Californians show strong support for strict gun control measures

Californians are overwhelmingly in favor of strict gun control measures that impose background checks for all gun purchases and toughen penalties for illegally purchasing or using a gun, as well as enhancing efforts to keep guns away from the severely mentally ill, a new poll has found.

Sweeping majorities of California voters backed a proposed federal ban on the sale of assault weapons. They also backed state proposals to prohibit the possession of large-capacity magazines, background checks for the purchase of ammunition and a requirement that all gun owners be registered, licensed and insured, according to the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll.

The findings often cut across demographic and political lines: Nine of ten gun owners and slightly more among non-owners favored background checks for all gun purchases. Eighty-seven percent of conservatives shared that position, along with 96% of liberals.

But even in a state that is home to some of the nation's strictest gun-control laws, voters were more closely divided over some measures now being considered by state lawmakers. Those included whether to enact a five-cent tax on every bullet or allow schools to hire armed guards. One measure was a clear loser, as two-thirds opposed arming teachers in order to protect their students.

"Everybody agrees on keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people — criminals and the mentally ill — and on punitive measures against criminal enterprises. Those are no-brainers," said Drew Lieberman of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, a Democratic polling firm that conducted the survey with the Republican polling company American Viewpoint.

But "when you get to the some of the more … nanny-state-type proposals, you've got a little bit of a difference there."

The findings come three months after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., reignited the gun debate. President Obama set gun control measures as a priority at the start of his second term; the Senate and House have been tussling over whether the federal government should take steps to protect citizens from gun violence or to minimize restrictions on gun owners.

Legislation including an assault-weapons ban championed by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, but on Monday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided to exclude the ban and move ahead with legislation focused on more popular elements, such as improving school safety. Expanded background checks and harsher penalties for gun trafficking also are among the proposals that could be voted on in the Senate next month.

In California, legislators are working on a parallel track with a host of other gun control proposals. Among them are the bullet tax, heightened protections for schools and the registration, insuring and licensing of all gun owners. The state already bans assault weapons, has imposed universal background checks and limits the size of ammunition magazines for sale.

Besides the background checks, voters expressed strong support for increasing the penalties for committing a crime with a gun (87%) and increasing the punishment for illegally buying, selling or possessing a gun (85%). Republicans overwhelmingly joined Democrats in supporting both.

Harold Goss, a Republican from Hemet who owns a hunting rifle and a .22-caliber firearm, adamantly supports the right of Americans to own guns. But he also strongly backs background checks and bans on the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

"I believe everyone should have a gun to protect their house and protect their family," he said. "But it doesn't need to be an extreme thing."

Criminals have excessive access to firearms, the 37-year-old said, and no civilian needs to own certain weapons.

"High-capacity magazines, a lot of rounds, it's uncalled for," he said.

Still, Californians seemed divided when matters turned more theoretical. Asked about the role of government in regulating guns, 45% said "common-sense" reforms were necessary, while 46% said the government should better enforce existing laws.

But when asked which deserved more protection — people, from gun violence, or Americans' right to own guns — the gap grew. Just over half said it was more important to protect people from gun violence than to fully protect gun owners, compared to 37% who held the opposite view.

And the positions on specific policy proposals were distinct. Nearly four in five Californians supported requiring a thumbprint and identification to purchase ammunition, including two-thirds of gun owners. The proposal to require gun owners to be registered, licensed and insured won the support of 71%, including half of gun owners.

The proposed federal assault-weapons ban was supported by 62% of voters and a ban on magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds won the support of 58%. Gun owners were split about the assault-weapons ban, and just over half opposed the restriction on high-capacity magazines.

John Swenson, 65, is a gun owner who supports mandatory background checks but opposes both bans as "an infringement on the 2nd Amendment."

"Citizens should have access to guns if they pass background checks," said the retired auto mechanic who lives in Sonora, about 60 miles east of Stockton.

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In Jerusalem, Obama honors Holocaust victims

JERUSALEM -- President Obama paid tribute to the victims of the Holocaust in a solemn visit Friday to the national Yad Vashem memorial, drawing lessons for today from that dark period in history.

Standing beside a memorial to the children who perished, Obama said the lives memorialized at Yad Vashem should inspire people to resist racism, bigotry and hatred wherever they encounter it.

"Here we learn that we are never powerless," Obama told a small gathering on a mount overlooking Jerusalem. "In our lives we have choices, to succumb to our worst instincts or to summon the better angels of our nature. … We have a choice to acquiesce to evil or make real our solemn vow -- never again."

After he spoke, a survivor of the Buchenwald concentration camp offered a comparison between the Nazi genocide of the Jews and the looming Iranian nuclear threat, suggesting that Obama must help protect the Jewish people.

PHOTOS: President Obama's first trip to Isael

Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, told Obama and his entourage about a Buchenwald liberator who sought him out 68 years after the war and asked his forgiveness "for being late."

"Don't be too late," Lau then said to Obama, clearly alluding to discussions between Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about how close Iran is to developing a nuclear weapon and when diplomacy should give way to military action.

As Lau spoke, Obama smiled and nodded.

With his first presidential visit to Israel, Obama tried to quell concerns about his commitment to the Jewish state and its historic ties to the land of Israel.

After spending two days spelling it out in public remarks and in symbolic acts, Obama on Friday morning laid a stone at the grave of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, fulfilling a top request of his Israeli hosts.

After visiting Yad Vashem (literally, "a memorial and a name"), Obama had a working lunch with Netanyahu.

Afterward, he was to tour the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, then depart for Jordan. He returns to Washington on Saturday.

christi.parsons@latimes.com

Twitter: @cparsons

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Four Obama veterans quit Greuel campaign

In a sign of turmoil in Wendy Greuel's campaign for Los Angeles mayor, her field director and three others resigned this week after an abrupt shift in strategy to turn out supporters in the May runoff against Eric Garcetti.

All four of those who quit were veterans of the high-tech operation used in President Obama's reelection campaign. They specialize in mining data to target likely supporters and persuade them to vote, a crucial task in close, low-turnout elections.

In a statement Friday, Greuel said she was expanding her field team by hiring consultant Sue Burnside, who worked on her previous City Council and controller campaigns. She did not mention the departure of the former Obama operatives: field director Stacy Cohen, data director Joe Kavanagh and regional field directors Maya Hutchinson and Marisa Kanof.

"After a strong campaign operation in the primary, we are taking our field program to the next level and expanding citywide," Greuel said. Her campaign did not respond to email and voice mail requests for comment on the resignations.

Strong field operations take months to assemble and refine. It is unusual to replace the leaders of a field team in the final weeks before an election.

Parke Skelton, a campaign strategist who is unaligned in the mayor's race, described the changes in Greuel's campaign as "extraordinary."

"To adopt a new field strategy two months out seems like a recipe for dysfunction to me," he said. "The mistake may have been in assuming that the kind of massive volunteer operation that you saw in the Obama campaign could be replicated in a municipal election in Los Angeles, where less than 20% of the voters care enough to vote."

Burnside, who did not return a call for comment, deploys teams of paid canvassers to call voters and visit them at their homes. Obama's operation was built around volunteers.

The departures of Cohen and the three others came as Greuel, the city controller, has struggled to project a consistent message on key issues, including how she would address rising pension and healthcare costs for the city workforce.

Cohen served as Obama's California field director. She oversaw a network of tens of thousands of volunteers who made millions of calls to voters in Ohio, Colorado, Nevada and other battleground states.

Greuel finished second to Garcetti, a city councilman, in the March 5 primary election.

Cohen said Greuel's get-out-the-vote operation in the primary "was very successful and very positive. I wish Wendy and everybody in the campaign the best of success with everything."

She added that Greuel's senior strategy team "wanted to do a different program that I couldn't provide for them." Kavanagh, who was the Obama campaign's California data director, said Greuel's advisors "decided to go with a different field strategy in the general election, and I resigned from the campaign since that didn't fit the strategy that I normally work in." He declined to elaborate, citing a confidentiality agreement with Greuel's campaign.

Obama's successful use of cutting-edge technology in building volunteer networks and gaining support through social media and targeted advertising put his 2008 and 2012 campaign operatives in high demand. Mary Jane Stevenson, the California director of Obama's reelection campaign, is co-founder of a group that plans to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars running an independent field operation for Garcetti.

michael.finnegan@latimes.com

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O.C. prosecutors clear Anaheim officer in fatal shooting

After a months-long investigation, Orange County prosecutors said Wednesday that they have cleared the Anaheim police officer who shot and killed a young man last summer — one in a string of officer-involved shootings that prompted a torrent of unrest in the county's largest city.

At a news conference Wednesday, prosecutors said Anaheim police Officer Nicholas Bennallack had reason to believe his life was in danger after cornering Manuel Diaz in an apartment complex courtyard on that July afternoon in an area known as a hotbed of gang activity.

"In such a scenario, one can have only a split-second to decide how to proceed," said Assistant Dist. Atty. Dan Wagner, who added that the evidence suggested that Bennallack "believed he was in imminent danger."

Prosecutors said the examination was "thorough," based on dozens of witness interviews, as well as forensic analysis and a review of the employment record of Bennallack and criminal history of Diaz, 25. In the report, prosecutors said Diaz was a gang member with a previous gun-possession conviction, and disclosed that investigators found a cellphone at the scene that had photographs of Diaz flashing gang signs and brandishing several handguns.

Dana Douglas, an attorney for the Diaz family, criticized the decision to not file charges, calling the findings "biased" and Bennallack — who had been investigated and cleared in another fatal shooting earlier in 2012 — "trigger-happy." Douglas also represents the family of the first man killed, Bernie Villegas, 36, whom authorities have described as an alleged drug dealer.

"They are on the same team," Douglas said of the district attorney's office and police. "Frankly, I could have written their report the day after the shooting."

She said she was given the report Wednesday and had shown it to the family, who were "in tears" as they learned of its findings. The family also disputes authorities' contention that Diaz was a gang member.

"This is like a rape case," Douglas said. "Let's blame the victim."

Prosecutors said Bennallack, a 5 1/2 -year department veteran, had been in the same alley — on Anna Drive in central Anaheim — weeks before when a suspected gang member was arrested on suspicion of possessing a handgun, which was in a holster on the man's front waistband. He also knew of the area's reputation as a gang stronghold.

About 4 p.m. on July 21, prosecutors said, Bennallack and his partner were patrolling the area in an unmarked police cruiser and spotted a parked car in the alley with several men around it.

Diaz stood on the passenger side of the car. He had a shaved head, wore baggy jeans and a loose-fitting T-shirt. Bennallack's partner, Officer Brett Heitmann, said he recognized Diaz and told investigators that he saw Diaz adjust something in his waistband. He said he believed that it could have been a weapon.

Heitmann said that as the officers got out of the car, Diaz ran away, with his hands holding on to the front of his waistband and his elbows sticking out. The officers, Heitmann said, yelled for him to stop, then chased Diaz from the alley to the apartment complex courtyard, where he was stopped by a wrought-iron fence.

In an interview with investigators, Bennallack said he feared that Diaz wasn't "attempting to get away from me so much as he is [attempting] to get to a point where he can kill me."

Bennallack said he saw Diaz, with his back to the officers, holding an object he thought was a gun. "At this time, I believed the suspect was attempting to turn and — to kill me...," he said. He said Diaz held the object with two hands, something another witness corroborated.

"As he began to turn, in fear for my life, I drew and fired my weapon two times," Bennallack said. "I did this to save my life, as well as my partner's life."

Heitmann said he heard Bennallack shout something that sounded like "Guhh!" Heitmann also pointed his gun at Diaz, with his finger on the trigger. He heard two or three gunshots in rapid succession. The officers handcuffed Diaz and began searching him and the nearby area for a weapon, but did not find one.

An autopsy showed Diaz died of two gunshot wounds: one to the buttocks and another to the head. According to a toxicology report, Diaz's blood showed the presence of methamphetamine, amphetamine, THC and a prescription medication used to prevent seizures.

rick.rojas@latimes.com

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Five years in, Fresh & Easy markets are a flop

British supermarket giant Tesco thought it had the Yanks all figured out.

Determined to crack the U.S. market, it dispatched executives to live with American families, peek into their refrigerators and trail them on trips to the grocery store. It boasted of revolutionizing how Americans shopped.

But slightly more than five years after it opened its first Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in California, Tesco is considering selling the money-losing chain and leaving the United States altogether.

An email sent to shoppers recently acknowledged that the grocer doesn't know "if Tesco will continue to own the company." The 200-store operation in California, Arizona and Nevada represents an estimated $2-billion flop: a $1-billion investment on top of about $1 billion in cumulative annual losses.

"Tesco's failure will rank as one of the biggest among food retailers in modern supermarket history," said Burt Flickinger III, managing director at retail consulting firm Strategic Resource Group in New York.

With headquarters in El Segundo, Fresh & Easy touted itself as a European version of the Trader Joe's chain, offering an assortment of groceries with an emphasis on fresh products to go. The plan was to slide into neighborhoods close to busy customers and win them over with convenience and tasty takeout meals. Stores were mobbed in the early days as curious customers rushed to check out the new kid in town.

But problems soon appeared.

Labor organizers targeted the non-union chain aggressively; shoppers often had to cross informational picket lines to get into the stores.

Fresh & Easy's cost-saving business model of using only self-service checkout aisles was a hard sell with some customers who missed the ease of having checkers ring up their purchases.

Then, in 2011, the California Legislature threw a wrench into the works by requiring grocers to keep at least one aisle manned by a checker if alcohol was being sold. The legislation was designed, supporters said, to keep teens from buying alcohol and to preserve supermarket clerk jobs. But Fresh & Easy contended the law was intended to pressure the company into recognizing a union and signing a labor contract.

Industry watchers say Tesco also dug itself into a hole by sinking millions into an 850,000-square-foot distribution center in Riverside County, which put enormous pressure on the chain to quickly expand.

In addition, Tesco failed to customize merchandise by neighborhood, which is why its British stores are so popular. Fresh & Easy offered a limited variety of packaged goods, didn't carry some well-known brands, was slow to restock popular items and often charged more for its private-label products than for name-brand counterparts, analysts said.

"They offered a uniform assortment in all their stores, meaning a store in upscale Scottsdale, Ariz., would have the same products as in Compton," said Jim Prevor, an industry analyst who is editor of the food retailing website Perishable Pundit.

Fresh & Easy spokesman Brendan Wonnacott declined to comment beyond noting that the company was focused on "delivering a great shopping trip for our customers." Tesco is still reviewing its American chain, he said, and will make an update in April as part of the company's full-year results.

Many customers say Fresh & Easy promised a lot and delivered little.

"It really felt like aliens that crash-landed here in their Tesco-mobile and didn't even look around to see what Americans liked," said Gerry Carr, 51, of Venice.

Carr, a longtime vegetarian, said he was annoyed to find few salad options and little choice in herbal teas. Shoppers can't inspect vegetables, or buy just one tomato or bell pepper, because produce is packed on trays and wrapped in cellophane. The self-checkout stands, which are common in Britain, also made him miss the human touch found at other supermarkets.

"They are teaching you their system, but you don't want to learn their system," said Carr, who shopped at Fresh & Easy several times before giving up on the chain.

Fresh & Easy underscores the pitfalls foreign companies with hefty muscles can face when trying to conquer the American market, analysts say. But it also highlights the folly of trying to capture market share by copying established chains such as the beloved Trader Joe's.

"The two were clearly similar, and their stores are often located near each other," Prevor said. "But there are only two concepts in the United States that are successful as small-format stores, and that is Trader Joe's and its corporate cousin, which is Aldi."

After checking out the first Fresh & Easy stores in Southern California, Joe Coulombe, the founder of the Trader Joe's chain, concluded the British newcomer was doomed. Coulombe had heard that Fresh & Easy was trying to mimic the homey warmth of Trader Joe's. What he saw, he said, was anything but.

"It did not resemble Trader Joe's in any way," recalled Coulombe, who in 1988 left the chain he envisioned as part gourmet purveyor and part discounter. The chain has a preternaturally friendly non-union workforce kept that way by generous pay and benefits. "I don't think their management had any idea of what Trader Joe's was all about."

Coulombe said he was puzzled by how badly Tesco misjudged what the market wanted.

"Somehow their research got it all wrong," said Coulombe, who no longer has any connection with the Trader's Joe's chain — it is owned by the Albrecht family in Germany, which also controls the discount grocery chain Aldi.

Tesco "spent two years doing market research, which I thought was admirable," Coulombe said, "but it wasn't translated into action."

Ultimately, Fresh & Easy didn't inspire much loyalty, although it did provoke some strong emotion in Frank Glaser, 79, of Rancho Palos Verdes.

After Fresh & Easy set up shop half a mile from his home, the retired aerospace executive said he worried that his normal neighborhood supermarkets would be hurt. So he and his friends launched an informal boycott of the new store.

"It's like a small town, and at Trader Joe's and also Ralphs, you meet your friends and you decide where to go to dinner together," Glaser said. "I don't know anybody that goes to Fresh & Easy."

shan.li@latimes.com

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The rumors are true: Perez Hilton really is kinder and gentler

The sleek man at the door bears no resemblance to the chubby pink-haired troublemaker whose snarky website made him as famous as the celebrities he loved to torment with nicknames like Sluttyienna (Sienna Miller), Potato Head (Rumer Willis) or Maniston (Jennifer Aniston).

Gone are the schlubby T-shirts and hoodies. A body-skimming gray sweater now conceals rock-hard abs. Gone, too, is the outlandish hair color, replaced by a slightly thinning curly brown mop. His Park LaBrea condo and its Pepto-Bismol-hued room are history. Home these days is a $2-million, five-bedroom Mediterranean retreat, dark and designerly, on the Westside.

But most striking is the way he's cradling a 2-week-old baby, a preemie who was born to a secret surrogate four weeks early. During a two-hour interview that involves a long bottle feeding and plenty of new dad tears, he never lets his fragile son out of his arms.

PHOTOS: Perez Hilton and son Mario

Perez Hilton, is that really you?

"I don't have to give people nasty nicknames anymore," the 34-year-old blogger said. "I don't have to say people are stupid, or people are fat, or people are ugly. I don't need to draw inappropriate things on photos or out people. I can still be sassy and fun and do my job."

There is a new calmness about Hilton, who was for years at the center of a self-created hurricane. Among the lawsuits, the online spats and the occasional punch in the face, Rolling Stone once said he had more beefs than the entire rap community combined.

His atrium-like entry offers a clue to his evolution. His last home was dominated by Hilton portraits sent by admirers. Here, a visitor is greeted by large white busts of Buddha, Jesus and Mary, Ganesh and Shiva floating against a dark wall with palm tree silhouettes.

"I wanted this to be my sacred space," said the single gay dad, who asked his designers for "spiritual-meets-Miami." Raised Catholic, he will forgo a traditional christening and instead host a blessing ceremony for the baby: "I'll have everybody write down little positive thoughts and intentions and well wishes and keep them all in a box of good energy in his room."

Cue the eye-roll emoticon from targets of the ambitious, Miami-born Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr., who became the blogger Hollywood loved to hate.

He says he started hating himself too: "I ended up becoming someone I didn't want to be."

And yet, at the thought of changing a formula that had brought unimagined financial rewards, he felt "almost paralyzed by fear."

PHOTOS: Celebrity portraits by The Times

Would his readers, who loved and loathed his mean-spirited takedowns of high-flying celebrities, turn away? "I'd been doing things a certain way for six years, and if all of a sudden I do a 180 on people, will they stop reading my website?" Hilton wondered.

Readership dipped briefly, but to his surprise, the change did not tarnish his brand. Young, college-educated women, his most avid fans, have continued to flock to him. More than 6.3 million people follow him on Twitter.

His original site, which remains his bread and butter, is one of the most visited on the Internet. His media empire also includes mostly snark-free websites devoted to pets (TeddyHilton), children (Perezitos), fashion (CocoPerez) and fitness (FitPerez).

"When you factor in tablet and mobile, he's nicely above where he was when he made his karma change," said Henry Copeland of BlogAds, a company that handles Hilton's advertising.

Where once he worked at a back table in a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Sunset Boulevard (for the free Wi-Fi), he now has an office and staff. He's co-written books, including a children's story about a boy with pink hair whose travails are redeemed by parental love. He appears every day on Carson Daly's radio show, and has his own syndicated radio show, "Perez Nights Live."

The cultural critic Lee Siegel, whose 2008 book, "Against the Machine," explored the social implications of the crudeness unleashed by the Internet, said Hilton's softening tone is in step with the times.

"Everyone is living in such economic terror," he said, "they have to be nice."

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Five of 6 ex-Bell council members found guilty in corruption trial

A Los Angeles jury convicted five of six former council members of stealing from the working-class city of Bell in a corruption scandal that became a national synonym for outrageous municipal salaries and rogue governance.

The verdict Wednesday came on the 18th day of deliberations — nearly as long as the trial itself — and left the jury still deadlocked on nearly half the counts. The judge ordered the jury to return to court Thursday, though it remains unclear if the panel will continue to deliberate on the undecided charges.

The day ended on a chaotic note, further evidence that the jury was deeply divided.

Hours after the verdicts were read, one juror told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy that he had misgivings about the deliberations. But Kennedy rejected a call by the defense to talk to the juror.

PHOTOS: Bell trial verdicts

"That's done. We're not going to reopen verdicts that have been reached," she said.

The verdicts were decidedly mixed, with the jury returning guilty verdicts and acquittals in even measure. One councilman, a pastor in the small city, was acquitted on all charges. He offered a prayer as the verdicts rolled in.

Former Bell City Administrator Robert Rizzo, who many believe was the mastermind of the corruption, and his assistant, Angela Spaccia, will be tried later this year.

Prosecutors charged the officials with misappropriating public funds by exceeding pay limits established in state law and the city's own charter. The prosecution had argued that the six defendants overpaid themselves by sitting on city boards and authorities that did little work and that council members in a city the size of Bell can only legally earn an annual salary of $8,076.

Defendants were acquitted on charges related to their pay from the Public Finance Authority but were convicted for money they received for sitting on the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority. That board was established in 2005 when the city already had an outside contractor for trash services. Prosecutors said the board rarely met and called it a "sham" to pad leaders' salaries.

The only defendant to win full acquittal was Luis Artiga, who faced 12 counts related to serving on phantom city boards between 2008 and 2010.

His attorney had stressed that Artiga was not appointed to the City Council until 2008, long after other members had voted to boost salaries.

Artiga, 52, wept and looked heavenward as the "not guilty" counts were read.

The judge said "Good health to you" and released Artiga, who had a reputation as the most affable and talkative of the defendants. Afterward, he thanked Jesus for delivering him from "these false allegations." He added: "I had said from the beginning that the truth will set me free and we know that Jesus said, 'I am the Truth and the Life.'"

Convicted on multiple felony counts were former council members Oscar Hernandez, 65, who ran a small grocery store; Victor Bello, 54, a former phone jack installer; George Cole, 63, a former steelworker; Teresa Jacobo, 60, who sold real estate; and George Mirabal, 65, who ran a funeral home.

It remained unclear what type of punishment the five will receive. Attorneys estimated the convicted defendants could face anything from probation to jail time of up to eight years.

A key issue is whether the jury reached verdicts on special so-called "taking" allegations brought by prosecutors. If convicted on those counts, the officials would be more likely to face prison terms.

Defendants were emotional, some teary-eyed, as they left the courtroom with their families, unsure of their final fates.

Prosecutors alleged the defendants drew pay for serving on four boards, boosting their salaries to nearly $100,000 a year, among the highest in the state for part-time council members. The defendants were accused of drawing more than $1.3 million of their salaries from the boards.

Defense attorneys maintained that their clients labored tirelessly for the community on nights and weekends and could receive additional compensation for work outside meetings.

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Verdicts are delivered, but Bell residents are eager to move on

When Los Angeles prosecutors filed charges against Bell officials in 2010, it inspired celebrations and rallies in the small working-class city.

At the time, anger over the allegations of widespread corruption burned hot. Many also were embarrassed Bell had become, literally, the answer to a "Jeopardy" question on public graft.

On Wednesday, when five former City Council members were convicted of misappropriating public funds, the reaction throughout Bell was mixed.

PHOTOS: Bell trial verdicts

For some, the verdict brought relief that all but one ex-politician on trial had been found guilty of something. Others were angry that the jury deadlocked on so many counts and found the defendants not guilty of some offenses.

But more than anything, residents wanted the world to know that Bell has changed since the days of those original embarrassing headlines. Reformers now hold office. And Bell was recently honored by a nonprofit government watchdog group for its openness with city records and salary data. They've come a long way, many in town insisted, from the days when former city administrator Robert Rizzo secretly earned more than $800,000 a year.

On Gage Avenue, one of Bell's main drags, Rosa Estela Martinez and her husband, Enrique, debated the verdict's meaning. The couple has run the Pacific Furniture store here for more than 35 years, and said they had been harassed by since-ousted city officials.

"Right now we're going to go dance in City Hall," said Rosa, 55, who proudly wears a City of Bell pin on her lapel. "When they first said guilty, I jumped with joy."

But her husband, 60, fumed.

"They should have been found guilty of all 10 charges, each and every one of them," he said, slashing the air with his right arm for emphasis. "They're disgraces."

Martinez called the ex-council members "puppets of Rizzo," but "well paid puppets" and expressed disgust that one of the former politicians, Luis Artiga, was cleared of all charges.

An industrial speck that withered with the closure of tire, auto and steel plants in the 1970s and 1980s, Bell hired a city administrator in 1993 who prosecutors said took advantage of its disengaged electorate.

Rizzo allegedly orchestrated exorbitant pay raises for himself and other city officials.

By 2010, Rizzo was making nearly $800,000, with a benefits package that brought his annual compensation to $1.5 million. His assistant, Angela Spaccia, was paid nearly $400,000 a year. They are scheduled to stand trial later this year.

The council members convicted Wednesday — Oscar Hernandez, Teresa Jacobo, George Mirabal, George Cole and Victor Bello — made nearly $100,000 a year in part-time positions that in most small cities paid less than $1,000 a month. So did Artiga, the only member of the "Bell Six" who escaped conviction.

Despite a four-week trial and 18 days of deliberations, as of mid-Wednesday, the jury remained undecided on about half the counts.

Behind the counter of Bell Discount Cigarettes, owner Vasgo Derparsghian said he felt relieved that the jury had come to a decision, even if it was incomplete. But he also felt it took far too long for this day to come.

"I'm tired of the case. I just want them to go to jail," said Derparsghian, 48, who watched Wednesday's proceedings on TV. "I don't know why it took such a long time, man. Two and a half years, come on, man."

Derparsghian said he was once so afraid of going to Bell City Hall that his brother told him to move.

"They were very rude and intimidating, man. I was shaking in my boots," he said. "I was scared for my life, I swear to God."

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Harry Reems dies at 65; porn actor starred in 'Deep Throat'

Harry Reems, who starred with Linda Lovelace in the 1972 pornographic film "Deep Throat" and became a cause celebre in Hollywood after he was convicted on federal obscenity charges related to the movie, has died. He was 65.

Reems, who had pancreatic cancer and other ailments, died Tuesday at a Salt Lake City veterans hospital. His death was confirmed by the Veterans Affairs Salt Lake City Healthcare System.

He arrived on the Miami set of "Deep Throat" as the lighting director but when the man hired to portray the doctor in the film failed to show up, director Gerard Damiano said: "Put on this coat; you're acting," Reems told The Times in 2005.

At first he enjoyed the celebrity that accompanied starring in one of the most successful pornographic films of all time.

"You could call me the Shirley Temple" of adult films, Reems told an interviewer when "Deep Throat" was released. "Take an X film and make it an R because I have a PG body."

That changed in 1974 when he was charged along with 10 others with conspiring to distribute "Deep Throat" across state lines.

It marked the first time that the federal government had tried to charge an actor for the results of a film's distribution.

After he was convicted in 1976, The Times ran an editorial in defense of Reems under the headline "The Anti-Freedom Conspiracy" and pointed out that noted constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz had volunteered to handle Reems' legal appeal.

"If this conviction stands, no actor and no writer anywhere in the country will be safe from prosecution," Dershowitz said, according to the editorial.

Hollywood's A-list also took note. Celebrities such as Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty and Gregory Peck helped raise funds to pay Reems' legal bills.

Reems was granted a new trial but the charges were eventually dropped.

The damage to his personal life had been done. While waiting to go on trial, "the heavy drinking began in Memphis," Reems said in 2005 in The Times, and he became a "2-quart-a-day vodka drinker" who at one time lived "in the back of an Albertsons' dumpster in Malibu."

He didn't stop drinking until the late 1980s, when he ended up in Park City, Utah, and entered a 12-step alcohol recovery program.

Once sober, he sold real estate. Reems also turned toward religion.

"I put God in first position, not me," Reems told Utah's Deseret Morning News in 2006, "because anything I had ever done almost killed me."

The son of a small-time bookie and a housewife, he was born Herbert Streicher on Aug. 27, 1947, in New York City. At 18, he joined the Marines but received a hardship leave when his father became terminally ill.

Returning to New York in 1967, he acted in experimental and Off-Off-Broadway productions but turned to adult films when he couldn't pay his bills, according to a 2011 New York magazine article titled "The Afterlife of a Porn Star."

He went on to appear in more than 100 hard-core films that included 1973's "The Devil in Miss Jones." Reems also was interviewed in the 2005 documentary "Inside Deep Throat."

In the late 1970s, he moved to Los Angeles and secured a role as a coach in "Grease" but was let go because filmmakers feared his notoriety would jeopardize the box office in the South, according to the New York profile.

"Acting was my true love," Reems told the magazine, "and I buried that possibility by going into adult films."

Survivors include his wife, Jeanne, whom he married in 1990, and a brother.

news.obits@latimes.com

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Syrians trade accusations of chemical attack

Syria's government and rebels traded accusations of a chemical attack Tuesday on a northern village near Aleppo. However a U.S. official said there was no evidence of any such attack.

The regime, whose allegation was backed by ally Russia, said 25 people were killed.

The reports could not be independently verified because of tight media restrictions, particularly in government-controlled areas which are virtually shut to all foreign media and outside observers.

But if confirmed, it would be the first known use of chemical weapons in the 2-year-old civil war and a glimpse of one of the nightmare scenarios for this conflict.

One of the international community's top concerns since fighting began is that Syria's vast arsenal of chemical weapons could be used by one side or the other or could fall into the hands of foreign jihadist fighters among the rebels or the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is allied with the regime.

The accusations emerged only a few hours after the opposition to President Bashar Assad elected a prime minister to head an interim government that would rule areas seized by rebel forces from the regime.

The Syrian regime said at least 25 people were killed and 86 wounded, some in critical condition, in the missile attack on the village of Khan al-Assal near the city of Aleppo.

State-run news agency SANA published pictures showing casualties, including children, on stretchers in what appears to be a hospital ward. None showed signs of physical injuries.

Information Minister Omran Zoubi called it the "first act" of the newly announced opposition interim government.

Rebels quickly denied the report and accused regime forces of firing the chemical weapon.

The head of Syria's main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, said the group was still investigating the alleged chemical attack near Aleppo.

"Everyone who used it, we are against him, whatever he is," Mouaz Khatib told reporters in English in Istanbul. "We are against killing civilians using chemical weapons, but let us wait some time to have accurate information."

The regime has not said that rebels have been able to seize any chemical weapons "so we assume that the opposition does not possess such weapons," said Mustafa Alani, an analyst with the Gulf Research center in Geneva.

"I would not rule out that the military would use chemical weapons and try to pin it on the rebels," Alani said.

"The only strategy that this regime has been left with is character assassination of the opposition and blame the rebels for all the bad things that are happening in the country."

Syria's policy has been not to confirm or deny if it has chemical weapons. But in July, then-Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi told a news conference that Syria would only use chemical or biological weapons in case of foreign attack, not against its own people.

The ministry then tried to blur the issue, saying it had never acknowledged having such weapons.

But the regime is believed to possess nerve agents as well as mustard gas. It also possesses Scud missiles capable of delivering them, and some activists said Tuesday's attack was with a Scud missile.

The minister al-Zoubi said the missile containing "poisonous gases" was fired from Nairab district in Aleppo into Khan al-Assal.

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