The frantic 911 call to the El Monte Police Department was made shortly before 5 p.m. on June 14, 2022, by Maria Zepeda, who reported that her daughter had been stabbed by her husband, Justin Flores, at the Siesta Inn, where they had been staying.

During the 7-minute, 20-second call, Zepeda repeatedly told dispatcher Ruth Bonneau that Flores had a recent history of violence against her daughter, was under the influence of PCP and methamphetamine and was armed and dangerous.

“He’s on PCP. He has a gun!” Zepeda told Bonneau during the call.

Lost in translation

That information, however, was not communicated over the radio by Kristen Jauregui, a veteran dispatcher who deployed officers to the Siesta Inn.

“Mother is RP (reporting party). She is en route from La Puente in a black Hyundai, advising her daughter, Diana Flores Cruz, 44 years, called a second RP advising that she was stabbed by her boyfriend, Justin Flores, male, 33,” Jauregui said during her dispatch. She further stated that Flores and his wife were possibly in Room 103 and that it was unknown if the two were still at the location.

The call terminated, and there was no follow-up radio communication from Jauregui to Officer Joseph Santana, Cpl. Michael Paredes and Sgt. Eric Sanchez, the three who responded to the call.

Flores ambushed the officers when they confronted him inside the motel room, brandishing a gun and fatally shooting Paredes and Santana and wounding Sanchez in a shootout before killing himself with Paredes’ gun, which Flores had seized when the officer was down.

Family briefed

At the request of the family, Detective Amber Montenegro, a lead investigator in the case, met with Santana’s sister, Jessica Santana, and three unnamed El Monte police officers nearly a year-and-a-half later. During that session on Dec. 11, 2023, at the Los Angeles County sheriff’s homicide bureau in Monterey Park, Montenegro played the recording of the 911 call.

While the detective confirmed Jauregui did not inform officers over the radio that Flores possibly had a gun and was on drugs, the information was typed into the computer-aided dispatch system and visible to the responding officers on the computer terminals in their patrol vehicles.

“They definitely had all the information in their boxes before they arrived, so they were able to look at the call and review it,” Montenegro said during the briefing, a recording of which was obtained by the Southern California News Group.

Nevertheless, Jessica Santana and the officers present questioned Jauregui’s actions.

“We rely a lot on dispatch, and I understand we’re busy, but they need to tell the cops everything,” one of the officers said during the meeting.

Related story: Relatives march to El Monte Police Department, demand firing of dispatcher

Jessica Santana was the most critical.

“I don’t understand. I understand how they protect the community and stuff, but how do you guys stay safe when there’s dispatchers here that could have potentially saved their lives?” she said. “That’s just what gets me, because my brother would still be here.”

Montenegro countered by noting that the responding officers had plenty of time to review their computer terminals after arriving at the motel.

“It’s not like they got there and things were happening dynamically, right? They weren’t running in there,” Montenegro said. Prior to the shooting, she explained, the officers stood outside for a few minutes discussing a similar domestic violence call to the same motel they received a week earlier involving Flores and his wife. The two, however, were not there when officers arrived.

“You can’t put any of this all on one person,” Montenegro said.

Santana responded, saying: “It’s just I feel if they would have voiced it, it would have been different.”

Expert weighs in

Tony Harrison, who trains police dispatchers and is president of the North Carolina-based The Public Safety Group, said the information about Flores having a gun and being on drugs should have been communicated to the responding officers immediately.

“It’s important to relay all pertinent officer safety information when possible. And a perpetrator being on drugs and having a gun is certainly at the top of the list. One-hundred percent undeniable,” Harrison said in a telephone interview.

He said dispatchers cannot always rely on officers seeing information relayed via their CAD terminals.

“If I’m driving 80 miles per hour to a stabbing scene, I’m not reading my computer. That’s not safe to do,” Harrison said. “I’m relying on the dispatcher to provide those updates in a timely fashion. The part of (Flores) being on PCP and carrying a gun needs to be verbally dispatched.”

Such information allows responding officers to plan accordingly and determine a tactical approach, he said.

“Do I exit my vehicle with a rifle? Do I wait for a second unit to arrive — a third or a fourth unit to arrive? Do we make a more tactical approach instead of being a little more nonchalant and walking in?” Harrison said.

How the shootout unfolded

During her briefing, Montenegro gave a play-by-play of how the shooting unfolded.

Santana, Sanchez and Paredes stood outside Room 103. Santana knocked for several minutes, telling Cruz to open the door. Flores kept telling Santana they were getting dressed and to “hold on.”

When the door was finally opened, Flores was in his underwear holding a pair of pants. What the officers did not know was that Flores was concealing a gun, stolen out of a police car in North Carolina, behind his pants, Montenegro said.

When Santana holstered his gun to detain Flores, Flores brandished the gun and a struggle ensued between the two. Sanchez ran out of the room and took cover. Paredes was standing at the door. Flores fired off two shots.

“He just fired two shots … and at least one of them hit Paredes dead center in the head, and he went down immediately,” Montenegro said.

Seven seconds later, Flores fired several more shots, hitting Santana in the head, arm and leg, Montenegro said.

For an undisclosed reason, Flores then seized Paredes gun, which was laying on the floor next to his body, and used it to shoot Paredes a second time in the head. Then he engaged in a shootout with Sanchez, who by that time had already called for backup on his radio, Montenegro said.

Flores and his wife “ran around the corner,” said Montenegro, but not before Sanchez shot Flores in the femoral artery and mortally wounded him.

“So the suspect was dead pretty quickly, he just didn’t realize it with all the drugs he was on,” Montenegro said.

Flores fell to the ground, rolled over and continued shooting at Sanchez as other officers started arriving. Sanchez suffered a through-and-through wound in his foot.

At 5:10 p.m., Flores killed himself with Paredes’ gun, Montenegro said.

Montenegro said toxicology tests later revealed Flores had PCP, methamphetamine and marijuana in his system. She also said they were pursuing criminal charges against Flores’ wife for her alleged culpability in the crime — for not being honest with officers and not telling them her husband had a gun.

“The DA is considering them (criminal charges), but it doesn’t look promising,” Montenegro said.

Systemic failures

Montenegro also noted during her briefing the multiple contacts Flores had with law enforcement in the months prior to the shooting. According to Flores’ wife, she said, Flores began using PCP — a hallucinogen known to cause violent behavior — in March 2022 after his cousin died and that the drug “changed his personality.”

“He started beating her and just started going a little bit more crazy than normal,” Montenegro said.

On March 14, 2022, Flores was arrested by sheriff’s deputies in the City of Industry for having a loaded gun in his glove department. At the time, he was on probation for another gun offense.

Flores subsequently was charged for being a felon in possession of a firearm not registered to him and being in possession of a controlled substance with a loaded firearm. He posted bail and was subsequently granted probation even though he was an admitted gang member, Montenegro said.

Two months later, Flores was arrested in West Covina in a fraud case, Montenegro said.

In May 2022, Flores’ parents called police to report their son was acting erratically, yelling at passing vehicles and talking to himself, and that family members were holding him down on their front lawn. Flores was taken to a hospital on a psychiatric hold and later released, Montenegro said.

During her 911 call, Zepeda told Bonneau that the week prior, Flores had choked her daughter and left her for dead in Pico Rivera and that police had a report of the incident. And only three days prior, Flores showed up at her home with a gun. She said police came to her home and a police helicopter was even deployed.

And though Zepeda reported on the 911 call that her daughter had been stabbed, police later learned her injuries were minor.

“It was very superficial,” Montenegro said. “But mom did not know that when she called.”

Criminal justice failures

Some of the justice system’s failures regarding Flores were detailed in a scathing report by the Los Angeles County Office of Inspector General released in August 2023.

The OIG determined, among other things, that the county Probation Department failed to properly monitor Flores and act on pertinent information regarding allegations of domestic violence, gun possession and illegal drug use, and failed to alert local law enforcement that Flores may be armed with a gun and dangerous.

Flores had three outstanding warrants for his arrest, two from San Bernardino County and one from Los Angeles County, at the time of the shooting, and the Probation Department did not run a warrant check on Flores until just days before the shooting, when Flores missed his final appointment, according to the OIG report.

Police chief responds

El Monte Police Chief Jake Fisher said he stands by the actions of his dispatchers and officers.

“The El Monte Police Department continues to mourn the loss of our officers, Sergeant Michael Paredes and Officer Joseph Santana,” Fisher said in a statement. “Together we are moving forward as we collectively continue to grieve and recover from the horrific event.”

Fisher said his department is actively working with the Sheriff’s Department and the District Attorney’s Office in completing the final steps in the investigation.

Sheriff’s and district attorney investigators have interviewed all relevant witnesses, reviewed all police camera footage, CAD reports, call logs and have “found no wrongdoing by our police officers or civilian personnel,” Fisher said.

“We fully anticipate this finding to hold and that our DA will officially clear all involved officers and close the investigation,” Fisher said.

Dispatcher still on leave

Jauregui, a police dispatcher of more than 20 years and the daughter of retired El Monte Police Chief Tom Armstrong, declined to comment for this story. She hosts a podcast called 911 Strong, has modeled for Recoil, a firearm lifestyle magazine, and has been profiled in other publications.

Although city officials would not provide information on Jauregui’s employment background and current job status, officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said she is still employed at the department but has been on paid leave for the past several months. Sanchez also was reported to be on leave.

On Monday, Jauregui’s website hinted she was no longer actively working as a dispatcher.

“As a dispatcher for over two decades, Kristen Jauregui has seen and heard a lot, which brought on unexpected compassion fatigue & burnout. She didn’t want to leave the force, but she knew something had to change, so she turned to physical fitness and personal development mindset work,” the website said.

By Friday, several days after a reporter reached out to her, the website had been taken down.

National restaurant chain The Cheesecake Factory and some of its contractors have paid $1 million to settle a major California wage theft case, in which state labor officials accused the companies of stiffing hundreds of janitors of overtime pay and breaks.

Janitors at eight Cheesecake Factory restaurants in Orange and San Diego counties were forced to work as many as 10 extra hours a week without being paid overtime, the state’s Labor Commissioner’s Office said in a 2018 citation.

Also see: At Southern California Cheesecake Factories, 559 janitors were cheated out of $4.57 million in wages, labor commissioner charges

“When we were working long nights cleaning the kitchen and the dining room of the restaurant, we knew the employer and the restaurant owner were taking advantage of us,” Naxhili Perez, one of the former San Diego janitors, said in a press release.

The state’s Labor Commissioner’s Office planned to formally announce the settlement and hand out checks to former workers at an event in San Diego on Tuesday. The office is now hoping to get the attention of other ex-employees who may qualify for a payout for unpaid work they did between 2014 and 2017.

The agreement, reached last fall, marks a long-delayed resolution in one of the state’s most significant cases alleging wage theft. To persuade workers to cooperate with the state, the Labor Commissioner’s Office worked with the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, a workers’ advocacy center that employs former janitors to investigate conditions in the industry.

Such partnerships are one of the state’s recent strategies to bring wage theft cases against large employers in the hopes of sending a message across their industries. The trust fund’s director at the time of the citations, Lilia García-Brower, is now the state’s labor commissioner.

And the citations were one of the office’s first uses of a 2015 law that holds companies that hire janitorial contractors jointly responsible for workplace violations.

Also see: 3 Thai restaurants in Los Angeles area cited for more than $1 million in wage theft

For years, workers’ advocates have complained that with the rise of contracting and subcontracting in the janitorial industry, it was easy for smaller employers to close up shop, declare bankruptcy or change names when accused of wage theft, while building owners or other companies that hired them escaped liability.

In the Cheesecake Factory case, the company contracted with the national Americlean Janitorial Services Corp. to clean its restaurants. Americlean in turn subcontracted the work in the eight southern California locations to a cleaning company called Magic Touch, according to the state.

Though Magic Touch directly hired the janitors, the state said in 2018 that Cheesecake Factory managers kept workers from going home at the end of their eight-hour, overnight shifts. The managers would inspect the restaurants and assign additional tasks to the janitors before they were allowed to leave, without paying overtime, the labor commissioner said. 

During the state’s investigation, Magic Touch changed its name, but the state said both businesses were liable for back pay. Owner Zulma Villegas filed for bankruptcy in 2021.

Villegas’ attorney Roxana Verano, reached by phone today, declined to comment on her client’s behalf. An attorney for Americlean did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the end, The Cheesecake Factory agreed to pay the bulk of the settlement — $750,000 — while the rest was split between Villegas and Americlean, according to the agreement.

As part of the settlement, none of the companies admitted fault. But both Villegas and Americlean will provide a written apology to workers. Villegas’ apology, included in the settlement, states she “did not fulfill my obligations under the law as an employer, some of which were out of my control,” while Americlean notes it “could have overseen Magic Touch better” and said it no longer provides cleaning services to the restaurant chain.

For the next two years, the restaurant chain has agreed to require any contractors bidding to provide janitorial services at its California restaurants to disclose whether the state has ever found them liable for wage theft. It will also require its current and future California contractors to provide their janitors information on labor laws in English and Spanish, and submit to audits if workers have future complaints, according to the settlement. But the agreement says the apology by Villegas and Americlean won’t be distributed at any Cheesecake Factory restaurants.

A spokesperson for The Cheesecake Factory did not immediately respond to written questions this afternoon.

“It’s a message to all brand names out there,” Yardenna Aaron, executive director of the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, a janitorial workers’ advocacy group, said in a press release. “If you don’t ensure your contractors comply with laws protecting workers, there are very real consequences.”

But the case also shows the hurdles for enforcing California’s strict labor laws in low-wage industries employing mostly immigrant workers.

When the state cited the companies in 2018, it calculated the total amount in unpaid wages and damages owed to more than 500 workers to be nearly $4 million.

The Cheesecake Factory and its contractors appealed, which is common for employers in such citations. For the next two years, the proceedings became mired in evidentiary disputes and scheduling conflicts, appeals documents previously obtained by CalMatters show.

Then the pandemic hit, and the appeal was put on hold until January 2021. Settlement talks were underway by August 2022 and the agreement was signed in September 2023 — for only one-fourth of the initial citation amount.

Now, the state and the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund are looking for the company’s former janitors to receive payments for unpaid work they did as long as nine years ago. They’re in touch with about 60 former workers, the trust fund said in a press release, but believe about 500 more may be eligible.

Janitors who worked at Cheesecake Factory restaurants in Brea, Irvine, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Mission Viejo, Escondido and San Diego between Aug. 31, 2014 and Aug. 31, 2017 are asked to call 619-213-5260.

The settlement stems from an investigation that began in 2016 regarding alleged wage and hour violations at Cheesecake Factory restaurants in San Diego County.

The janitors were employed by companies that were contracted and subcontracted by the restaurant chain, according to the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, a statewide watchdog group that investigates allegations of law violations in the workplace.

MCTF said the state Labor Commissioner’s Office found workers were often logging up to 10 hours of unpaid overtime every week, with some failing get proper meal or rest breaks.

Representatives with The Cheesecake Factory could not be reached for comment.

Naxhili Perez, who previously worked at a Cheesecake Factory restaurant in San Diego, said businesses sometimes think they can hire a contractor and avoid responsibility — but that’s not the case.

“If the law is being broken inside your company, you are responsible,” Perez said in a statement. “Now the Cheesecake Factory understands there are no shortcuts when it comes to workers’ rights.”

Cheesecake Factory restaurants targeted in the investigation:

120 Brea Mall, Brea

600 Spectrum Center Drive, Irvine

7871 Edinger Ave., Huntington Beach

1141 Newport Center Dr., Newport Beach

42 The Shops At Mission Viejo, Mission Viejo

7067 Friars Road, San Diego

789 W. Harbor Dr. C-1, San Diego

200 E. Via Rancho Pkwy Suite 370, Escondido

Janitors who worked at those locations between Aug. 31, 2014 and Aug. 31, 2017 are advised to call the Labor Commissioner’s Office at 619-767-2039 because they may be entitled to wages and damages as part of the settlement.

“This settlement is a result of our effort to use enforcement tools which increase compliance, levels the playing field and recovers owed wages for workers,” California Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower said in a statement.

California strengthened its laws to remove loopholes that allowed businesses to subcontract services and avoid responsibility to ensure workers are paid what they are owed, she said.

Boeing Co. was sued by passengers on an Alaska Airlines Inc. flight that was forced to make an emergency landing in Portland, Oregon, last week after a mid-air blowout of a so-called door plug on the 737 Max 9 jet.

The suit, filed Thursday in Washington state court by seven passengers, seeks class-action status and unspecified damages from Boeing, which manufactured the plane. The 171 passengers and six crew on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 experienced physical injuries and emotional trauma from the accident on Jan. 5, according to the complaint.

Also see: Alaska Airlines again grounds all Boeing 737 Max 9 jetliners as more maintenance may be needed

“The pressure change made ears bleed and combined with low oxygen, loud wind noise and traumatic stress made heads ache severely,” lawyers for the plaintiffs said in the suit. “Passengers were shocked, terrorized and confused, thrust into a waking nightmare, hoping they would live long enough to walk the earth again.”

Boeing is facing scrutiny from US regulators, who have opened a formal investigation into the company’s aircraft operations following the incident. Chief Executive Officer Dave Calhoun said “a quality escape” compromised the safety of jet, but the company is still trying to understand exactly what went wrong.

Boeing declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Also see: Boeing’s mid-flight blowout is latest in series of quality lapses on 737 Max plane

Alaska Airlines took delivery of the Max 9 jet from Boeing around Nov. 11, according to the complaint. Since the blowout on Flight 1282, inspections found some bolts that secure door plugs on similar Max 9 planes owned by Alaska Airlines and United Airlines were loose.

Passengers on Flight 1282 said they experienced a “sudden loud explosive noise” before the left door plug shot off the aircraft. The cabin “suddenly and violently depressurized,” according to the suit.

“The force of the depressurization ripped the shirt off a boy, and sucked cell phones, other debris, and much of the oxygen out of the aircraft,” the passengers claim in the lawsuit, adding that some pieces of seats near the opening were “torn off and expelled into the night.”

Oxygen masks fell from the ceiling, but many didn’t seem to work, according to the lawsuit.

The in-flight emergency response was impaired by the wind noise from the hole in the plane and shouting by passengers on board, according to the suit. One woman shouted: “There’s a hole in the plane!”

“Passengers feared they would not survive the flight,” lawyers said in the lawsuit. “Some prayed. Some texted family to express their trepidation. Some gripped and clung to one another. Some adult passengers were crying. Most were eerily subdued in their collective helpless state, muted with masks on.”

PORTLAND, Ore. — United Airlines said Monday it found loose bolts and other “installation issues” on a part of some Boeing 737 Max 9 jets that were inspected after a mid-flight blowout on a similar Alaska Airlines jet on Friday — and the door plug that blew out of the aircraft was found in a backyard near Portland.

The inspections are focused on plugs used to seal an area set aside for extra emergency doors that are not required on United and Alaska Max 9s.

“Since we began preliminary inspections on Saturday, we have found instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug – for example, bolts that needed additional tightening,” Chicago-based United said.

The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all Max 9s operated by Alaska and United and some flown by foreign airlines after a terrifying flight on Friday night.

The Boeing jetliner that suffered an inflight blowout over Oregon was not being used for flights to Hawaii after a warning light that could have indicated a pressurization problem lit up on three different flights.

Alaska Airlines decided to restrict the aircraft from long flights over water so the plane “could return very quickly to an airport” if the warning light reappeared, Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, said Sunday.

Also see: Ontario-bound jetliner that suffered in-flight blowout was restricted amid concerns over warning light

Homendy cautioned that the pressurization light might be unrelated to Friday’s incident in which a plug covering an unused exit door blew off the Boeing 737 Max 9 as it cruised about three miles over Oregon.

On Monday, the FAA approved guidelines for inspecting the door plugs on other Max 9 jets and repairing them, if necessary. That move could speed the return to service of the 171 planes that the FAA grounded.

Alaska has 64 other Max 9s, and United Airlines owns 79 of them. No other U.S. airlines operate that model of the Boeing 737.

Shares of The Boeing Co. fell 8% and those of Spirit AeroSystems, which builds the fuselage for Boeing’s 737 Max, tumbled 11% Monday, the first day of trading since the incident occurred. Shares of Alaska Airlines were nearly unchanged after slumping earlier in the session.

The auto-pressurization system warning on the ill-fated Alaska Airlines jet lit up during three previous flights. Homendy said she didn’t have details about a Dec. 7 incident, but that it came on again during a flight on Jan. 3 and after the plane landed on Jan. 4 — the day before the blowout.

Also see: Boeing’s mid-flight blowout is latest in series of quality lapses on 737 Max plane

“We plan to look at that more, and we’ve requested documentation on all defects since delivery of the aircraft on Oct. 31,” she said.

The NTSB said the lost door plug was found Sunday near Portland, Oregon, in a the backyard of a home. Investigators will examine the plug, which is 26 by 48 inches and weighs 63 pounds, for signs of how it broke free.

Investigators will not have the benefit of hearing what was going on in the cockpit during the flight. The cockpit voice recorder — one of two so-called black boxes — recorded over the flight’s sounds after two hours, Homendy said.

At a news conference Sunday night, Homendy provided new details about the chaotic scene that unfolded on the plane. The explosive rush of air damaged several rows of seats and pulled insulation from the walls. The cockpit door flew open and banged into a lavatory door.

The force ripped the headset off the co-pilot and the captain lost part of her headset. A quick reference checklist kept within easy reach of the pilots flew out of the open cockpit, Homendy said.

Two cell phones that appeared to have belonged to passengers on Friday’s terrifying flight were found on the ground. One was discovered in a yard, the other on the side of a road. Both were turned over to the NTSB.

The plane made it back to Portland, however, and none of the 171 passengers and six crew members was seriously injured.

Hours after the incident, the FAA ordered the grounding of 171 of the 218 Max 9s in operation, including all those used by Alaska Airlines and United Airlines, until they can be inspected. That led to flight cancellations at both carriers.

Early Monday, Alaska Airlines was forced to cancel 20% of all flights, 141 in all. United cancelled 221 flights, or 8% of its total flights scheduled for Monday.

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun called a companywide webcast to talk about the incident with employees and senior leadership for Tuesday.

“When serious accidents like this occur, it is critical for us to work transparently with our customers and regulators to understand and address the causes of the event, and to ensure they don’t happen again,” Calhoun wrote in a message to employees Sunday. “This is and must be the focus of our team right now.”

Alaska Airlines flight 1282 took off from Portland at 5:07 p.m. Friday for a two-hour trip to Ontario, California. About six minutes later, the chunk of fuselage blew out as the plane was climbing at about 16,000 feet.

One of the pilots declared an emergency and asked for clearance to descend to 10,000 feet, where the air would be rich enough for passengers to breathe without oxygen masks.

Videos posted online by passengers showed a gaping hole where the paneled-over door had been. They applauded when the plane landed safely about 13 minutes after the blowout. Firefighters came down the aisle, asking passengers to remain in their seats as they treated the injured.

It was extremely lucky that the airplane had not yet reached cruising altitude, when passengers and flight attendants might be walking around the cabin, Homendy said.

The aircraft involved rolled off the assembly line and received its certification two months ago, according to online FAA records. It had been on 145 flights since entering commercial service Nov. 11, said FlightRadar24, another tracking service. The flight from Portland was the aircraft’s third of the day.

The Max is the newest version of Boeing’s venerable 737, a twin-engine, single-aisle plane frequently used on U.S. domestic flights. The plane went into service in May 2017.

Two Max 8 jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people. All Max 8 and Max 9 planes were grounded worldwide for nearly two years until Boeing made changes to an automated flight control system implicated in the crashes.

The Max has been plagued by other issues, including manufacturing flaws, concern about overheating that led FAA to tell pilots to limit use of an anti-ice system, and a possible loose bolt in the rudder system.

Koenig reported from Dallas. Associated Press reporter Terry Spencer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to this report.

The move follows the December 30 publication of a Southern California News Group report in which six Idaho players on the 2023 roster, three former players, and a university employee, alleged Gonzalez physically abused and bullied players, pressured injured players to play and train against the orders of the school’s sports medicine staff, regularly deprived players of food on road trips, body shamed players, made racially insensitive and inappropriate comments to players, and pressured sports medicine staff to share confidential information about players’ weight.

“The University of Idaho is deeply concerned about the allegations brought by some members of the women’s volleyball team against their coach, Chris Gonzalez,” the university said in a statement to SCNG Monday night. “As a result, an investigation started in November around legal issues and has been expanded to include climate and culture concerns. The start of the investigation was delayed at the request of those who filed the complaints, in order to finish the season.

“An outside investigative team is doing the investigation, in which Coach Gonzalez is fully cooperating. While they have been asked to expedite the investigation, we also do not want to forego quality for speed.

“Our goal is to ensure we understand the concerns, act on any findings and work to rebuild an effective and supportive volleyball culture.”

In interviews, letters, emails, formal complaints, confidential university documents and voice recordings of Gonzalez, athletic director Terry Gawlik, and other athletic department and university administration officials, the players allege that Gonzalez, a longtime fixture on the Southern California volleyball scene and once considered one of the college game’s rising coaching stars, has created an environment where he targets specific players for almost daily bullying and even physical abuse, where players suffered dozens of avoidable injuries from overtraining or because he ignored the instructions of doctors, trainers and a sports biomechanics expert, withheld food from the team to the point where all nine current and former players said they were constantly hungry and routinely played and practiced while feeling light-headed or dizzy, suffered tunnel vision, and often felt that they were on the verge of passing out or blacking out.

“Through many abusive behaviors, Coach Gonzalez and his staff perpetuate a culture of harassment, bullying, and belittling,” a current Idaho starter wrote on behalf of her teammates in a formal complaint to the university obtained by SCNG.

Interviews, emails, letters, confidential university documents and recordings also show that players, their parents, and at least three university employees have repeatedly complained or raised concerns about Gonzalez’s coaching methods and alleged abusive behavior to Gawlik, university administration officials and the school’s Office of Civil Rights and Investigations. At least 13 players have complained to Gawlik or other university officials, according to player interviews, formal complaints and confidential university documents.

SCNG provided Gonzalez a detailed list of the allegations raised in this report and gave him the opportunity to respond to each allegation prior to the publication of the December 30 report.

Instead, Gonzalez emailed SCNG a brief statement.

“These allegations are unfounded, displaced, and dishonest,” he said.

Gonzalez is 5-51 in two seasons at Idaho.

Player complaints have routinely been ignored and dismissed by Gawlik and other university officials, all nine players allege.

Players “don’t feel safe playing for (Gonzalez) anymore” a starter told Gawlik, Chris Walsh, the senior associate athletic director for internal administration and wellness, and Blaine Eckles, the university’s dean of students, during an October meeting, according to a recording of the meeting.

During the 2023 season this past fall, a group of Idaho players submitted an eight-page complaint to university officials detailing more than 80 examples of “verbal/emotional abuse, physical abuse, intimidation and harassment.”

Gawlik, Walsh and Eckles, the university’s dean of students, met with three players on October 30. Gawlik agreed to meet the players, according to an email she wrote to the athletes after she “was contacted by campus OCRI today and they mentioned some Volleyball Athletes spoke with them on some concerns,” although the players had asked to meet with her days earlier.

The players outlined their allegations, how Gonzalez had been dismissive during a recent meeting with team captains about their concerns, and how it was “terrifying” to talk to Gonzalez, according to a recording of the Oct. 30 meeting.

“I know what’s going on,” Walsh told the players during the Oct 30 meeting. “We’re aware of some of the rough waters you guys have been in.”

But Eckles also told the players, “we’re not looking to get into the details of the whole allegations” citing a desire to keep any potential investigation “pristine.”

Eckles sent the players an email after the meeting later that day.

“As a follow-up to our visit, I wanted to communicate a few take-aways from our visit,” Eckles wrote. “1. Your concerns are important and are heard. I want to assure you that they are and will be looked into for appropriate follow-up. 2. If you would like, I am happy to visit with the entire team (if you think that would be helpful) to reassure that retaliation is not appropriate.”

A case manager met with Idaho players on November 8, telling them they would follow up in the coming weeks but then did not contact the athletes again.

“(They) failed to get back to us,” a starter said. “It was a dead end. (They) talked to us and then we never heard from anybody.”

The players also said neither Eckles, Gawlick nor Walsh followed up with them after the meeting. Walsh did travel with the team on a late season road trip that Gonzalez missed because of a medical issue.

“Nobody got back to us,” a player said.

An Idaho player also reached out on behalf of the team to the university’s Office of Civil Rights and Investigation. On October 24, Trent Taylor, an investigator for the office, confirmed in an email that the office had received the complaint and offered the athlete the opportunity to meet. A week later, on Oct. 31, Taylor emailed the player that an outside law firm, Thompson & Horton, LLP, would be investigating the allegations raised in the players’ complaint.

Yet an attorney for the firm didn’t meet with players until December 13, nearly two months after Taylor first contacted the player. The attorney told the players during the meeting that the firm’s investigation would take at least 60 to 90 days to complete.

Although Eckles in the Oct. 30 meeting referred to “knowing that your season having just ended,” the Vandals still had five matches remaining.

Between October 24 when Taylor first contacted the player and the end of the season on November 17, Gonzalez’ bullying “only got worse,” said a starter, a statement that five other players concurred with.

“This is a pattern that isn’t something new,” said Marissa Drange, an outside hitter on the 2022 Idaho team.

It is a pattern that players coached by Gonzalez at other universities allege in interviews with SCNG and letters to Idaho officials, that extends back more than 20 years covering the majority if not the entirety of his college coaching career, and that Idaho players allege continued within weeks of his hiring at the Big Sky Conference school in February 2022.

Gonzalez pushed over Hailey Pelton, a veteran setter and four-time Big Sky Conference All-Academic team selection, during a spring practice in 2022 according to five people. One of the people confirming the incident is Bryan Bastuba, who at the time was an assistant coach.

Pelton declined to comment.

Gonzalez continued his alleged pattern of physical and emotional abuse, bullying and body shaming during the regular season, according to six Idaho players, a person familiar with the situation, as well as reports, complaints, and emails sent to Gawlick and other Idaho officials.

That autumn Gonzalez pushed Anna Pelleur, a freshman, so hard during a practice that he also knocked her off her feet, seven players allege in interviews and according to a complaint filed with Gawlik.

Pelluer, the daughter of former University of Washington and NFL quarterback Steve Pelluer, was a regular target of Gonzalez’s alleged bullying, seven players said.

“He was very hard on Anna,” Drange said. “I remember him jumping in the drill and setting and running up and saying Anna was in his way and instead of stopping the drill he pushed her and yelled, ‘Anna, get out of the way!’

“It was weird. He was always doing weird things.”

Said an Idaho starter who also witnessed the alleged incident, “He would get so into it, that he would push her hard enough to knock her to the ground. You could have just politely asked her to get off the court or been like, ‘Guys hold on, I’m going to take over the drill real quick’ instead of putting violence on the table.“It was absolutely unnecessary.

“He was angry at her that she couldn’t complete the drill the way he wanted her to so he felt he needed to step in and do it correctly so he just pushed her off the court.”

The incident again left players stunned.

“I remember all of us looking at each other ‘Did he seriously just push her?’” Drange said.

Bastuba denied that Gonzalez targeted Pelluer for bullying.

“I know there were a couple of times he did get on her,” Bastuba said referring to Gonzalez and Pelluer. “I know a couple of times he thought she wasn’t paying attention or asking the wrong question and the wrong time.”

Pelluer transferred to Seattle Pacific after the 2022 season. She did not respond to requests for comment.

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Pablo Espinoza, a spokesman for the California Department of Housing and Community Development, confirmed in an email that the agency is investigating Shangri-La Industries of Los Angeles and has asked the Attorney General’s Office for assistance.

“Shangri-La is in breach of contract,” Espinoza said.

In a letter dated Dec. 4, the housing department informed Shangri-La Chief Executive Officer Andy Meyers and Chief Financial Officer Cody Holmes that they had breached their contracts with the state and the developer’s partner agencies under California’s Project Homekey.

Gov. Gavin Newsom launched Project Homekey in June 2020 to protect the homeless from the threat of the coronavirus pandemic. To date, the state has allocated more than $3 billion to cities and counties to purchase motels, hotels, vacant apartment buildings and other properties to provide permanent housing to the homeless.

Using the Homekey funds, Shangri-La Industries purchased motels under agreements with San Bernardino County, Redlands and three other California cities — Thousand Oaks, Salinas and King City. In Southern California, Shangri-La’s homeless housing projects included the former All Star Lodge in San Bernardino, the former Good Nite Inn in Redlands and the former Quality Inn & Suites in Thousand Oaks.

Numerous failures

A letter from Cari Scott, the housing department’s assistant deputy director of financial assistance, warned Meyers and Holmes: “The Department’s review is ongoing but to date has revealed numerous failures to comply with contractual and regulatory obligations across (Shangri-La Industries’) portfolio.”

Among the violations Scott noted in her letter were Shangri-La’s lack of communication on the status of its projects, failure to meet performance milestones and failure to record affordability covenants to ensure properties remain as affordable housing.

Additionally, Scott noted other “serious violations” of standards agreements, including unilateral actions by Shangri-La such as refinancing its motel properties without written authorization from the housing department.

“Due to the serious breach of contract issues found, the Department has determined that (Shangri-La Industries) is not meeting the Department’s requirements in demonstrating its ability to own, operate, and develop affordable housing developments,” Scott said in her letter.

The Real Deal, a real estate news outlet, reported that Shangri-La secured at least $121 million from the state under Project Homekey from 2020 through 2022. The developer now owes about $41.3 million in delinquent loans — an amount that will keep accruing until the debt becomes current.

Holmes did not respond to repeated texts and phone calls seeking comment. Requests to speak to Meyers and repeated telephone calls to Shangri-La’s Los Angeles office went unanswered.

But in a recent interview with CalMatters, Meyers blamed the state, in part, for his company’s quagmire, accusing the housing department of taking months to approve affordability covenants, insisting that triggered other problems associated with the motel conversion projects. He also told CalMatters that the motel projects came in overbudget due to property taxes, and that the developer had to pay due to the state’s delay in approving the affordability agreements.

Espinoza denied Meyers’ allegations, and told CalMatters the state housing department couldn’t have approved the agreements after Shangri-La had already taken out the loans.

Troubles emerged in Redlands

The Southern California News Group first reported on Shangri-La’s problems involving its Homekey projects in May, when it learned the developer had failed to pay its contractors and subcontractors on the former Good Nite Inn project in Redlands, and that more than $2 million in mechanics liens had been filed with the San Bernardino County Recorder’s Office.

Shangri-La also was served its first default notice in May by its lender, Arixa Institutional Lending Partners, demanding $227,000 from the developer. Shangri-La paid up and staved off foreclosure, but not for long. In September, the developer was served its second default notice. This time, it owed Arixa $332,000.

On Thursday, Dec. 21, notices of a trustee’s sale were posted on the doors of every tenant at the former Good Nite Inn, now called Step Up in Redlands, informing them the property was in default and that the trustee, Chicago Title Co., was planning to sell it to the highest bidder at an auction scheduled for Jan. 11.

That set off a panic among tenants.

Redlands spokesman Carl Baker said in an email on Friday, Dec. 22, that the city does not own the property, has no control over the lender and was unaware the foreclosure sale notices would be posted. However, as soon as it learned of the situation, the city immediately asked the lender to postpone the sale.

On Friday, Baker reported that Arixa had agreed to “temporarily postpone” any foreclosure of the property.

Exploring solutions

“The lender and the City are exploring both short-term and long-term solutions, including a longer term postponement of any foreclosure sale, that would prevent or limit discomfort and hardship to tenants residing at the property,” he said.

Baker said the city also is working with all involved parties to address the issues raised in the Dec. 4 letter from the state housing department, and ensure that Step Up in Redlands remains fully operational and almost fully occupied.

The state awarded Redlands $30 million in Homekey funding in March 2022 to renovate the former motel to a 99-unit facility to serve the city’s homeless population. Redlands received the largest chunk of $105 million in Homekey funding that also went to San Bernardino County, Thousand Oaks, Salinas and King City.

The lion’s share of the Redlands money went to Shangri-La for the purchase of the motel, renovations and ongoing expenses to house the homeless.

Among the subcontractors left holding the bag on the Redlands project was Safeway Electric, which did electrical work at the former Good Nite Inn during renovations. Safeway is owed more than $457,000 for its work, according to a lawsuit filed in San Bernardino Superior Court in July against Ontario-based Northstar Development & Construction Inc., the lead contractor on the Redlands project.

“I think that Andy Meyers should probably be in jail,” said Melissa Miller, senior account specialist at Safeway Electric in Riverside. “I think this is awful that it’s been allowed to get this far.”

Step Up in San Bernardino

The San Bernardino County project received $8.3 million in Homekey funding for the purchase of the former All Star Lodge, at 450 N. G St. in San Bernardino, to help house some of the city’s homeless. The project launched in 2020 and opened in March 2023, county spokesman David Wert said.

Wert declined to comment on the state investigation and the letter sent to the county by the housing department.

Subcontractor Adolfo Gomringer said Shangri-La still owes him $93,000 for the work his company did at the former All Star Lodge. Gomringer, 34, of Los Angeles said he worked on the Step Up in San Bernardino project, off and on, from March 2021 through December 2022, doing demolition and installing metal framing, drywall and flooring.

Gomringer said he’s been trying for the past year to get Shangri-La to pay up. He said his last communication with Shangri-La came on Oct. 12 via email from CFO Cody Holmes, who informed Gomringer he would get back to him later that day with an update. He never did, and Gomringer said it was the last time he heard from Holmes.

“I have $100,000 in credit card debt because of this,” he said, noting that he was forced to use credit cards to cover expenses such as materials and employee pay.

Gomringer said the $93,000 owed him by Shangri-La would go a long way to clearing that debt.

“Hopefully, it comes in because we’ve really got to settle this. We’re keeping our fingers crossed,” Gomringer said. “I have never not paid my employees, and I want to keep that going.”

To date, only three of the seven Homekey projects under investigation by the state — Step Up in San Bernardino, Step Up in Redlands and Step Up in Salinas — are housing the homeless.

Step Up CEO shaken

Tod Lipka, president and CEO of Step Up on Second in Santa Monica, said in a telephone interview Friday that the nonprofit was shaken by the news about the financial state of the seven Homekey projects and the state review.

“We were really surprised and devastated to see it had gotten to that level of breach of contract,” Lipka said. He said Step Up has embarked on several successful homeless housing projects with Shangri-La in recent years, including four in Los Angeles.

He said responsibility for all finances and property acquisitions falls on Shangri-La, whereas Step Up handles the property management and homeless services side of the operations.

He said Step Up also has not been paid by Shangri-La for some of its services in Redlands, San Bernardino and Salinas in the past two years, and now is in discussion with officials in San Bernardino County, Redlands and Salinas to negotiate reimbursement.

“Step Up is very interested in being in dialogue with all the partners to find a solution for this housing to move forward,” Lipka said.

Salinas mayor concerned

Also expressing serious concerns about Shangri-La was Salinas Mayor Kimbley Craig.

“Shangri-La’s many serious breaches of their contractual obligations have created challenges for us and many other cities across the state,” Craig said in an email.

The city, Craig said, has received more than $36 million in Homekey funds for three motel conversion projects, but only one — at the former Good Nite Inn — is actually providing housing to the homeless.

“Shangri-La’s failures have affected the cities, the state, the residents of those facilities, as well as the many contractors who have done work on these projects but have not been paid by Shangri-La,” Craig said.

Investigators with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found The Exclusive Poultry Inc. and related companies with poultry processing plants in La Puente and the city of Industry “endangered young workers recklessly.”

Exclusive Poultry processes and supplies meat to a host of supermarkets and food distributors, including Ralphs and SYSCO Corp. The Department of Labor included ALDI among that group, but the company said that’s not accurate.

“At ALDI, we have stringent processes for identifying vendors and suppliers to ensure all business partners are compliant with all legal and regulatory requirements,” an ALDI spokesman said. “The Exclusive Poultry has never been an ALDI supplier.”

Labor investigators said Exclusive Poultry was established by owner Tony Bran, who set up several “front” companies — including Meza Poultry LLC, Valtierra Poultry LLC, Sullon Poultry Inc. and Nollus’s Poultry LLC — to employ workers at the two plants.

The judgment affects 437 employees who were either underpaid or working in violation of child labor laws.

Children employed by the company often worked excessive hours in violation of federal child labor regulations, investigators said, adding that Exclusive Poultry retaliated against workers for cooperating with the investigation by reducing their wages.

Representatives with Exclusive Poultry could not be reached for comment.

The Labor Department secured a consent judgment this month from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against Exclusive Poultry and Bran, following an investigation and litigation by the department.

The investigation — from Aug. 1, 2020 through October 2023 — found that Exclusive Poultry and its associated companies paid employees a straight hourly rate, even when they worked 50 to 60 hours a week. And some workers were intentionally omitted from payroll records, investigators said.

“These employers endangered children, stole their wages and threatened them with retaliation if they spoke to investigators about their illegal activity,” said Ruben Rosalez, the Wage and Hour Division’s regional administrator in San Francisco.

Bran and Exclusive Poultry have been ordered to pay $3.5 million in back wages and damages to affected workers. That includes $300,000 in punitive damages and $100,614 in back wages.

The employers must also pay $201,104 in civil penalties for “child labor and willful violations.”

The Wage and Hour Division’s West Covina district office conducted the investigation, and the department’s Office of the Solicitor in Los Angeles filed the complaint and secured the consent judgments.

The Labor Department worked with the Los Angeles County Office of Immigrant Affairs and its community partners, who provided support services to workers. U.S. Marshals assisted with the execution of a search warrant at the two processing plants.

Bran and his company will be required to retain a monitor for three years to ensure compliance and to show a hiring preference for workers who were fired following the department’s search of the poultry plants.

Labor investigators also secured an injunction from the U.S. District Court that prevents the companies from shipping any “hot goods,” which in this case are poultry products produced in violation of overtime and child labor laws.

The nation’s top accident investigator said Thursday that a surge in close calls between planes at U.S. airports this year is a “clear warning sign” that the aviation system is under stress.

“While these events are incredibly rare, our safety system is showing clear signs of strain that we cannot ignore,” Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, told a Senate panel on Thursday.

Also see: 3 passengers sue Alaska Airlines after off-duty pilot accused of trying to cut engines mid-flight

Homendy warned that air traffic and staffing shortages have surged since the pandemic. She said there has been a “lack of meaningful” training — and more reliance on computer-based instruction — by the Federal Aviation Administration and airlines, and too many irregular work schedules among pilots and air traffic controllers.

“Where you end up with that is distraction, fatigue,” she told the aviation subcommittee. “You are missing things, you are forgetting things.”

Also see: Delta says California pilot accused of threatening to shoot the captain no longer works for the airline

The NTSB is investigating six close calls, or what aviation insiders call “runway incursions.” The FAA identified 23 of the most serious types of close calls in the last fiscal year, which ended Oct. 1, up from 16 the year before and 11 a decade ago. Independent estimates suggest those figures grossly understate such incidents.

Thursday’s hearing included only a momentary discussion of pilot mental health, which is on travelers’ minds because of the arrest of an off-duty pilot accused of trying to disable a plane in midflight and a co-pilot who allegedly threatened to shoot the captain.

Also see: United Airlines flight attendants want Dodgers questioned about racial bias claims

The hearing produced no new ideas for increasing safety but brought a new warning about the potential for travel disruptions over the upcoming holidays because the FAA doesn’t have enough air traffic controllers.

“We are not healthier than we were last year, controller-wise,” said Rich Santa, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. “I think FAA’s own numbers indicate we have potentially six more air traffic controllers than we had last year.”

The union president said many controllers are forced to work 10-hour days or six-day weeks.

Related story: Horizon Air cockpit scare revives pilot mental health concerns

The Transportation Department’s inspector general criticized the FAA in a report this summer, saying the agency has made only “limited efforts” to fix a shortage at staffing at critical air traffic control centers.

Among the close calls in recent months, the scariest occurred in February in Austin, Texas. During poor visibility in the early morning hours, a FedEx cargo plane preparing to land flew over the top of a Southwest Airlines jet that was taking off. The NTSB has estimated that they came within about 100 feet of colliding.

An air traffic controller had cleared both planes to use the same runway. In other recent incidents, pilots appeared to be at fault.

When attorney Annee Della Donna hired driving instructor Daniel Mulrenin, she was unaware he had another set of skills. He was a private investigator and retired Los Angeles Police Department lieutenant haunted by the case of two Black teenagers who he believed were wrongly convicted on multiple charges of attempted murder.

Mulrenin couldn’t stop thinking about it. And in Della Donna’s kitchen, he couldn’t stop talking about it.

“I couldn’t let it go, because I know they didn’t do it,” Mulrenin recalled. “How could I come home to my wife and live by the beach when those guys are serving 11 consecutive life sentences?”

Della Donna had a full calendar of civil cases and no experience as a criminal lawyer. But she listened as Mulrenin told how he was hired by a defense firm to look into the Los Angeles County conviction of Juan Rayford with Dupree Glass. Rayford’s family, however, ran out of money and the firm dropped the case, Mulrenin said.

“I took the opportunity to tell her about Juan and Dupree because I was stuck in limbo and I had no lawyer who could pick it up and run,” Mulrenin said.

He found a sympathetic ear in Della Donna, an aficionado of Russian ballet and the wife of a hospital emergency room doctor. A self-described crusader, Della Donna liked nothing more than to champion underdogs.

Mulrenin knew she was hooked when her eyes lit up and she asked to hear more.

“I had prayed and prayed about it, I didn’t know a lot of attorneys,” said Mulrenin, a devout Catholic whose experience had shown him that cops can make mistakes. “She was the answer to my prayers.”

In that kitchen, the gumshoe/driving instructor and the attorney/mom forged a partnership in 2011 determined to prove the innocence of Rayford and Glass, despite a prosecutorial team intent on preserving their convictions.

Help from law students

Mulrenin dropped off stacks of boxes containing evidence at Della Donna’s house. Those files detailed the Jan. 2, 2004, shooting that was quickly blamed on two teenagers who had no idea what they were in for.

Della Donna enlisted the aid of students at the UC Irvine School of Law, who helped tear through the documents, track down witnesses, review legal theories and prepare court challenges. Their work would blossom into a university project dubbed Innocence OC, which today works on behalf of others thought to be wrongly convicted.

In all, they have won the release of 13 people through a reversal of convictions or clemency petitions.

“Most lawyers go their entire careers and never have something like Annee is doing,” said Anna Davis, who runs the pro bono program at the UC Irvine School of Law. “I think the students just love Annee, she’s got energy and passion that you just don’t see.”

Said Della Donna: “I’ve always been a bit of a Nancy Drew.”

Nine years after Della Donna and Mulrenin joined forces, the case against Rayford and Glass collapsed on appeal and they were released in October 2020 — after spending nearly 17 years behind bars. Earlier this year, a judge declared Rayford and Glass were not the shooters.

And in November, the state is expected to give them nearly $900,000 apiece in compensation for their time in prison.

In recent interviews with the Southern California News Group, Rayford and Glass discussed what happened the day of the shootings, their gratitude for those who secured their release and how they have rebuilt their lives since they walked out of prison.

Night of the shooting

On Jan. 2, 2004, Juan Rayford was an 18-year-old with NFL dreams, having played wide receiver for the Antelope Valley High School football team.

He was at a party that night, shooting dice in the back room, when he heard his friend, Dupree Glass, 17, was heading to another house to fight a guy who had challenged him. Rayford drove with Glass to the second house; both said they didn’t have any guns.

When they arrived, 15 to 20 other kids were already milling around the front yard, waiting to see the fight. But the other combatant never showed up. Sheila Lair, who owned the house, walked out the front door to tell everybody to go home, there wasn’t going to be a fight that night.

And that’s when the shooting started. Eight bullets were fired from outside the house, piercing windows and walls, according to court records. Two people were injured, but no one was killed.

Glass, in an interview, remembered hugging the ground, “trying to figure out who was doing this dumb-ass (stuff) because we all knew each other.” Glass had shared several meals with Lair’s family at the house.

After the shooting, he and Rayford went home and forgot about it. “I was a kid, like, no harm, no foul,” Glass said.

But Lair, angry that her home had been shot up, didn’t forget about it. Neither did Los Angeles County sheriff’s Detective Christopher Keeling.

Eleven days after the shooting, Rayford and Glass were at a Highland High School basketball game. A teacher walked up to Glass and took him to a deputy. Rayford walked over to see what was happening. Both teenagers went to jail that night and didn’t get out for nearly two decades.

At the sheriff’s station, Glass remembered seeing a bulletin for his arrest on the wall, devil horns drawn with red ink on his photo. He said there were darts in the poster.

“It was beyond devastating. When you’re young, you’re naive,” he said. “I didn’t grow up going to court or visiting prisons. I knew nothing about that world.”

He was about to find out.

‘Excited to start trial’

Glass and Rayford thought it was all a misunderstanding that would get cleared up, at least when they got to trial. “The whole time we were actually excited to start trial, because we didn’t do nothing,” Glass said.

The trial came in September 2004. It was a two-day affair that Della Donna said was before an all-White jury. Forensics showed the shots came from two directions and from two different calibers. No guns were recovered.

Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Michael Blake called two eyewitnesses, Lair and her 15-year-old daughter, Donisha Williams.

Both identified Rayford and Glass as the shooters. Another person, Douglas Bland — who went by the moniker “Fat Man” — had also been identified as a shooter. According to court records submitted by Della Donna, forensics had shown there were only two gunmen. So how could both Rayford and Glass be implicated?

Prosecutor Blake argued there must have been three shooters.

Blake also used the then-novel “kill zone” theory of law, which was adopted in California in 2002 under the case of People vs. Bland. Since there were 11 people in the house at the time of the shooting — all in the so-called “kill zone” — Rayford and Glass were charged by Blake with 11 counts of attempted willful murder.

A jury convicted them of all 11 counts, each carrying a consecutive life sentence. The judge also tacked on 220 years apiece for gang enhancements.

At the time Glass was 5-feet-7, 120 pounds, and looking at hard time.

‘Shocked, confused, scared, nervous’

“It was like being snatched from heaven and going to hell without no good reason,” Glass said.

Rayford couldn’t wrap his brain around the idea that he wasn’t free to leave.

“I was shocked, confused, scared, nervous. I couldn’t see myself going to jail for something I hadn’t done,” he said. “I always assumed … everything was going to iron itself out. I would have bet a million dollars I was going home that day.”

Prison was tough on the two lifers. As a juvenile, Glass started in county jail and eventually was sent to a Level 4, high-security, state correctional facility. There were nights that Glass went to sleep praying he wouldn’t wake up.

“Murders, rapes, whatever you can think of, I’ve witnessed it,” he said. “I lost hope.”

Juan Rayford was barely an adult — a terrified teenager — when he entered prison. After the first frightening year, Rayford acclimated to prison life, studying in the law library and working as a janitor of sorts. He became a middleman for prisoners, passing notes while sweeping the floors, delivering food or hot water for tea, working somewhat as a prison porter.

New attorney takes case

In that capacity, he met another prisoner known only to him as “Sugar Bear.” For some reason that Rayford still doesn’t know, “Sugar Bear” hooked up Rayford with his attorney, who took Rayford’s case and hired private investigator Mulrenin.

But Rayford’s family ran out of money for the attorney and Mulrenin was left with no lawyer to pursue the case. And that’s when he found Della Donna, who had a soft spot for charity work. As a teen, she once labored for a week in the kitchen of a Tijuana poor house.

Della Donna was intrigued, but first wanted to meet Rayford before signing on to working for free. She and Mulrenin drove the 4 1/2 hours to the men’s prison in San Luis Opisbo; it was Della Donna’s first time in a correctional institution. After talking to Rayford, she believed his story.

“From there she jumped in with both feet,” remembered Mulrenin. “From that point, I had to keep up with her. … Annee is a bulldog.”

Criminal law novice

Della Donna knew little, if anything, about criminal law. Her background was in civil injury. In the 1980s, she was an associate for retired California Supreme Court Justice Marcus Kaufman, working on appellate cases. The experience stoked Della Donna’s scrappy spirit

“When people tell me ‘no,’ I don’t listen,” she said.

Della Donna started boning up on criminal law, talking to every criminal attorney she could find and eventually turning to UCI Law School. She put together a group of five students to work through the case of Rayford and Glass.

Della Donna and the students debated, wrote briefs, tore the case apart. Discrepancies appeared. The “kill zone” theory seemed overly broad. And no one had interviewed the 20 or so other people present during the shooting, she said.

Della Donna and her students went to work, tracking down 12 other witnesses and sending Mulrenin to interview them. Each person they interviewed said Rayford and Glass were not the shooters. Della Donna also found Lair’s other daughter, Shadonna, who said she could see Rayford and Glass and they were not armed.

Confronted by Mulrenin with those statements, Lair said she was angry that Rayford and Glass wouldn’t tell her the names of the actual shooters.

“She said something to the effect, ‘Well, if they weren’t the shooters, they should have told me who the shooters were,’ ” Mulrenin said.

Despite the growing evidence that Rayford and Glass were innocent, prosecutors fought to preserve the convictions and keep them in prison.

‘Kill zone’ theory challenged

Before Della Donna got involved, an appellate court dropped the gang enhancements, citing insufficient evidence that the two young men belonged to a gang. Della Donna went to work on the “kill zone” theory, filing brief after brief to the appeals court that the theory was overly broad and improperly applied.

In 2019, the state Supreme Court changed the game in People v. Canizales, ruling the theory requires that the shooter intend to murder one specific person in the kill zone and be willing to take down all the others in the zone to accomplish that goal. Such was not the case with Rayford and Glass, and, the next year, appellate justices overturned their 11 convictions. The district attorney’s office ultimately decided not to retry the case.

But Rayford and Glass weren’t out of the woods. Because of red tape and bureaucratic mix-ups, it took months for Della Donna to get both of them out of prison.

“Annee had to do what Annee does, piss people off to get me home,” Rayford said. “I was living the dream that day.”

Before Glass left the facility in Kern Valley, he gave his shoes to a fellow prisoner and then walked out of the gates to call his mother.

“I’m beyond grateful,” he said. “Every time I see (Della Donna and Mulrenin), it’s like I’m meeting Lebron James.”

But Della Donna wasn’t finished. She and civil lawyer Eric Dubin wanted a judge to declare Rayford and Glass factually innocent  — and the attorneys wanted the state to pay the pair for their time in prison after being wrongfully convicted.

DA stands by convictions

Della Donna won a hearing on their innocence, which was opposed by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office under reformist George Gascon. A response submitted by prosecutors said they still believed Rayford and Glass shot at Lair’s home.

“The defendants are not actually innocent,” said the D.A.’s opposition papers. “The motion’s principal claim — that two key trial witnesses lied under oath — is false. … Respondent has not lost confidence in this conviction.”

Testifying during the innocence hearing in April, Lair stayed the course, giving the same testimony as in the trial — Rayford and Glass were the shooters. Only this time, her credibility was damaged by what she had earlier told Mulrenin. Her daughter, Donisha, didn’t show up to testify, Della Donna said.

When it was their turn, Della Donna and Dubin had a new witness, Chad McZeal, a gang member serving 90 years to life for another shooting. McZeal confessed on the witness stand to being the second shooter at Lair’s home, clearing Rayford and Dupree. McZeal had earlier reached out from prison to Rayford’s family, wanting to clear his conscience.

What sealed the deal for Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge H. Clay Jacke was the courtroom reaction of Rayford and Glass to McZeal’s confession.

Rayford jumped to his feet in court and began yelling, “Why?” Glass sobbed at the defense table.

Judge: Not the shooters

“Now, that is what I call newly discovered evidence,” Jacke said, adding, “Mr. Rayford and Mr. Glass were not shooters, nor did they aid and abet the actual shooters, who the court believes were Mr. Bland and Mr. McZeal.”

Still, Della Donna and Dubin had one more task. They continued to fight for Rayford and Glass to get paid out of a state fund for victims of crime.

In September, the state Attorney General’s Office said it would not oppose the California Victim Compensation Board’s decision to award Rayford and Glass $867,020 each for 6,136 days of incarceration. The board is scheduled to consider the payment Nov. 16.

Both Rayford and Glass now work for Walmart and have small children. Rayford’s high school sweetheart had waited for him.

Meanwhile, Della Donna’s Innocence OC has become one of the most popular volunteer projects on the UC Irvine Law School campus, with 52 students going through it over the years. She and Dubin now are taking aim at dismantling the “kill zone” theory overall, saying it is overused by prosecutors to avoid having to prove intent in attempted murder cases.

“There’s a lot more Juan and Duprees out there, a lot more stories to be told,” Dubin said.

And Della Donna’s daughter, Eliana, now 28, did, indeed, get her driver’s license — although her skill behind the wheel is questionable, says her mother.