Law and Disorder
The FBI and Interpol are now assisting the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office in the search for Orson Mozes, a 56-year-old former Santa Barbara resident, for whom an arrest warrant was issued this week on felony charges, including grand theft. Mozes, who vanished last June, ran the Adoption International Program, to which 62 prospective parents paid up to $11,000 to “reserve” an Eastern European orphan.
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Howard Schneiderthe developer who turned Hitchcock Avenue into the spot to buy high-end cars back in the 1980swas sentenced last week to eight years behind bars for defrauding investors in his Gateway Capital Partners of more than $10 million. “You are a con man,” a federal judge told Schneider, who now lives in Los Angeles. In the 1990s, Schneider served six months for misusing funds deposited into a savings and loan that were not his.
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Nicholas David Thompson, 21, the man convicted of felony animal cruelty for banging his roommate’s kitten against the wall repeatedly at a Mesa home last November, was sentenced to 360 days in the County jail on 4/22. Thompson, who pled no contest, was also ordered to attend anger management classes by Superior Court Judge Frank Ochoa. Thompson was a student at SBCC.
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UCSB Police are looking for whoever may have stolen a mounted lynx and polar bear head from the campus’s Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration. The taxidermied pair, valued at $2,300, was noted as missing on 4/18. The center is not seeking criminal charges against the thief, but simply wants the specimens returned so future students can learn from them. Anyone with information should call 893-3446.
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James Fovell, 18, was arrested by UCSB campus police while wandering an all-female floor in the San Miguel dormitory at 3 a.m. on 4/18. Police said he was dressed in black, was wearing a trench coat, and had two knives and an extendable baton in his possession. Fovell was booked into the Santa Barbara county jail immediately following the incident, but the weapons were found to be for personal protection.UCSB police, however, say the weapons were nonetheless illegal.
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After implying to a teller at the Santa Barbara Bank & Trust on the 3900 block of State Street that he had a weapon, a man walked out with a load of cash around 2 p.m. on 4/18. The mandescribed as being white, in his twenties, around 5’11″sported glasses and a fake red beard and was noted by witnesses as having “inky fingers.” He made off on foot. Anyone with information is asked to call 897-2319.
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After investigating the reported attempted abduction of a third-grader from Hope Ranch on 4/17, the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department has filed the matter as a “suspicious circumstance,” as the details surrounding the child’s claims could not be verified by officers, who also spoke to several adults about the incident. According to a widely circulated email, the would-be abductordark-skinned, six-foot, and driving a windowless cargo vanwas seen near Vieja Valley School that afternoon.
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A series of email reminders to area news outlets about aggressive anti-drunk driving precautions taken by California Highway Patrol officers for the County Vintner’s Festival on 4/19 seems to have worked: No one was arrested for driving under the influence either to or away from the event, which took place in Lompoc’s River Park.
