Inland Valley

NAPA, Calif. (AP) — Paul Pelosi, the 82-year-old husband of U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, was arrested this weekend on suspicion of DUI in Northern California, police records showed Sunday.

Paul Pelosi was taken into custody late Saturday in Napa County north of San Francisco, according to a sheriff’s office online booking report.

He could face charges including driving under the influence and driving with a blood alcohol content level of 0.08 or higher, the report said.

Pelosi’s bail was set for $5,000 for the two misdemeanors, records showed.

No other details were immediately available. California Highway Patrol Officer Andrew Barclay said more information would be released later Sunday.

Drew Hammill, spokesperson for Nancy Pelosi, told The Associated Press: “The Speaker will not be commenting on this private matter which occurred while she was on the East Coast.”

The House speaker was in Providence, Rhode Island, on Sunday, where she delivered the commencement address at Brown University.

Pelosi’s arrest was first reported by TMZ.

Paul and Nancy Pelosi have been married since 1963.

A driver died after a crash that resulted in a vehicle fire in Moreno Valley on Sunday, May 29.

The fire was reported at 9:37 a.m. on Perris Boulevard, between Heacock Street and Canyon Vista Road, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. Responding deputies found a burning BMW 3 series at the scene, the Sheriff’s Department said.

Responding firefighters were quickly able to contain the flames engulfing the vehicle, Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire officials said.

The driver was declared dead at the scene, sheriff’s officials said.

It was determined the BMW was traveling south on Perris at a high rate of speed, the Sheriff’s Department said. For an unknown reason, the BMW veered to the right, struck a curb, and launched onto a dirt embankment and continued about 200 feet before striking a tree, officials said.

The person’s identity was not immediately released.

A man described as the co-owner of a Riverside brewery has been charged with murder after authorities said he drove drunk and caused a collision in Ontario that killed an Oceanside resident.

Ryan Cavender Wicks, 39, who the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office said owns Wicks Brewing in Riverside with his father, was also charged with driving under the influence and causing injury. He posted $1.1 million bail and pleaded not guilty to both charges. He is next due in court on June 6. His attorney, Donald J. Bartell, declined to comment.

Wicks was convicted of DUI in San Bernardino County in 2005 and signed a so-called Watson advisement in which he was warned that drunken driving can injure or kill people and that the advisement could be used against him in court, said DA’s spokeswoman Jacquelyn Rodriguez. That and other factors prompted the DA to file the murder charge, she said.

The adult children of the crash victim, Gary Boeldt II, 52, have sued Wicks and the brewery-restaurant, alleging wage loss, property damage and pain and suffering, among other damages. The lawsuit asserts that Wicks Brewing Co. served alcohol to Wicks immediately before the crash.

The attorney representing the brewery in the lawsuit, Brian C. Pearcy, did not respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.

Bryan Boeldt, 26, described his father as a devout and forgiving person.

“If the roles had been reversed and one of his children had been taken, he would want justice to be served, and when justice was served, he would try and do whatever he could to help that person who was troubled in their life,” Boeldt said.

The collision happened just before 1 a.m. on March 31 on the northbound 15 Freeway near Jurupa Avenue, the California Highway Patrol said. Gary Boeldt was driving about 70 mph in the left lane when Wicks struck his car from behind “in excess of 100 mph,” a CHP news release said. Boeldt’s car went down an embankment and overturned. He was killed, and his wife, Christine Carroll, was injured.

Boeldt and Carroll were headed to Lake Tahoe to commemorate their one-year anniversary, his son said.

Boeldt had a lot to celebrate. Years ago, he hurt his back playing golf and wound up addicted to painkillers. The dependence cost him his wife, his home and his business, Bryan Boeldt said. But his father moved to Las Vegas and with the help of the Salvation Army, turned his life around. He went to work at the General Dynamics NASSCO shipbuilding yard in San Diego as a forklift operator and was promoted to supervisor a year later.

“He would tell us all the time he wanted to (recover) for himself but also for his kids,” Bryan Boeldt said.

Gary Boeldt also had two daughters, ages 18 and 29. He largely financially supported the youngest, his son said.

Wicks previously had more positive interactions with law enforcement.

In 2014, on the one-year anniversary of the shooting deaths of Riverside police Officer Mike Crain and San Bernardino County sheriff’s Detective Jeremiah MacKay by fugitive Christopher Dorner, Wicks collaborated on beers to honor the officers: “Sheepdog,” a red ale for MacKay, and “Freight Crain,” a chocolate malt stout. The brewery also assisted on a car show to benefit their families.

Wicks has been described in Press-Enterprise stories as the brewery’s co-owner, along with his father, Brad. Ryan Wicks and Brad Wicks are listed as “manager” in separate forms filed with the California Secretary of State’s office.  But the brewery unequivocally states that Ryan Wicks is not the owner.

A sign on the door of the brewery on Sterling Avenue reads, “All false/defamatory statements being made, published or republished indicating that this business is owned by Ryan Wicks that causes monetary or reputational harm to the business or its owners will be vigorously pursued. The management.”

No one at the brewery would offer any clarification.

 

ANAHEIM ― Taylor Ward’s collision with the right field wall kept him out of the starting lineup Saturday. The Angels hope that will be the extent of Ward’s absence.

Ward passed concussion protocol and is expected to avoid the injured list, Manager Joe Maddon said. He was not available off the bench for Saturday’s game against the Oakland A’s, and his status for Sunday’s game is to be determined.

Angels head athletic trainer Mike Frostad said Ward has a stinger, an injury to the brachial plexus bundle of nerves that runs between the neck and shoulder. Stingers are common in contact sports in which the head and neck are vulnerable to collisions.

A stinger, Frostad said, “starts in the neck, works its way down the arm, you get that burning sensation. That’s what (Ward)’s dealing with a little bit but he’s feeling pretty good.”

The Angels needed to rule out the possibility of a concussion after Ward caught a warning-track fly ball off Tony Kemp’s bat, then bodysmacked the padded wall in the ninth inning Friday. Ward was feeling well enough to take batting practice indoors Saturday afternoon.

Maddon finalized his lineup without Ward a couple hours before Saturday’s game against the A’s. Ward began the day leading all of Major League Baseball in batting average (.370), on-base percentage (.481) and slugging percentage (.713).

Tyler Wade got his first start of the season in right field. Shohei Ohtani batted leadoff for the first time since April 24.

CANNING’S CHOICE

Pitcher Griffin Canning will meet with a back specialist Monday to determine the next step in his treatment for a stress reaction in his back.

Canning has been shut down from throwing since he faced live hitters in a simulated game May 9. The next day, he reported soreness in his back, an injury that originally felled him last July.

Now, the choice is Canning’s whether to rehabilitate the injury conservatively or undergo surgery. The recovery period for surgery depends on the scope of the procedure.

“A stress reaction creates a false joint in the back,” Frostad said. A surgical procedure would “pretty much put a screw through that false joint in the back to stabilize it, so it doesn’t move anymore.”

Canning, 26, was well into the process of building up arm strength for a potential return to the Angels’ starting rotation. The two-inning simulated game at Angel Stadium was his first action against live hitters in that process.

INJURY UPDATES

The Angels activated catcher Kurt Suzuki from the injured list and reassigned Austin Romine to Triple-A Salt Lake. Suzuki, 38, did not use a minor league rehabilitation stint after he was placed on the COVID-19 IL, which cost him 13 games.

Romine, 33, went 2 for 8 with three strikeouts in three games with the Angels. Suzuki, 38, is hitting .179 with a .273 on-base percentage.

Right-hander Archie Bradley (left abdominal strain) and left-hander Jose Quijada (right oblique strain) began their minor league rehabilitation assignments with Class-A Rancho Cucamonga. The two relievers are expected to throw “two to three games each,” Frostad said.

Bradley and Quijada each threw a perfect inning Saturday. Bradley struck out one and Quijada two.

Catcher Max Stassi will join the two pitchers for what’s likely to be a shorter rehab assignment. He’s missed 10 games since being placed on the COVID-19 injured list. In his first game, Stassi hit a home run and a double in four at-bats, driving in two runs.

ALSO

Outfielder Justin Upton, whom the Angels designated for assignment April 2, signed a major league contract with the Seattle Mariners. Upton had one year and $28 million remaining on his contract at the time of his DFA. The Angels are responsible for paying Upton all but the prorated portion of the major league minimum salary ($700,000). … Catcher Matt Thaiss was reinstated from the minor league injured list and remains on option with Salt Lake.

UP NEXT

Oakland (LHP Cole Irvin, 2-1, 2.93 ERA) at Angels (LHP Patrick Sandoval, 2-1, 1.91 ERA), Sunday, 1 p.m., Bally Sports West

A Riverside special needs school bus driver accused of supplying fentanyl to students, causing at least one to suffer a medical emergency, was charged Friday, May 20 with nearly a dozen felony offenses, while her husband was charged with possessing a gun and drugs.

Melissa Harloam Garrison, 46, and David Wayne Garrison, 58, were arrested Tuesday night following an investigation by the Riverside Police Department’s Narcotics Unit.

She is charged with three counts each of child endangerment and furnishing controlled substances to a minor, along with dealing in controlled substances, possession of controlled substances while armed, being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, being a felon in possession of ammunition and a sentence-enhancing great bodily injury allegation.

Her husband is charged with possession of controlled substances while armed, illegal possession of a gun and being a convicted domestic abuser in possession of a firearm.

Melissa Garrison is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail at the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside, where David Garrison is also jailed in lieu of $25,000 bail.

According to Officer Ryan Railsback, spokesman for the Riverside Police Department, officers were called to the Bright Futures Academy in the 9000 block of County Farm Road on Tuesday afternoon to investigate reports of an employee selling fentanyl to students at the K-12 campus, which the California Department of Education says is geared to children with behavioral disorders.

Railsback said that while questioning witnesses, officers learned a “student had recently overdosed on suspected fentanyl the week prior at their home in another city.”

The youth, whose identity was not released, survived.

Narcotics detectives, with assistance from the police department’s Sexual Assault-Child Abuse unit, initiated an investigation that revealed Melissa Garrison, a bus driver and security guard at the campus, had been supplying undisclosed quantities of the synthetic opioid to the children, Railsback said.

According to the criminal complaint, Garrison recruited two students — a female identified in court documents only as “M.D.” and a male identified only as “J.G.” — to help peddle the drug over an unspecified period of time.

The defendants reside on the campus in a cottage, Railsback said.

The premises were searched and “over 100 suspected fentanyl pills, two handguns and various types of ammunition” were seized, the police spokesman alleged.

According to court documents, Melissa Garrison has a prior felony conviction in another jurisdiction, but the offense wasn’t specified, while David Garrison was convicted of the domestic abuse charge in 2012.

Fentanyl is manufactured in overseas labs, including in China, and according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, it’s smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border by cartels. It’s known to be 80-100 times more potent than morphine and is a popular additive, mixed into any number of narcotics and pharmaceuticals.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said there were about 500 fentanyl-induced deaths countywide last year, which represents a 250-fold increase from 2016, when only two such fatalities were documented.

According to statistics recently published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were roughly 108,000 fatal drug overdoses in 2021, and fentanyl accounted for over 80,000 of them.

 

One person was killed Thursday morning, May 19, in a collision on the 215 Freeway on the north end of Riverside that snarled northbound traffic for hours.

The crash involving several vehicles was reported at about 5 a.m. north of Columbia Avenue, the California Highway Patrol said.

No information on the cause of the crash or on the person who died was available Monday evening.

The lanes did not completely reopen until about 8:40 a.m.

A judge ruled Thursday that a trial can proceed against a Tesla Model S driver in a 2019 crash that left two people dead in Gardena.

The case is the first felony prosecution in the U.S. against a driver using widely available partial autopilot technology.

At a preliminary hearing in Compton, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Teresa P. Magno found there is sufficient evidence to try Kevin George Aziz Riad, 27, on two counts of vehicular manslaughter.

Prosecutors allege Riad was reckless and negligent when the Tesla slammed into a Honda Civic at 74 mph on Dec. 29, 2019 near the intersection of Artesia Boulevard and Vermont Avenue, where the 91 Freeway transitions to a street.

Gilberto Alcazar Lopez, 40, of Rancho Dominguez and Maria Guadalupe Nieves-Lopez, 39, of Lynwood, who were in the Civic, were pronounced dead at the scene.

They were on their first date that night, relatives said Thursday.

The Tesla’s Autosteer and Traffic Aware Cruise Control were active when it blew through a red light and struck the Honda, prosecutors said.

LAPD officer Alvin Lee testified Thursday that numerous traffic signs warning drivers to slow down were posted approaching the end of the freeway. He said Riad told police he was driving up from Orange County with his girlfriend, and could only recall the smoke and deployed airbags before he was rushed to a hospital.

Riad’s attorney, Arthur Barens, asked the judge to lower the charges to misdemeanors, arguing any negligence by his client would have resulted in at most a citation had a fatal crash not occurred. The judge denied the motion.

Prosecutor Brandy Chase said Riad “did nothing to stop the crash.”

Sensors in the Model S indicated Riad’s hand was on the steering wheel leading up to and at the point of collision, Tesla engineer Eloy Rubio Blanco testified. Crash data showed that the steering wheel was kept near center, with no apparent attempt to change direction, and no brakes were applied in the six minutes preceding the crash.

On its website, Tesla states that cars making use of their autopilot technology should be operated by a “fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment.” The system will only work if torque sensors in a steering wheel detect that someone is at the wheel, Rubio Blanco said.

The case against Riad is not the first involving an automated driving system, but it is the first to involve commercially available driver technology.

Authorities in Arizona filed a charge of negligent homicide in 2020 against a driver Uber had hired to take part in the testing of a fully autonomous vehicle on public roads. The Uber vehicle, an SUV with the human backup driver on board, struck and killed a pedestrian.

The U.S. government’s road safety agency has dispatched a team to investigate whether a Tesla involved in a Newport Beach crash that killed three people on May 12 was operating on a partially automated driving system.

An internal affairs investigation has determined that there is insufficient evidence to charge Michael Lujan, a retired Riverside County sheriff’s captain and now a candidate for sheriff, with witness intimidation after concerns were raised that he influenced deputies not to probe the possible intoxication of a sergeant who crashed his personal car while off duty in Lake Elsinore.

The investigation, according to a document obtained by the Southern California News Group, also concluded that Lujan and Lt. Aaron Kent failed to follow “general investigative process” after Sgt. Glenn Warrington damaged a light pole in the crash at 515 N. Main St. on Nov. 21, 2020. Specifically, Lt. Christopher Frederick wrote, Lujan and Kent “used bad judgment” by not requesting that a different agency investigate the crash involving one of the Sheriff’s Department’s own deputies.

The deputies who responded to the crash told Lujan by phone that Warrington had been drinking but did not show signs of impairment — though they told Frederick that Warrington appeared unusually standoffish and was popping breath mints. Warrington had just left a pizza restaurant where he had consumed four or five beers while eating dinner, Frederick wrote. Warrington was not given a field sobriety test.

As deputies waited for orders on how to proceed, a bizarre exchange unfolded among Lujan, Warrington and Cpl. Perry Willow, who was on scene investigating the crash and had suggested to Kent that the California Highway Patrol take over the probe.

“Willow’s phone rang and it was Warrington calling from the side of the road,” Frederick wrote. “Willow walked over to Warrington and Warrington asked Willow what he was waiting for. Warrington asked if Willow was scared. Willow responded that he was not scared, only waiting for direction. Warrington then called Lujan via the telephone. Warrington told Lujan ‘Corporal Willow is looking for direction’ and handed Willow the phone saying ‘maybe this guy can give you direction.’ “

Lujan then told Willow to investigate the crash only for the property damage and not as a possible DUI.

Sheriff Chad Bianco placed Lujan on administrative leave in December 2020, shortly before Lujan retired.

Lujan, in an interview for an SCNG story on his challenge to Bianco in the June 7 election, said he followed department policy.

Bianco, in an email Thursday, said, “Never in our department is it acceptable for a captain to call an investigator and tell them what to do without actually being on scene, especially with this type of investigation.”

A second document obtained by SCNG, from a different internal affairs investigation held to determine whether deputies followed department policies, said “there is not clear proof that Lt. Kent failed to properly report Capt. Lujan’s order up the chain of command. This allegation is not sustained.”

MORENO VALLEY — A motorist killed in a crash that authorities say was triggered when he tried to go around traffic in a no-passing zone north of Moreno Valley was identified Wednesday.

Daniel Reyes, 47, of Moreno Valley was fatally injured at about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday on San Timoteo Canyon Road, near Live Oak Canyon Road, roughly halfway between Moreno Valley and Redlands, according to the Riverside County coroner’s office.

California Highway Patrol Officer Jason Montez said Reyes was at the wheel of a 2000 Honda Accord going eastbound on San Timoteo when he encountered a slower-moving 2021 GMC Sierra just ahead of him.

Montez said Reyes “attempted to pass (the pickup) and crossed over the double yellow lines into oncoming traffic.”

As he attempted to go around the GMC, Reyes encountered a 2022 Toyota Camry approaching from the opposite direction, prompting the victim to swerve back into the eastbound lane, where the Honda struck the pickup, according to Montez.

The impact caused the Honda to veer back into the path of the Toyota, hitting it on the left front side in the middle of the two-lane corridor, the CHP spokesman said.

Riverside County Fire Department crews arrived within a few minutes and pronounced Reyes dead at the scene.

The Toyota driver, identified only as a 50-year-old Calimesa man, was taken to Riverside University Medical Center in Moreno Valley for treatment of minor injuries. He is expected to fully recover.

The pickup driver, identified only as a 23-year-old Newport Beach man, was not hurt.

Both sides of San Timoteo Canyon were shut down between Live Oak Canyon Road to the north and Redlands Boulevard to the south until about 4 p.m. Tuesday, while the CHP conducted a preliminary investigation.

Montez said alcohol or drugs have not been ruled out as possible factors in the crash.