doesn’t understand why an organization that leases property from the San Francisco Housing Authority in order to provide supportive housing wouldn’t want to accept his checks.

“They’re, like, contractors from the city. I would think they should be recouping as much money as they can however they can,” he said. “Especially if there’s no other problems and it’s just strictly financial.”

Marvellus Lucas, a comedian and nonprofit outreach worker also living in San Francisco, wondered the same thing. He, too, fell behind on rent after suffering an intestinal infection and helping to pay for his brother’s funeral. A second-generation San Franciscan, he worried about losing the $3,150 per month two-bedroom apartment that had become a gathering place for friends who’d been displaced to cities like Vallejo and Antioch.

He was relieved when his employer, the Booker T. Washington Community Center, helped him cover the $8,000 debt, he said — then stunned when his landlord (who also declined to be interviewed) moved to evict him anyway. After reaching out to San Francisco’s city-funded eviction defense program, he negotiated a settlement and was able to stay in his home.

Patton, the Eviction Defense Collaborative attorney, represented Lucas and said Wahab’s legislation would be a “game-changer” for San Francisco’s cadre of taxpayer-paid tenant attorneys, helping them save time and energy on similarly straightforward cases.  “It would be so much less posturing – we would just be like, ‘We have the money, here is the money, dismiss your case.’ Instead of (going) back and forth for three months,” she said.

The Bergers weren’t as lucky as Lucas. On Wednesday, Bradford Berger said, eight sheriff’s deputies knocked on their door to evict them. The Bergers were out on the street, with just enough money for a few nights’ hotel stay and no firm plans.

​ Orange County Register