Jose Lumbreras, 25, has pleaded no contest on two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated for the deaths of 22-year-old UC Berkeley graduate Milanca Lopez and her 6-year-old son, Xavier Chevez. The Alameda County District Attorney’s office is requesting the maximum 12 years in prison, according to Deputy District Attorney Teresa Drenick.

“It is a tremendous relief to know this particular chapter has come to a close without the trauma of what we knew would be a painful trial for her family and friends,” said Rue Mapp, a UC Berkeley graduate and neighbor of Lopez, in an email. “We will continue to celebrate Milanca and Xavier’s lives and remember the beautiful friend and mother she was in our community.”

Paul Wolf, Lumbreras’ defense attorney, disagrees with the prosecution’s pursuit of the maximum sentence. He said Lumbreras has suffered greatly from the accident and that 12 years is too severe for the crime.

“Jose has never denied nor sought to shirk his responsibility for the damage and pain for which he has shared and continues to experience,” Wolf said. “He loved both of them. It’s an accident, and he’s responsible for it.”

Wolf will argue for a lighter penalty during Lumbreras’ sentencing on June 11.

At approximately 1 a.m. on May 18, 2012, Lumbreras drove into a tree in central Berkeley, killing Lopez and seriously injuring Chevez. According to police, his blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit.

Chevez was placed on life support and died from his injuries one week later at Children’s Hospital and Research Center in Oakland.

Prior to her death, Lopez and her son lived in university student housing at University Village in Albany. Lopez began studying at UC Berkeley in 2007 and was planning to begin a master’s program for teaching at UCLA following her graduation.

Lumbreras came to UC Berkeley in 2010 after receiving a degree in sociology from UC Santa Barbara. He received a graduate degree from UC Berkeley’s ethnic studies department not long before the accident.

The couple was allegedly drinking in celebration of their recent graduations prior to the collision, Wolf said.

Lumbreras is currently being held at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, and his bail is set at $200,000, according to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office inmate locator.

“It’s one of the most tragic cases I’ve ever been involved in, and I’ve been a criminal defense lawyer for 37 years,” Wolf said. “It caused nearly intolerable injury and loss to three people and their respective families.”

Andy Nguyen is the lead crime reporter. Contact him at anguyen@dailycal.org
and follow him on Twitter @Andy_Truc.

The post UC Berkeley alumnus found guilty of DUI deaths appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Martin, 41, was arrested in 2009 for the murders of  both his girlfriend, Zoelina Williams, and her 17- month-old son, Jashon Williams. He was arrested on Nov. 13 after Zoelina William’s body was found allegedly beaten and shot to death the same day on the shoreline of the Berkeley Aquatic Water Park, according to a report by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office.

Two days after Zoelina Williams’s death, the body of  her son was found floating in the water at the Berkeley Marina, but due to severe decomposition of the infant’s body, an autopsy was unable to identify the cause of death, according to the report.

According to the Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Teresa Drenick, Martin pled guilty on Thursday, the day his jury trial was set to begin. He pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and to both counts of murder of Zoelina Williams and Jashon Williams.

“It was somewhat surprising,” said Martin’s lawyer Deborah Levy. “… We were gearing up for trial and picking a jury and Mr. Martin decided he wanted to resolve the case and just plead guilty. It is my belief that Mr. Martin did not want the publicity of trial … being in the paper and on the news.”

According to Levy, the case was originally a death penalty case but prosecutors decided not to pursue the death penalty for Martin before Levy became Martin’s lawyer. Levy also said Martin was moved to Santa Rita Jail in Dublin toward the end of the trial.

According to the report, Martin also admitted to three prior felony convictions and three special circumstances for killing a witness, killing by means of lying in wait and killing more than one victim.

Drenick said Curtis’ guilty plea was unexpected because in usual cases, the defendant would only plead guilty after an agreement had already been negotiated between the defense and the prosecution involved in the case.

“Most of the time, people enter guilty pleas pursuant to negotiated dispositions,” Drenick said. “That’s the norm. The accused pleads guilty to some accounts, and other (accounts) are dismissed. In this case, it did not occur. The accused pled guilty to everything that was charged.”

Court documents reveal that Martin had been accused of violence before the two murders. In December 2007, Martin allegedly hit, choked and stomped on a female Oakland resident, leading to her hospitalization.

In the documents, the woman said Martin had also threatened violence against her son. Though the woman, who gave investigators a different name out of fear for her safety, was granted a restraining order against Martin a year later in September 2008, charges against Martin were not made at the time.

The post Oakland resident pleads guilty to Berkeley murders appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Bernes plead no contest to three other charges from a May 1 Day of Action protest in Oakland, and was sentenced to 30 days of community service, according to Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Teresa Drenick. The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office had added charges from the May 1 protest to the November 9 charges — one of which included battery of a police officer — via a joinder, which allowed the court to consolidate the cases into one.

Bernes’ sentence also includes a three-year stay-away order from the campus and Frank H. Ogawa Plaza in downtown  Oakland, and it also includes a restitution reserve, through which the court reserves the right to order that Bernes pay restitution to the victim of his crimes. The stay-away order will also ban Bernes from these locations unless he is there “for lawful purposes.”

“The stay-away orders are a negative tactic used by the district attorney that should be strongly opposed,” said Bernes’ lawyer, Vylma Ortiz.

Bernes said he and his lawyer may petition the court before he needs to leave for North Carolina for his postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University to drop the stay-away order. Bernes said he intends to return to Berkeley after the one-year fellowship is completed.

According to UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof, the campus was not involved in the court’s decision to issue the stay-away order.

Bernes said the term “lawful purposes” is very ambiguous, making it hard to understand under what conditions he is allowed to go to the campus and Frank H. Ogawa Plaza.

“The terms are designed to prevent me from any protest either at UC Berkeley or Downtown Oakland,” Bernes said.

Ortiz said Bernes had a good case for getting the May 1 charges dismissed, but Bernes wanted to be free to leave in time for the beginning of his fellowship in August.

“I’m disappointed with the resolution that I got, but I need to move on with my life, and that forced me into accepting these terms,” Bernes said.

Members of Occupy Cal have been protesting Bernes’ prosecution throughout the judicial process. Navid Shaghaghi, a UC Berkeley alumnus and Occupy Cal member, said all of the charges should have been dropped, and according to Ortiz, Bernes was acting lawfully on both occasions.

“They’re trying to scare protesters,” Shaghaghi said. “It’s not really about Jasper — it’s about trying to scare everyone else if they protest or oppose the administration.”

The post Final charges resolved against Nov. 9 Occupy Cal protester appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Seeman, 57, is a graduate of the UC Berkeley School of Law and recently presided over a case in March in which he issued stay-away orders to four Occupy Cal protesters, requiring them to stay at least 100 yards away from the campus except to attend work and class. Seeman’s charges stem from his relationship with Anne Nutting, an elderly neighbor who died in 2010, from whom prosecutors say Seeman stole at least $1.6 million stretching back to 1999.

Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Teresa Drenick said that Seeman was to be arraigned Friday afternoon at Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse.

“This is the first step in legal proceedings to decide what will happen next,” Drenick said.

Seeman entered the lives of his elderly neighbors Lee and Anne Nutting after the fire department deemed their house uninhabitable due to hoarding. According to documents from the Alameda County Superior Court, Seeman, a juvenile law attorney at the time, offered to help them while they moved to the Radisson Hotel near the Berkeley Marina since they did not have any children, family or friends.

After discovering that the Nuttings had $1 million worth of stock certificates and uncashed dividend checks in their home, Seeman obtained a durable power of attorney status in 1999, putting him in charge of managing all of their financial assets and taxes. Lee Nutting passed away in December of that year. The following June, Seeman allegedly began to sell the Nuttings assets by selling their properties in Santa Cruz.

“By August, 2004, Seeman had taken over almost all of the victim’s financial affairs, putting his name on her bank statements as a joint tenant and on her investment accounts as TOD (transferee on death),” the documents read. “At this time there was an excess of ($2.22 million) in the accounts.”

From there, Seeman allegedly went on to sell several of Nutting’s assets, including her art print collection, a Lionel train set and stamp and coin collections, according to court documents.

After convincing Nutting to loan him the $250,000 made from auctioning off the art print collection, he promised he would pay the loan back at a 3 percent monthly interest rate but only made eight payments, according to court documents.

One of the counts of perjury for which Seeman is being charged is for failing to report the loan in his Statement of Economic Interest, a mandatory disclosure which all judges and several other government employees must disclose, according to Drenick.

In 2007, after returning to her home on Santa Barbara Road after nearly nine years living at the hotel, Nutting hired a different attorney who sought to revoke Seeman’s durable power of attorney status and put an end to his involvement in her financial affairs. Seeman allegedly refused to comply.

Before Nutting passed away at the age of 97 in April 2010, her attorney contacted Berkeley Police Department to report that she had been the victim of elder financial abuse at the hands of Seeman.

Seeman was contacted by police soon after and repaid the remainder of the $250,000 loan but refused to disclose an account of his activities as durable power of attorney.

Seeman was arrested Thursday morning after a prolonged investigation. He was being held Thursday evening at a downtown Oakland jail but was freed Friday after posting $525,000 bail.

Seeman’s next court date is scheduled for July 3.

The post Local judge on trial for embezzling millions from elderly neighbor appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office decided not to file charges against Anastasia Lutrell and Gabrielle Silverman, which means that no charges have been filed against any of the protesters arrested following the May 14 UCPD raid on the Gill Tract. Charges against seven of the other protesters arrested were declined to be filed last week.

“Based upon the totality of the evidence reviewed by the district attorney’s office, we declined to file charges,” said Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Teresa Drenick in an email.

According to Drenick, Silverman still faces an unrelated misdemeanor charge from January that consists of resisting arrest, but is free of any charges relating to Occupy the Farm.

Lutrell, who is not affiliated with UC Berkeley, was not present at Monday’s hearing at Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland and said she found out charges were not filed against her on Friday.

“I was very happy,” she said. “There was no reason for me to be arrested. I believe there was no reason for anyone to be arrested.”

Anya Kamenskaya, a spokesperson for Occupy the Farm, said she is “really glad” about the outcome for the remaining two protesters, but would not comment further because a group discussion consisting of the movement’s participants had not yet taken place.

According to Lutrell, an officer at the scene during the raid said the protesters were being arrested for unlawful assembly.

“It infuriated me because I have a degree in political science, and I know what the Constitution grants me,” she said.

As for whether the organizers have any future plans involving the Gill Tract land, Lutrell replied that “farmland is for farming.”

On June 8 the district attorney’s office decided not to file charges against seven protesters arrested during the May raid — Charles Allred, Mari Belmares, Gopal Dayaneni, Kimber Morrison, Stefanie Rawlings, Sheryl Rowe and Marisa Skaggs.

Silverman is one of the 15 defendants named in a civil suit issued by the UC on May 9 against the protesters. The suit that alleges the defendants “cut the chains securing the gates into Gill Tract, entered the property and have since established a campsite and attempted to grow food” on the tract. Lutrell is not one of the defendants named in the lawsuit.

Legal representation for Occupy the Farm and the UC presented arguments at a May 31 preliminary injunction hearing for the civil suit. The injunction could bar protesters indefinitely from the Albany farmland if Alameda County Superior Court Judge David Hunter approves it.

Lutrell, as well as other Occupy the Farm participants, believe the university should drop the lawsuit.

“I think the university will regret it,” she said. “Once you open a can of worms, it’s hard to close it.”

The post Charges not filed against two remaining Occupy the Farm protesters appeared first on The Daily Californian.

According to police, Lumbreras’ blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit when the car he was driving car crashed into a tree in central Berkeley shortly after 1 a.m. on May 18, killing 22-year-old UC Berkeley alumna Milanca Lopez and seriously injuring her six-year-old son, Xavier Chevez.

Xavier died Friday at Children’s Hospital Oakland after being comatose for a week following the accident.

The Alameda County District Attorney originally charged Lumbreras with gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and drunken driving causing injury but amended the charges Wednesday to include a second count of manslaughter.

Deputy District Attorney Teresa Drenick said that although the charges were amended, Lumbreras did not appear in court for his scheduled hearing on Wednesday because he is still in the hospital with injuries sustained in the accident.

Adelyn Baxter is the news editor.

The post Two counts of vehicular manslaughter filed against UC Berkeley grad student appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Two of the 10 protesters arrested during the May 14 raid on the Occupy the Farm camp had their charges dropped by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office last Wednesday, and one accepted a plea bargain last Thursday. Fifteen protesters named in a civil suit filed against them by the university await their next court date Thursday.

According to Deputy District Attorney Teresa Drenick, Edward Miller — who was arrested on May 14 after allegedly climbing a tree, urinating on a police officer and throwing a plant starter at an officer — pleaded guilty Thursday to resisting, delaying or obstructing an officer. He was sentenced to 30 days in county jail, three years of probation and a stay-away order from the Gill Tract.

The district attorney’s office chose not to file charges against farm protesters Mari Belmares and Charles Allred based on the “interest of justice,” according to Drenick.

Sheryl Rowe and Marisa Skaggs, who were arrested on May 14 for allegedly trespassing on the Gill Tract, have arraignment hearings at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland scheduled for June 11.

The 15 protesters named in a lawsuit brought against them by the UC also await legal proceedings. The next court date in the suit for the group is Thursday.

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” said Gopal Dayaneni, spokesperson for Occupy the Farm and one of the 15 protesters named in the suit. “We did what was right. We opened up a possibility in people’s imaginations that something better could be done on that land.”

“We urge the administration and campus police to drop all charges against the farmers and protesters, and to engage in good-faith negotiations to ensure that the Gill Tract is reserved for community-based agricultural use to be governed as a form of commons in conjunction with the farmers and local community,” reads the statement.

In a May 11 letter, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer and Vice Chancellor of Administration and Finance John Wilton wrote that the lawsuit would be dropped if the protesters left peacefully and did not re-occupy the Gill Tract.

Although the protesters moved their camp site south of the research land by the May 12 deadline set by Breslauer and Wilton, they continued to farm the rows of crops they had planted up until the day of the May 14 raid.

A May 18 letter from Breslauer and Wilton said that the campus is still wiling to discuss the possibility of urban farming on the Gill Tract. The letter also said that staff from the College of Natural Resources are tending to 40 rows of protester-planted crops that were preserved and kept alongside crops originally planted for staff research.

Christopher Yee is an assistant news editor.

The post Litigation continues against Gill Tract occupiers appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The case could not be resolved in court today because Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Chris Cavagnaro would like Bernes to plead guilty to at least one of the Nov. 9 charges, one of which includes battery of a police officer, according to Vylma Ortiz, Bernes’ attorney and a civil rights lawyer for Siegel & Yee.

Earlier this month, the district attorney’s office amended the original Nov. 9 charges against Bernes to also include an arrest for his involvement in the May 1 Day of Action protests in Oakland.

According to Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Teresa Drenick, the consolidation of cases —  called a joinder — is common practice amongst cases of the same class in order to pursue judicial economy and efficiency.

However, Ortiz said these charges should be dropped for Bernes, just as they were for the other 12 protesters who were also charged with misdemeanors in the Nov. 9 demonstrations.

Ortiz said differing cities, police agencies, locations and the timing between the events illustrate that “there is no simply evidentiary connection between the two alleged offenses.” She also said the joinder denies Bernes his fundamental right to due process and a fair trial.

Although Ortiz submitted an opposition motion to the joinder on May 16, the presiding judge for the case rejected the appeal.

According to the court document for the motion, Ortiz stated that Assistant District Attorney Paul Hora held a meeting on April 25 with the majority of the lawyers defending the protesters charged for their participation in the Nov. 9 Occupy Cal demonstrations. Hora agreed to dismiss the charges for only some of the student demonstrators, but stated he still had to decide about the others.

Bernes is the only protester who did not have his charges dropped after Chancellor Robert Birgeneau sent a letter to Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley’s office reminding her of the amnesty for the students who were charged for the Nov. 9 Occupy Cal demonstrations.

The next court date is set for May 30 at 9:30 a.m. at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse.

The post Nov. 9 Occupy Cal protester does not plead guilty appeared first on The Daily Californian.

At least nine more protesters arrested May 14 at the Gill Tract in Albany have upcoming pretrial hearings, but according to Deputy District Attorney Teresa Drenick, the county declined to file charges against Mari Belmares and Charles Allred based on the “interest of justice.”

One Occupy the Farm protester, Edward Miller, has a pretrial hearing scheduled for Thursday morning. Miller’s charges include three misdemeanors committed at the Gill Tract including battery on a peace officer, trespassing and resisting arrest on account of trespass. Miller allegedly urinated on a police officer while perched in a tree on the perimeter of the tract on the day of the raid.

Drenick said that Miller was taken to the Berkeley Police Department jail following his arrest. He is being held on bail for $20,000, according to the court docket.

Several protesters also still face a lawsuit issued by the campus.

According to a letter written Friday by Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer and Vice Chancellor of Administration and Finance John Wilton, staff members from the College of Natural Resources who use the Gill Tract for agricultural research have begun preparing the field for planting, but staff will reserve about 25 percent of the tract for urban farming.

“The Gill Tract can and will accommodate both research and urban agriculture throughout the growing season,” the letter reads.

Adelyn Baxter is the news editor.

The post Occupy the farm protesters face court hearings while campus promises urban farming appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The Berkeley Police Department announced Tuesday that Calvester Stewart, 19, has been charged with the alleged murder of Whitmire, 24. Whitmire was fatally shot on the night of March 29 at the corner of Oregon and Sacramento streets in South Berkeley in the city’s third homicide of the year.

Berkeley resident Randall Alston, 18, has also been charged in connection with the fatal shooting but pleaded not guilty to one charge of felony murder April 9 at the Rene C. Davidson Courthouse in Oakland.

According to Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Teresa Drenick, Alston and Stewart are both being held in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin without bail.

Stewart is also the main suspect in an April 13 shooting involving police and is being held without bail on suspicion of the attempted murder of five police officers after he allegedly opened fire on the officers while fleeing from them, according to a press release issued by the Berkeley Police Department.

Stewart was booked into Santa Rita Jail for a felony probation violation stemming from the April 13 incident, according to the press release.

According to Drenick, Stewart appeared in court on April 23 for the alleged probation violation.

Stewart’s next court date for the murder charges is set for May 21 at 2 p.m., according to Drenick.

The complaint sheet from the Alameda County District Attorney’s office can be viewed here:

Anjuli Sastry is an assistant news editor.

The post Second suspect charged in South Berkeley homicide appeared first on The Daily Californian.