A man, who Riverside County Superior Court records say called himself “The Godfather,” was ordered to serve 54 years in state prison and pay $23 million in fines for masterminding a criminal organization that attempted to bilk the state out of $150 million in a workers’ compensation fraud, the District Attorney’s Office said on Monday, April 15. Judge Charles J. Koosed sentenced Peyman Heidary, 53, on Friday, April 12, after his January conviction on 68 counts of insurance fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and other crimes, including falsely advertising himself as a lawyer. Koosed said Heida ..read more

Seven high school students were injured in La Habra on Wednesday after a collision involving two vehicles caused one car to strike pedestrians, including the students, as they were waiting to cross the street, police said. The collision occurred around 1:34 p.m. in the area of Palm Street and East La Habra Boulevard. A total of eight patients were hospitalized, including one of the drivers, with two people in critical condition, a spokesperson from the Los Angeles County Fire Department said. Details on the circumstances of the crash were not released. Drugs and alcohol are not believed to hav ..read more

For the last two years the “builder’s remedy” has been the unruly teenager of California housing laws. Running roughshod over zoning regulations while sowing angst among local elected officials, the law lets developers build as much as they like, wherever they like, in cities and counties that have blown past deadlines to get their housing development blueprints certified by state regulators. An artist’s rendering of the 3000 Nebraska apartment complex, one of 16 builder’s remedy housing projects filed in Santa Monica. Developers can bypass local zoning laws in California cities that don’t hav ..read more

Two men were killed in a head-on crash on Santiago Canyon Road on Saturday evening, and alcohol is believed to have been a factor, the California Highway Patrol said. The crash occurred around 9 p.m. on Santiago Canyon Road, west of Limestone Spur Road. Both cars had major front-end damage, and a 34-year-old La Habra man driving a 2018 Ford was pronounced dead at the scene. according to the CHP report. A 42-year-old Santa Ana man driving a 1993 Toyota was transported to Orange County Global Medical Center, where he later died, the report said. The CHP report says both men were the drivers. The ..read more

Incumbent Rep. Linda Sánchez appears to have taken a comfortable lead in the 38th congressional district race Tuesday night. The first round of votes released by the Orange County Registrar of Voters and L.A. County Clerk/Registrar-Recorder shortly after polls closed at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, March 5, put the 11-term Democrat from Whittier well ahead of the pack and Eric Ching, a Republican from Walnut, in second place. Pastor John Sarega and entrepreneur Robert Zhang Ochoa are also vying for the seat. Results will be updated regularly until the counting is complete. The top two vote-getters in th ..read more

Initial election results Tuesday night show Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco with a sizable lead over her sole opponent in her bid for reelection in Assembly District 65. Pacheco, a Democrat, and Ortiz, a Republican from La Mirada, are the only candidates in the race and will advance to the general in November. Results will be updated every weekday until all ballots are counted. Continue to check back here for updates. Pacheco was first elected in 2022 to represent AD-64, a district that spans Los Angeles and Orange counties and includes the city of La Habra. She’s the former mayor of Downey and ..read more

SANTA ANA — A state appeals court panel Monday affirmed the conviction of a mother who dropped her 7-month-old son from a Children’s Hospital of Orange County parking structure a decade ago, but sent the case back to a judge to consider whether the woman’s mental illness should weigh in favor of a probation sentence rather than life in prison. Sonia Hermosillo of La Habra was sentenced in May 2022 to 25 years to life in prison for killing her son, Noe. But while the Fourth District Court of Appeal justices found that the jury rightly convicted Hermosillo, who had pleaded not guilty by reason o ..read more

The Brea Olinda Teachers Association has announced it’s reached an impasse with the Brea Olinda Unified School District, triggering state mediation and the potential for a strike. The district and the teachers association have failed to reach a compensation settlement that would “attract new educators with competitive salaries and benefits during the current 10,000-teacher shortage in California,” the California Teachers Association said in a statement released Thursday, Feb. 22. District officials said that failing to address an expected decrease in the cost of living before agreeing to the c ..read more

La Habra Councilman Steve Simonian has announced he’s resigning from the council, effective April 5, to focus more on his health and spending time with family. Simonian first served on the City Council from 1998 until 2010, including four times as mayor. He was elected again to the council in November 2020. Serving on the council in the same city his kids were raised in has been “unforgettable,” Simonian said, and something he is extremely proud of. “I was not the No. 1 candidate when I was selected in 1998, but I offered the council solutions to the problems they were having,” Simonian said ..read more

By PAUL ANDERSON SANTA ANA — A 34-year-old man was sentenced Friday to 15 years to life in prison for an alcohol-fueled crash in La Habra that killed a 24- year-old man who was driving home from his girlfriend’s house. Scott Seiji Hisaka was convicted Dec. 4 of second-degree murder for the Sept. 20, 2018, crash that killed Jacob Eddy Farrand. “Losing my son, Jacob, in such a horrific manner was the most devastating thing in my life,” the victim’s mother, Nancy, said in a victim impact statement read in court Friday. Farrand’s mother said she has been in therapy since her son’s death and remain ..read more