Carona trial: Prosecutors use Carona’s words against him

Jurors listened today to more excerpts of secretly-recorded conversations of ex-sheriff Mike Carona talking about cash and gifts as a prosecutor laid out Carona’s help to his wealthy assistant sheriff, allegedly as part of bribes.

The tapes of Carona talking with Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl are the prosecution’s key evidence against Carona, who is accused of illegally winning office in 1998 and doling out public favors in exchange for bribes.

In one exchange, Carona says of cash: “Well on my end of it, completely untraceable, completely untraceable.” He says in another excerpt: “No trail anywhere … Period. Period. In fact, not even close to being … a trail…”

Disabled man's crusade a bane to business owners

Lingering fog shrouds the Venice boardwalk midday as Thomas Mundy rolls past ice cream vendors, T-shirt shacks and falafel stands, a discerning eye trained on the warrens of beach-themed kitsch and quick nibbles.

He's not looking for leather thong pendants or Jamaican trinkets in memory of Bob Marley, or to commune with the manic crowd of in-line skaters and street artists.

Mundy is trolling for barriers to his patronage -- a threshold too high for his wheelchair, a parking lot with blue-striped access lanes narrower than eight feet, a public restroom where the coat hook on the back of the door, if there is one, is above his reach…

Villaraigosa, Bratton expect crime to dip in 2009

Even as they touted another year of falling crime rates in Los Angeles and expressed confidence that 2009 could bring further declines, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief William J. Bratton said Monday that the LAPD's success in the upcoming year is tied to the city's financial picture.

Bratton, who has never been shy about promising drops in crime, stopped short of his tradition of setting a crime reduction target for the year, saying only that he was "very comfortable" that crime would continue to fall in 2009. His comments came at a year-in-review news conference held with the mayor and other law enforcement officials.

As reported last week in The Times, overall violent and property crime in Los Angeles fell 2.5% in 2008 compared with the year before, according to Los Angeles Police Department figures. The numbers continued the unbroken run of year-over-year declines since 2002, the year Bratton took the helm of the LAPD…

Schwarzenegger's new budget plan has some ifs and buts

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest $40 billion budget solution relies on ballot-box contingencies and a borrowing plan that might not be paid off until after he leaves office.

In a rare New Year's Eve budget release that lacked pomp, circumstance and the governor himself, Schwarzenegger finance aides unveiled a 2009-10 spending package that adds ideas to the budget-balancing moves already on the negotiating table.

The problem looms so large that Schwarzenegger is proposing to let children attend school five fewer days each year. He wants to permanently reduce tax credits such that taxpayers receive $210 less per child or elder dependent. And he plans to borrow $4.7 billion on the hope the state can pay it back by June 2011, after his tenure as governor has ended…

It's the law: California patients can have an interpreter at their side

Millions of Californians with limited English proficiency now have the right to an interpreter from their commercial health and dental plans – made possible by a first-in-the-nation law aimed at dismantling the language barriers that get in the way of good medicine.

The new regulation – implemented New Year's Day after five years of hearings, delays and wrangling among insurance companies, regulators and consumer advocates – is widely hailed as a milestone in reducing mistakes because of miscommunication.

"This is really huge, especially in California where we're getting more and more diverse," said Martin Martinez, policy director for the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network. "Even if you speak English well, it's really hard to understand what your doctor is saying…"

Madoff investor found dead of suicide

NEW YORK – The founder of an investment fund that lost $1.4 billion with Bernard Madoff was discovered dead Tuesday after committing suicide at his Madison Avenue office, marking a grim turn in a scandal that has left investors around the world in financial ruin.

Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet was found sitting at his desk at about 8 a.m. with both wrists slashed, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said. A box cutter was found on the floor along with a bottle of sleeping pills on his desk. No suicide note was found.

De la Villehuchet was one of several fund managers to be hit hard in Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Investment funds that lost big to Madoff are also facing backlash and investor lawsuits for not protecting their clients from the alleged fraud…

Bush pardons 19, commutes 1 prison term

WASHINGTON — Before leaving for the holidays, President Bush today commuted the prison sentence of a drug offender and granted 19 pardons, including one to a man who helped the Jewish resistance in the 1940s.

With this latest batch, which includes forgiveness for convictions ranging from gun and drug violations to bank and mail fraud, Bush has granted a total of 191 pardons and nine commutations. That's fewer than half as many as Presidents Clinton or Reagan issued during their two terms.

Included in the latest list is Charles Winters, who is considered a hero in Israel…