A Florida septuagenarian accused of driving a golf cart to a local bank while under the influence of alcohol had her driver’s license suspended as a part of her ordered probation.
70-year-old Janis Withrow Kampka lives in the Glenbrook neighborhood in The Villages.
In the afternoon on July 23, Kampka allegedly drove a golf cart to Citizens First Bank at Southern Trace Plaza.
The manager of the Chicago White Sox was facing charges for DUI, but he agreed to plead guilty to a deal for a lesser charge.
Tony La Russa is the current manager of the Chicago White Sox Major League Baseball team. La Russa was also the former manager for the team between 1979 and 1986, and he was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
76-year-old La Russa was in Arizona in February, and he was arrested and accused of two counts of class 1 misdemeanor driving under the influence of intoxicants.
A Florida woman with dementia spent nearly a week in jail after police found the septuagenarian wandering blocks from her nursing home and reportedly discovered she had a warrant out for her arrest from 10 years ago.
74-year-old Gwen Donahue resides in a Dade County nursing home, and her daughter reported that the woman suffers from physical and mental health deterioration.
On September 30, Donahue strayed away from the home, causing the belief that the woman had gotten lost while wandering the streets.
A 10-year-old boy was prosecuted for a felony after he and his friend pointed unarmed Nerf guns at a passing vehicle and the driver alerted the authorities.
Gavin Carpenter lives with his parents at an Army post in Colorado Springs while his father finishes the final two-and-a-half months of his duty in the state.
At the end of last July, Gavin and one of his friends were spending time together at Gavin’s grandparent’s house and they decided they would go outside with Nerf guns and act out the popular video game Fortnite.
A man who won a gold medal for boxing in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles has been arrested and charged for allegations that he molested a young girl who was receiving instruction at a boxing club where he worked as a head coach.
Light flyweight division boxer Paul Gonzales, the first gold medal winning Mexican-American who was locally dubbed “prince of the barrio,” has been employed at the LA County Parks and Recreation Department’s Eddie Heredia Boxing Club as a head coach for youngsters for the past 10 years. Gonzales has worked with children age 8 and above who were enrolled in the programs. The 53-year-old has also been awarded with a community service award from the World Boxing Council for his personal contributions.
At some point in the last year Gonzales reportedly met a 13-year-old girl who was enrolled at the club in an after school program. It is believed that he cultivated a relationship with her that led to molestation said to have taken place over a three month period beginning in early May.
In 2009, singer Chris Brown pled guilty in California to felony assault charges against Rihanna, a singer who was his girlfriend at that time. As part of his criminal sentencing, he was ordered to serve probation for a term of five years in his home state of Virginia and complete six months of community service. According to his log, he has accumulated over 1400 hours of service, ranging from picking up trash to washing police cars and fire trucks.
I was in Bellflower Superior Court yesterday when a 30-something year old woman was taken into custody for failure to complete her batterer’s treatment program or anger-management classes. The public defender tried earnestly to appeal to the judge’s sympathies, explaining that the girl had suffered a pulmonary embolism and had not been working, so she couldn’t afford to pay for the classes. Yikes! A pulmonary embolism? People die from that! The woman did look healthy, but that certainly seemed like a reasonable excuse for being behind in court-ordered classes. The judge took a moment, flipped through the court file and finally said “if she wants to admit her probation violation, I’ll give her 120 days in jail.” 120 DAYS??? The injustice! How could the judge be so unforgiving? I mentally rallied to the girl’s side, until the judge sighed “counsel- she’s had FIVE years to get these classes done.” The woman took the 120 days.
This scenario is not uncommon. Walk into any Orange County criminal courtroom and you will undoubtedly see either someone with an excuse for having not performed some court-ordered obligation or being taken into custody for not performing some court-ordered obligation. This is a look at the most common (and most frustrating) excuses that judges and lawyers or attorneys hear and an explanation as to why they often fall on deaf ears.
The Orange County Criminal Lawyer Blog