Law and Disorder 1-7

On 12/16, Peter Jeschke-the former Santa Barbara High School tennis coach convicted of having sex with a minor-was released from the Santa Barbara County Jail on $100,000 bail. Jeschke, who still faces witness intimidation charges connected with his trial, was placed on five years of probation and required to register permanently as a sex offender.

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Annual DUI numbers are in for this holiday season: The multijurisdictional “Avoid the 12” enforcement campaign resulted in a total of 228 drunk driving arrests in Santa Barbara County between 9/18 and 1/8, which is a 40 percent increase over the 163 arrests made during the same period a year ago. However, there were fewer DUI-related accidents resulting in injury this year, down to 10 from last year’s 18.

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Goleta’s Home Depot was closed New Year’s Day because of a fire the previous night inside the building. Fire sprinklers and alarms were activated around 7:40 p.m. at the store, and heavy smoke was coming from the building when firefighters arrived. Water and smoke damage ruined some equipment, though the total cost of damages wasn’t immediately clear.

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Cybersitter, a Santa Barbara-based company that makes Internet content blocking software, has sued the Chinese government and several computer companies-including Toshiba and Sony-for $2.2 billion. Company officials allege they were given a contract to provide blocking software in concert with a new Chinese law requiring it on all new computers (the government wished to block political and pornographic Web content) but were never paid.