Daniel Garcia, 27, one of five San Francisco alleged con men charged with murdering and robbing a retired Palm Springs art dealer, knew nothing of the purported crimes, his attorney said Wednesday.
So how is it that during the two weeks following the Dec. 4 disappearance of Cliff Lambert, 74, Garcia used Lambert's bank card to make 21 withdrawals and purchases totaling more than $13,000? And why did alleged co-conspirator Miguel Bustamante, 26, finger Garcia as among the group allegedly involved in Lambert's disappearance, according to police?
"The documents relating to today's enforcement operation remain under court seal. Based on our investigation we believe there are not only violations of federal law, but of state law as well. As of now we are prohibited from releasing further details of the case. Items of evidentary value were seized and no arrests have been made. The investigation is currently ongoing."McEnry said those documents could be unsealed "tomorrow or it could be months."
This, to put it as mildly as possible, is not how friends and colleagues thought George Weber was going to go out.
Salacious details regarding the 47-year-old former KGO talk show host and newsman's bizarre death have hit the New York papers and have begun their inevitable trickle westward. Police have apprehended a 16-year-old boy, who has admitted to stabbing Weber more than 50 times Friday in what he claims was a Craigslist rough sex rendezvous gone bad that transformed the radioman's Brooklyn apartment into a nightmarish, bloody abattoir.
"If you were to ask me how George Weber would go, I would not say he'd be murdered in his apartment by a 16-year-old," said a shell-shocked Claudia Lamb, a KGO producer who knew Weber since her "first day in radio" in 1989. "If you asked me, I always thought the cigarettes would have gotten him."
Just as San Francisco listeners who grew accustomed to Weber's voice between the late 1980s and mid '90s could never have foreseen the bizarre personal circumstances that seem to have led to Weber's violent death, it came as a great shock to his longtime friends and colleagues. While Weber enjoyed doing "edgy talk" on live radio and was a remarkably outgoing man who made friends easily, his former co-workers recalled him as a man who remained tight-lipped about his personal circumstances.
"There are a lot of paths a person can follow. And, usually, you can see what road a person is on -- but no one to my mind could foresee George traveling down a path that might lead to a cliff in the dark," said Greg Jarrett, a former KGO and ABC news anchor and old friend of Weber's.
| Current TV hired this guy to keep the media out. |
In the days following the detainment of Current TV reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling by border patrol in North Korea, their media outlet -- owned by former journalist and Vice President Al Gore -- has adopted the blackout policy of the U.S. State Department. On the day that the detainment made the news, Current TV went so far as to hire security guards to keep media out of its office on 118 King Street in San Francisco.
Calls from SF Weekly have not been returned all week, and today, when I finally got somebody on the line, the answer was abrupt. "We're not giving any comments," said a Current TV employee whose name I didn't catch.
"Isn't it a little weird that you guys are a media outlet and you have given absolutely no information?" I asked.
"It's policy," the man answered quickly. "Have a good day." Then he hung up.
Questions remain about the nature of Lee and Ling's assigment, whether they worked out San Francisco, or had a producer here, and if Gore is doing anything to remedy the situation. The most interesting question, perhaps, is whether it was Gore who decided that Current would restrict the flow of information. If so, that tells us a little something about where Gore's priorities lie when it comes to a major mission of journalism -- to inform the public.
The thrust of the Pickens Plan calls for building wind farms that will generate up to 22 percent of the nation's energy, the creation of a more efficient and expansive electrical grid, and using domestic natural gas instead of imported oil as a transportation fuel, focusing on fleet vehicles and 18-wheelers. In 10 years, says Pickens, the combination can reduce oil imports by a third.
At the moment, though, the much-heralded $10 billion wind farm in the Texas Panhandle is on hold until at least 2011 because Pickens can't get the financing together in the tightened credit market. Plus, Pickens's vision for natural gas, despite a recent bump in public support from lawmakers, still has at least as many opponents as allies and was all but left out of the $787 billion stimulus package President Barack Obama signed into law in mid-February.Financially, 2008 has not been kind to Pickens. His Dallas-based energy hedge fund, BP Capital Management, has been criticized by many on Wall Street for maintaining a bullish view on the price of oil throughout the year. The financial-information company Bloomberg reported in February that the fund lost some 97 percent of its value during the last three months of 2008 and sold off its positions in all but nine of its previously held 26 energy companies. The fund was worth just $40 million, down from nearly $1.3 billion at the end of September. Even by Pickens's standards, that's a lot of green.
Critics say that the entire Pickens Plan is nothing more than a public-relations campaign driven by Pickens's ego, and warn not to mistake the veteran oilman for a tree-hugger. They say the fortune this neo-Greenie stands to make if he can get his wind farms and natural-gas interests up and running could earn him the kind of money traditionally seen only when an oil well explodes in a geyser of black gold. Pickens dismisses this by saying that at 80, he's got enough money and just wants to leave a positive, lasting energy legacy for America. Unlike in the past, Pickens, a longtime free-market man, is counting on the federal government, tax incentives, and subsidies to help make his dreams come true.
1. They put this in a police bulletin, and;
2. If folks used a little more caution when speeding down Sloat, we'd all be better off.
Last week, she told SF Weekly that, yes, the SPCA has a program -- but
is not training nor
selecting dogs nor taking applicants for the program
"The judge asked them to prove they have a program and they proved they have a program," Oliver said. "Our contention is the program they're providing is so skeletal they don't even have a staff. But, no, it's not looking good."
Photo | Yomanimus
