By Reno Gazette-Journal
The 82-year-old South Lake Tahoe-area resident injured in a crash Wednesday in Sparks was identified (Thursday) as Odd Bakken by the Sparks Police Department.
Bakken is reported to be on a ventilator and may have broken a leg in the 5:17pm crash at Rock Boulevard and Hymer Avenue, police said.
By Cathy Locke, Sacramento Bee
A federal grand jury in Sacramento (Thursday) indicted a South Lake Tahoe woman for wire fraud in connection with an investment fraud scheme.
According to the indictment, Lori Zoval, 45, was a licensed securities broker with a firm in Folsom and used her position of trust to steal more than $439,000 from a couple for whom she managed investments, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
A fire reported early this afternoon in the Upper Kingsbury area of Stateline has been contained.
The fire burned about one-tenth of an acre on Genoa Peak Road. This is a dirt road on National Forest land that links Kingsbury Grade and Spooner Summit.
Mark Novak, fire marshal with Tahoe-Douglas Fire Protection District, did not want to speculate the cause of the fire.
By Robert Perea, Reno Gazette-Journal
YERINGTON — A regional law enforcement agency that targets gangs in Lyon and Douglas counties, along with Carson City, will be able to continue its work through a newly awarded $270,281 grant.
“Gangs don’t recognize county boundaries, and with this program, our people won’t recognize county boundaries,” Lyon County Sheriff Allen Veil said.
The grant comes from the state Office of Criminal Justice Assistance, which says it was established in 1987 to obtain, administer and distribute U.S. Department of Justice funds to Nevada and local government agencies.
Serving Carson City and Lyon and Douglas counties, the Regional Tri-County Gang Unit originally had been funded in 2009 with $350,000 in federal stimulus money.
By Cathy Locke, Sacramento Bee
Law enforcement typically advises being wary of purported solicitations on their behalf, but the Placer County Sheriff’s Department wants folks to know that a fundraising drive for its Search and Rescue teams is legitimate.
The teams are beginning their annual countywide telemarketing fundraising drive.
Search and Rescue volunteers donate thousands of hours each year to locate lost hikers, skiers and other who may need assistance in the county’s wilderness areas. This year, the volunteers want to purchase equipment for countrywide searches, as well as mobile communications equipment for the Lake Tahoe area.
Publisher’s note: Click on claim to read the attorney general’s report.
By Robert J. Lopez, Los Angeles Times
Authorities spoke to a woman who had been kidnapped and held captive for 18 years by a paroled rapist who fathered her two girls, but failed to determine her identity, according to a state report released Wednesday.
State parole agents spoke to Jaycee Lee Dugard and her eldest daughter during a supervised visit of Phillip Garrido, who was living in Antioch at the time and kept Dugard and the children in a backyard shed, according to the report by the state Department of Justice.
“Agents spoke to Ms. Dugard and her eldest daughter but failed to investigate their identities or their relationship to Garrido,” the report said.
By Bill O’Driscoll, Reno Gazette-Journal
Gaming revenues tumbled nearly 8 percent in Washoe County in May from a year earlier, the state reported today, as a key source of state revenue continued a 2 1/2-year slump.
Casinos within Reno saw gross revenues fall 6.6 percent from May 2009 while Sparks properties saw a 14.4 percent decline, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board report.
Casinos at the north end of Lake Tahoe reported a 10.1 percent drop, helping make May the 33rd monthly decline out of the past 35 in Washoe County.
Elsewhere in Northern Nevada, gaming properties at the south end of Tahoe reported a 12.5 percent fall from a year earlier, and in the Carson City-Carson Valley corridor, casinos saw a 1.1 percent decline.
By Carlos Alcalá, Sacramento Bee
Defense lawyer Mark D. Millard opened the capital murder defense of David Zanon on Tuesday by telling a jury in Placerville he couldn’t deny his client had run over and killed CHP Officer Scott Russell in 2007.
“This case, as (District Attorney Vern) Pierson said, is a terrible tragedy and there is no question that David Zanon is responsible for that tragedy,” Millard told jurors, as the defendant sat quietly at the defense table.
Zanon’s trial in El Dorado Superior Court, however, is not about whether his actions led to Russell’s death, his attorney argued.
By Mike Treleven, Napa Register
Robert Mondavi Winery is field testing a new, simple technology that allows young grapevines to thrive by getting needed water from the atmosphere and not from an underground aquifer.
The invention, the Groasis Waterboxx, can potentially save grapegrowers 175,000 gallons per year per acre, said inventor Pieter Hoff, 57, who lives in the Netherlands.
“You are seeing a historic launch today,” said Bart van Bolhuis, consulate general of the Netherlands, who attended Tuesday’s unveiling at Mondavi. “The Waterboxx is low-tech and high-tech at the same time.”
Because it saves water and promotes reforestation, his invention is “great in fighting against climate change,” Hoff said.
It was a fairly routine Fourth of July for law enforcement. That’s not to say there weren’t plenty of arrests. That’s what made it normal.
South Lake Tahoe officers described it as a young crowd with lots of drinking.
“There was nothing out of the ordinary,” South Tahoe police Lt. David Stevenson said. “The boat guys thought there were fewer boats on the water.”
Five people were arrested in Incline Village at the DUI checkpoint over the weekend.
“It was a fairly quiet weekend for us – with no major problems; although the crowds at the casinos and the beaches at Elks Point and Zephyr Cove were larger than last year,” Douglas County sheriff’s Sgt. Jim Halsey said.
Below are the stats for the weekend for DCSO:
| Criminal Arrests |
Valley |
Lake |
| Affray |
|
1 |
| Alternative Sentencing Violation |
2 |
|
| Battery |
|
4 |
| Disorderly Conduct |
1 |
|
| Disturbing the Peace |
1 |
|
| Domestic Battery |
1 |
3 |
| DUI |
1 |
1 |
| Minor Consuming |
|
1 |
| Petit Larceny (shoplifting) |
|
1 |
| Possession of a Controlled Substance |
1 |
1 |
| Possession of Hypodermic Device |
|
1 |
| Probation Violation |
1 |
|
| Resisting/Obstructing a Peace Officer |
|
2 |
| Trespassing |
|
4 |
| Warrant Arrest |
|
1 |
| Total |
7 |
20 |
| Non Criminal Arrests |
Valley |
Lake |
| Civil Protective Custody |
|
2 |
| Mental Health Arrest |
|
1 |
| Total |
0 |
3 |
| Criminal Citations |
Valley |
Lake |
| Battery |
|
1 |
| Disorderly Conduct |
|
1 |
| DUI |
|
1 |
| Minor Consuming |
|
4 |
| Trespassing |
2 |
2 |
| Total |
2 |
9 |