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Local News

• Sacramento County budget cuts change mental health treatment




Dave Da Vigo meets with a psychiatrist at The Effort, a nonprofit clinic that has been inundated with patients suffering from mental illnesses since Sacramento County reduced services – 1,000 new patients since July. "We have hired three new psychiatrists, but we can't do it fast enough," said Robert Caulk, the clinic's executive director.

Thousands of mentally ill people who have been cut from county programs during the past year are straining the area's health system, with hospitals and private clinics struggling to fill gaps in care.

Psychotic patients are crowding emergency rooms, facing long waits for care and triggering safety concerns, officials said.

County Mental Health Director Mary Ann Bennett said the cuts to county programs have prompted providers and administrators to consider new ways of delivering critical services.

In the future, she said, more patients may get federally funded care or treatment at smaller psychiatric clinics scattered throughout the county.

"We're booked," said Robert Caulk, executive director of The Effort, a nonprofit outpatient health clinic in midtown Sacramento that is getting spillover county mental patients. "We have picked up 1,000 new patients since July. We have hired three new psychiatrists, but we can't do it fast enough."

During the past year, the county has shuttered the crisis unit at its Mental Health Treatment Center on Stockton Boulevard, and closed 50 of the facility's 100 inpatient beds. The center handles the most severe psychiatric patients in the county.

During the same period, the area's four nonprofit "regional support teams," funded by the county to provide outpatient care to people with severe mental illness, each cut their client loads from 2,000 to 900. Administrators referred patients elsewhere but don't know how they are faring, said John Buck, chief executive officer at Turning Point Community Programs.

Some are bouncing back to regional support teams for help, said Buck. "Some, I fear, are running out of medication and ending up in emergency rooms."

"Many have just given up and are out on the streets," said George Ehrlick, 61, a former county patient now getting care for his depression and anxiety at The Effort. He said some patients who had beaten addictions are doing drugs again, and he knows of former county patients suspected of taking their own lives.

Ehrlick himself stopped taking his medications for months after he was cut from the county-funded program he'd been in for seven years. "When I came to The Effort I was a basket case," he said.

Since Sacramento County began cutting services at its mental health center, area emergency departments have seen a 65 percent increase in psychiatric patients, said Scott Seamons of the Hospital Council of Northern and Central California.

"The public should know that they are going to see more people out of control in the ERs," Seamons said. At any given time, emergency rooms are holding 12 to 15 mental patients.

As a result, said Bill Sandberg, executive director of the Sierra Sacramento Valley Medical Society, ERs are beefing up security and psychiatric staffing. "I have never seen emergency department directors so worried," he said.

UC Davis Medical Center, located across the street from the county mental health center, is bearing the biggest load, but all hospitals are being affected, Sandberg said.

"Psychiatric patients experiencing flare-ups used to go to the mental health treatment center. Now they're coming to us, and at first we were not prepared," said Dr. Debra Kahn, a UC Davis psychiatrist.

Only the sickest patients are admitted for inpatient care, she said, and "we are maxing out all of the outpatient resources" to accommodate everyone else.

The Effort is receiving many of them.

The waiting room at the J Street clinic is constantly crowded with former county patients, many "in a state of desperation," said Dr. Brad Briercheck, a psychiatrist.

"They're having suicidal thoughts, they're unstable, they're off of their medications," he said. Those in crisis are sent directly to hospitals.

The Effort is better prepared than most to handle the deluge of new patients because its clinic is a Federally Qualified Health Center, making it eligible for certain grants and boosting its Medicare and Medi-Cal reimbursement.

Jonathan Porteus, The Effort's clinical director, said the county should consider a similar approach. "It would be a great alternative to the county funding mental health," he said.

Officials are pondering the idea, said Bennett. Opening a series of smaller county clinics for patients who qualify for Medi-Cal also is a possibility, she said. One such clinic, with 12 beds, is ready to open in Carmichael, she said.

"Anytime you make reductions of the magnitude that we have made, you're going to have a big impact on services and clients, and that's very sad," Bennett said.

"But all of this has forced some really creative thinking … Maybe some positive things will come out of all of this."


George Ehrlick, who has depression, says he's seen the effect of budget cuts on patients: "Many have just given up."


Psychiatrist Brad Briercheck is seeing more patients who used to be served by the county.

• Sexual harassment alleged at Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District



A supervising inspector for the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District is suing the agency, alleging she was sexually harassed by her former supervisor and that the district fostered a hostile work environment.

Lisa Barsdale, 39, claims in the lawsuit that former Deputy Fire Marshal Steve Broderick, now retired, began to stalk and sexually harass her in April 2008.

The suit also names recently retired Fire Chief Donald Mette, who oversaw the department when the alleged harassment took place.

The suit, filed in December in Sacramento Superior Court, is the latest in a string of legal troubles for the department, which endured a sex scandal several years ago involving more than a dozen firefighters, including supervisors.

That scandal resulted in the department paying $550,000 to a woman who claimed she had been assaulted and harassed. It has prompted additional lawsuits by former employees who claim they were unfairly terminated during internal investigations of the matter.

At the end of last year, Ray Trujillo, a longtime board member, resigned abruptly, accusing the district of mismanaging those terminations.

District officials said they could not comment on Barsdale's allegations of harassment, citing ongoing litigation. But Fire Chief Bill Sponable, who took the helm this year, said in a prepared statement that the district has "a zero tolerance for violations of district policies relating to workplace harassment."

Capt. Christian Pebbles, a district spokesman, said supervisors from the rank of captain to the chief receive state-mandated training on sexual harassment online. They also attend sessions taught by hired consultants, Pebbles said.

"Through continuing education, training and discipline, we at Metro Fire strive to provide a workplace free from any type of harassment," fire officials said in the statement.

The suit alleges that Broderick, who had been Barsdale's immediate supervisor since 2005, made inappropriate comments to Barsdale and "persistent intrusions into her personal life, including multiple entreaties for sexual trysts."

Broderick did not respond to a request for comment.

The suit says Broderick suggested to Barsdale that they spend a day together during a conference they were planning to attend in March 2009 and made reservations for her at the hotel where he was going to stay. It says he told Barsdale, who has a husband and four children, that if her husband was going with her he was not going to go, because it wouldn't be "fun for him."

The suit claims that at one point, after she did not return calls from him, she found a note in her office asking, "What you can't return my calls anymore?"

On March 5, 2009, Barsdale filed a formal complaint. That same day, she received several e-mail and voice mail messages from Broderick demanding that she call him, the suit says. Included among the messages was one that said, "I will fill up this phone with messages until you call me back," the suit alleges.

After Barsdale filed the complaint, the suit says, she was placed on administrative leave for two days while Broderick remained in his position. An outside agency investigated the complaint, according to the suit, and on April 6, district officials sustained her complaint.

The suit says fire officials nevertheless ordered Barsdale back to work under Broderick's supervision and "refused to transfer Broderick from Mrs. Barsdale's immediate physical work environment or to have Mrs. Barsdale report to a different first line supervisor."

Pebbles, the district spokesman, said fire officials followed the recommendations of the outside investigator in handling the workplace situation. He said he could not provide details because of personnel privacy rights.

He also said that in reality Barsdale did not return to work under Broderick's supervision because she repeatedly called in sick.

Broderick retired in September. Barsdale still works for the district as a fire inspector.

• Death penalty won't be sought in slaying of California correctional officer




Chong Vue will not face the death penalty in a correctional officer's killing in October 2008.

The Sacramento County District Attorney's Office has announced that it is not seeking the death penalty for Chong Vue, one of four defendants being tried for murder in the 2008 death of correctional Officer Steve Lo.

Instead, prosecutors will seek life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, Deputy District Attorney Eric Kindall said in court Friday.

The intentions are the same for the other three defendants in the case: former Sacramento County Sheriff's Deputy Chu Vue, his brother Gary Vue, and friend Lang Vue, who is of no relation.

Chong Vue, who is the brother of Chu and Gary Vue, had been in Minnesota and was the last defendant to come before the court.

In Minnesota, Chong Vue pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a 2001 drive-by shooting in Hennepin County.

Gary Vue was the triggerman in that shooting and was convicted in December of first-degree murder in that case.

The brothers were sentenced and then extradited to Sacramento County to face murder charges here.

Chu Vue is accused of orchestrating the fatal shooting of Lo, who was gunned down in the garage of his south Sacramento home.

Chong and Gary Vue are accused of carrying out the killing, and Lang Vue is accused of aiding and abetting the other suspects.

Allyssa Vue, sister of the Vue brothers, pleaded no contest in February to acting as an accessory in the case.

Two other defendants, Lee Vue and brother Mason Vue, also are accused of acting as accessories and are scheduled to go on trial in April.

Chu Vue and Lang Vue's trial is scheduled to begin April 15.

The trial for Gary and Chong Vue, who will be prosecuted separately, is expected to begin later.

Police and prosecutors allege that the three Vue brothers and Lang Vue conspired to kill Lo.

Authorities say Lo was having an affair with Chu Vue's wife, Chia Vue.

Lo was gunned down Oct. 15, 2008, in the garage of his south Sacramento home as he prepared to leave for work at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville, where Chia Vue also worked.

• Accomplice convicted of murder in 2008 torture killing in Foothill Farms




Wilbur Reynolds was tortured for six hours in his home and then died in a fire set by his attacker.

A Sacramento jury convicted Daniel James Norman of first-degree murder Friday in the April 20, 2008, torture killing of Wilbur Reynolds in his home in Foothill Farms.

Norman, 43, also was convicted of burglary for a break-in at the home of the 76-year-old victim, who died in a blaze that the defendant's partner in crime set in the residence in the 5400 block of Rambler Way. Reynolds had been beaten in the head, according to trial evidence.

Deputy District Attorney Anthony Ortiz said Norman drove a parolee named David Hamilton to Reynolds' home the day of the killing. Hamilton then put Reynolds through "six hours of torture, six hours of hell" before he set the blaze, Ortiz said in his closing argument to the jury.

Hamilton was fatally shot the same night by a Sacramento sheriff's detective when authorities went to arrest him in a Roseville motel.

The prosecutor said Norman, who was convicted on the theory that he aided and abetted a burglary that resulted in a homicide, used credit cards that Hamilton stole from Reynolds to buy methamphetamine for the two of them.

A taped conversation of Norman talking on the phone with friends on a county jail line after his arrest provided some of the critical evidence prosecutors used against him.

"I kinda maybe knew he was going to steal some s–––, but that's different, that's not murder," Norman said, according to a transcript of the conversation. "It's was supposed to be a straight run-in and grab a few things, then run out. That's what it was supposed to been."

Following nervous laughter, Norman continued, "It didn't work that way."

Hamilton knew Reynolds through a woman the victim had taken in. Hamilton became upset after Reynolds reported him to his parole agent for domestic violence.

Reynolds' granddaughter, Shauna Woodward, said in a telephone interview that her family is "proud of the sacrifice my grandfather made in stopping these men from being able to hurt anybody else."

• City schools add a chief of district communications



The Sacramento City Unified School District hired Sacramento River Cats spokesman Gabe Ross for the newly created chief communication officer position.

Ross, who begins Monday, will make $114,178.

Ross, 33, ends a five-year run with the River Cats, where he served as director of media relations and, most recently, vice president of media relations. Prior to moving to Sacramento, Ross was the director of public relations for the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, which is also a Triple-A baseball team.

Current district spokeswoman Maria Lopez departed Friday following 12 years with Sacramento City Unified to take a job as a communication associate for the California Department of Education. Lopez's position will not be refilled, although a new communications position will likely be added as the department restructures, Ross said.

"It's a time of great need in the district and I am looking forward to bringing my experience and expertise to schools when we desperately need all the resources possible," Ross said.

• 3-day-a-week watering for yards begins today



Sacramento residents may water landscapes three times a week starting today.

With the beginning of daylight saving time at 2 a.m., the city's water conservation ordinance allows more frequent watering. Residents and businesses may water up to three days a week.

Addressees ending in odd numbers may water Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday only. Even-numbered addresses may water on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

No watering is allowed on Mondays. Landscape irrigation must be done before 10 a.m. and after 7 p.m.

While more frequent watering is allowed, city water officials say residents should not water during rainy spells and limit irrigation runoff.

Since Dec. 9, residents have been limited to watering yards and gardens only one day a week – either Saturday or Sunday.

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Regional News

• Metro Fire describes blaze at temple as suspicious



Sacramento fire authorities say the cause of a blaze that swept through a south-area Sikh temple is suspicious.

Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District firefighters responded to the blaze at the Sikh house of worship about 11:30 p.m. Thursday.

The temple, originally built as a house and later converted into a Sikh temple, is in the 7600 block of Rangeview Lane, near Highway 99 and Stockton Boulevard.

Two rooms in the structure were burning when firefighters arrived.

Firefighters searched the building after quickly extinguishing the blaze. The lone occupant escaped after being awakened by a smoke detector, said Capt. Rusty Dupray, fire district spokesman.

The fire remains under investigation, and an arson investigator has determined that the fire is suspicious, officials said. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been notified.

• Sacramento lawyer to run against DA Jan Scully



Sacramento lawyer Julius M. Engel will run for district attorney in the June primary, county election officials said today, giving Jan Scully her first opponent since she won the office 16 years ago.

Engel was one of several contestants for the position when Scully defeated then-incumbent Steve White for the district attorney's job in 1994.

In the interim, Engle has unsuccessfully run for Superior Court judge three times.

Federal prosecutor Todd Leras took out paperwork to run for district attorney, but told The Bee earlier today that he will not seek to replace Scully.

County elections spokesman Brad Buyse said Leras did not return the paperwork by today's 5 p.m. deadline.

• Court hearing for convicted sex offender postponed



The convicted sex offender arrested for allegedly being on the grounds of Del Campo High School has had his first court appearance postponed from today until April 15, the Sacramento County District Attorney's office said.

Hugh Levell Stewart, 55, a sexually violent predator with a lengthy record of sex offenses, faces two misdemeanor counts charging that he violated state law forbidding a sex offender from being on a school's grounds and that he lied about his registry as a sex offender.

In a jailhouse interview with The Bee Thursday, Stewart denied any wrongdoing or ever being at the school. He has since been released on $5,000 bail.

• Sacramento judge: Jury made mistake freeing murder suspect




At the trial's outset, Rosalie Uribe pleaded no contest to child endangerment charges.

A judge said from the bench today that he disagreed with a jury's verdict in his courtroom last month that acquitted a Sacramento man of murder in the death of a 3-year-old boy.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy M. Frawley's comments came in the sentencing of Rosalie Uribe, who pleaded no contest to child endangerment charges for placing her three children in the care of Joseph Skates, the man the jury turned loose.

"Don't be confused by that verdict," Frawley told Uribe, who sniffled and wiped tears from her eyes during the judge's excoriation of her and her ex-boyfriend at today's sentencing. "Joseph Skates got the benefit of the doubts that the jury apparently had. But their verdict was not innocent."

Frawley then made it clear that he felt the jury made a mistake Feb. 11 when it acquitted Skates.

"I personally was convinced by the evidence," Frawley told Uribe. "He killed your son."

The judge blasted Skates for never calling 911 when Manuel "Manny" Maciel sustained his fatal injuries Nov. 7, 2008 and instead called "his protector, his mother."

Frawley said he agreed with the prosecution theory in the case that Skates killed Maciel, who died of blunt-force trauma injuries to the head, because the boy had wet his pajamas.

"He is an emotional person," Frawley said of Skates. "He didn't deal with it right. He flew off the handle. He didn't want to kill Manny. But he reacted, and he did kill Manny."

Noting published reports in The Bee that Uribe has sought to get back together with Skates since the acquittal, Frawley advised the 26-year-old woman to "think about it."

"He's the person who killed your child," Frawley said.

Jesse Ortiz, the attorney who represented Skates at the murder trial, said today that Frawley's comments were "out of line."

"First, it's a total slap in the face to our justice system, and specifically our jurors who worked hard throughout this case and came to their verdict based on the evidence," Ortiz said.

Ortiz also disagreed with the judge's statement that Skates was not "innocent" in the case, "because a person accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty by the district attorney. That never happened. So they did find him innocent."

Before Frawley launched into his assessment of the Skates case, he denied a motion by Uribe's lawyer to reduce her conviction in the child endangerment case from a felony to a misdemeanor.

The judge said that Uribe lied to Child Protective Services workers about the source of injuries Manny had suffered in the weeks before his death, injuries that were reported to the agency by the boy's relatives.

"Because you lied, because so much time had elapsed and some of those injuries had begun to heal, CPS didn't have the legal authority to take the action that would have saved Manny's life," Frawley said. "They couldn't initiate a court action. They had no authority because you came up with half-baked lies that favored Joseph Skates."

A CPS case worker warned Uribe to not leave her children in Skates' custody, Frawley said, but she ignored it.

"And that's why you're a convicted felon," the judge said.

Frawley went on to sentence Uribe to three years probation and 90 days on the sheriff's work project, the deal to which prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed when she pleaded no contest on the eve of Skates' trial.

Uribe's lawyer, Alice Michel, also told the court that Uribe had her parental rights terminated on Thursday to her surviving sons, who are 7 and 5. They are now living with an aunt in Madera.

• Sacramento jury convicts man of murder in torture case



A Sacramento jury today convicted Daniel James Norman of first-degree murder in the April 20, 2008, killing of Wilbur Reynolds in his home in Foothill Farms.

Norman, 43, also was convicted of burglary a break-in at the home of the 76-year-old victim, who died in a blaze that the defendant's partner set in the residence in the 5400 block of Rambler Way.

According to evidence in Norman's trial, he drove a parolee named David Hamilton to Reynolds' home the day of the killing.

Deputy District Attorney Anthony Ortiz said Hamilton then put Reynolds through "six hour of torture, six hours of hell" before Hamilton set the blaze in which the victim succumbed.

Hamilton was shot and killed by a Sacramento sheriff's detective when they came to arrest him at a Roseville motel the night Reynolds was slain.

The prosecutor said Norman, who was convicted on the theory that he aided and abetted a burglary that resulted in a homicide, used credit cards that Hamilton stole from Reynolds to buy methamphetamine for the two of them.

A taped conversation of Norman talking on the phone with friends on a county jail line after his arrest provided some of the critical evidence prosecutors used against him.

"I kinda maybe knew he was going to steal some (expletive deleted), but that's different, that's not murder," Norman said, according to a transcript of the conversation. "It's was supposed to be a straight run-in and grab a few things, then run out. That's what it was supposed to been."

Following nervous laughter, Norman continued, "It didn't work that way."

Reynolds suffered burns to 72 percent of his body after intruders beat him. Norman and Hamilton ransacked the victim's house in the 5400 block of Rambler Way.

Hamilton knew Reynolds through a woman the victim had taken into his home. Hamilton then became upset with Reynolds after the Foothill Farms man reported him to his parole agent for domestic violence.

"We're very proud of the sacrifice my grandfather made in stopping these men from being able to hurt anybody else," said Shuana Woodward, Reynold's granddaughter. We're proud he fought the fight he did."

Woodward also thanked Ortiz, the police and "anybody else who helped for the outcome of this."

• 2 Sacramento area inmates denied paroles; 3rd gets another chance



Two men serving life sentences for Sacramento area crimes were recently denied paroles, but a woman who killed man in 1988 who she suspected of being a child molester received a second chance at earning a parole.

Robert Ramirez Vela Jr., a 34-year-old child killer, was given a 10-year denial and Frederick Brinkley, a 47-year-old kidnapper, was given a five-year denial in hearings earlier this month, said Margot Bach, spokeswoman for the Board of Parole Hearings.

Both men can request a rehearing every three years if they can show there has been a change in circumstances in his case or that new information is available.

However, board members who heard the parole request of Joy Celeste Pense reached a "split decision," Bach said. Pense, 43, was convicted of killing Tracy James Helling, 19, of Concord. Pense said she killed him because she believed he had molested the 3-year-old girl who she babysat, according to Bee reports.

This means Pense will soon get a hearing before the full board, Bach said.

If you want to give your opinion of an inmate's suitability for parole, you may mail a letter to:

Martin Hoshino, executive director

Board of Parole Hearings

1515 K Street

Sacramento, CA 95811

For more information on the Board of Parole Hearings, go to:

http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Divisions_Boards/BOPH/

Previous coverage:

Sacramento child killer among inmates up for parole hearings - March 4, 2010

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National News

• Official: Cops had gun in Pentagon spree

A gun recovered from this month's shooting at the Pentagon was once in the possession of the Memphis Police Department, a law enforcement official told CNN.


• Erin Andrews' video voyeur gets 2½ years

A federal judge sentenced an Illinois man to two and a half years in prison Monday for taping ESPN sports reporter Erin Andrews in the nude.


• CDC makes no-sail recommendation for cruise ship

The Centers for Disease Control is making a no-sail recommendation for at least four full days for the Celebrity Mercury cruise ship to investigate recurring outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness, a CDC spokesman said Monday.


• Trendy restaurant apologizes for serving whale meat

A trendy California sushi restaurant charged by federal authorities with serving whale meet offered an apology Monday, saying it "ignored its responsibilities" to endangered species.


• Pilots who overflew airport drop attempt to keep licenses

The Northwest Airlines pilots who lost their licenses after overflying their Minneapolis destination last year have dropped their appeal, the Federal Aviation Administration said Monday.


• Health care puts House Democrats on the line

House Democrats wary of the Senate health care bill find themselves in a quandary.

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