San Francisco News Blog

Lead plaintiff Rebecca Swift, from Santa Cruz claims that last April she provided the company with her cell number to receive a text from the company with a code that she could then exchange for "YoCash," which is a kind of virtual currency in the YoVille! game. Swift claims she got her YoCash, but she also got four unexpected charges for $9.99 on her phone bill.

But apparently that wasn't enough to stop Swift from stepping right into another money trap. In June, she clicked on an ad promising more YoCash if she participated in a "risk-free Green Tea Purity Trial." According to the suit, the ad indicated she could cancel the trial within 15 days, so (understandably hungry for more YoCash; who wouldn't be?) she provided the company with her debit card number. But Swift claims that even though she sent an e-mail to the Green Tea manufacturer in China within 15 days, she was charged nearly $200 for two shipments of supplements she says were waaaay not worth that much. 

Steve Vender, in a 2007 SF Weekly photograph

​Steve Vender was indicted by a grand jury Tuesday and arrested this afternoon, according to Brian Buckelew, spokesman for the office of District Attorney Kamala Harris. Vender was being held on $75,000 bail, and is scheduled to be arraigned Monday. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to three years in state prison.

"Justice is silenced by the culture of intimidation," Buckelew said in an e-mail to SF Weekly. "This terrorism in all its forms has no place in the criminal justice system and must end."

Robert Pedraza                      By C. Stiles

​In our cover story last week, Worms in the Apple, writer Tim Elfrink detailed the saga of the Rudy and Robert Pedraza, a couple of rogue computer programming brothers who hacked Apple's OS X and retooled it for use on cheaper PCs.

Elfrink wrote about how legal experts believed that the Pedraza brothers had a chance to prevail in San Francisco's Northern District Court, where Apple is suing them for copyright infringement. As of late last week, when U.S. District Judge William Alsup handed down a summary judgment in favor of Apple, that chance isn't looking so fat.

"Psystar infringed Apple's exclusive rights to create derivative works of Mac OS X," Alsup wrote, "by replacing original files in Mac OS X with unauthorized software files."

The 40-year-old has told police that he was only giving his 32-year-old friend a jocular slap last month -- but did so while the man in question was sitting on the ledge of a large bay window. The victim fell five stories, hitting a tree about halfway to the ground, then tumbling to the pavement below. Somewhat miraculously, he escaped with only a broken arm and dislocated shoulder. Both the victim and a female acquaintance of both men present at the scene allege Smith pushed the victim with both hands -- and this was no accident.

Smith was charged with attempted murder after the Oct. 15 incident, made the $100,000 bail, and was released on Oct. 19. 

Joseph Byrnes

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The San Francisco artist and musician is accused of axing his pit bull, Nickel, to death on Aug. 9 in a Bernal Heights church. Police called to the scene found Byrnes' blood-soaked clothes within the Immaculate Conception Church and found him crouched, nude and slathered with blood, over his mortally wounded dog. The officers claim Byrnes told them he killed his dog because it was possessed by the devil.

Last week, a San Francisco judge ruled that Byrnes is "diagnostically suitable" for Behavioral Health Court; a Nov. 12 hearing on whether this is where his case will be heard was put over until tomorrow.

Photo by LiveBloid, Wikimedia Commons

Watching you?

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Coral Springs, Fla.-based financial management company Pro-Management Resources, Inc. has filed a $15,000 suit against the Giants' leadoff hitter in Miami Superior court. Attempts to reach the Dominican-born Velez were unsuccessful; the team's Web site indicates he may be in his home country. Meanwhile, our calls to Pro-Management were answered by staffers who would only confirm that the Velez in question is the Major League baseball player. Company CEO Tony Chirlcosta is out of the country and messages for Pro-Management's attorney have not yet been returned.

SF Weekly has not yet obtained an actual copy of the suit, so the charges are unclear. But it warrants mentioning that, just a week after filing suit against Velez in late August, Pro Management sued Florida Marlins reliever Renyel Pinto alleging he "failed to pay" the agreed-upon 1.5 percent commission on his $400,000 salary.

Initial stories put the date of Ferenc's report at February of 2008 -- meaning the San Francisco Police Department ostensibly sat on it for the better part of 20 months before notifying de La Plaza's friends, family, and their lawyer, Bill Fazio, of the report's existence. Yet, it turns out, this isn't quite the case. Ferenc inadvertently wrote the wrong year on the report; that 2008 should have been a 2009. So the cops sat on the report for around seven months.

Not that Fazio isn't still peeved.

"I think February is a hell of a long time," he told SF Weekly. "February to September -- how long is that?"

Chan's lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Matt Rosen, isn't buying it. "Hypothetically, even if she was responsible for some of those fires -- and I'm not conceding that at all -- there's no way she's responsible for all of them," he says. "It's just not possible."

More than that, however, Rosen is displeased that the police have repeatedly told the press that Chan is their prime suspect in the summer's car arsons, despite the fact that the SFPD admittedly does not have enough evidence to file charges against her in those cases. Instead Chan is facing a count of arson for a structure fire that was set in April (Rosen notes that the second structure fire incident mentioned by police has been dismissed). And the lawyer feels that the frequent coupling of Chan's memorable moniker and the headline-grabbing car fires might have made it impossible for a potential local jury to handle her unrelated arson charge.
 

The age-old question that has tormented thinkers for ages -- regarding whether you could walk off with nine pianos and get away with it-- was answered Tuesday. No. You cannot.

A San Francisco jury smacked down 66-year-old piano thief Susan Gilner today, convicting her of 11 felonies in connections with selling pianos on consignment and not paying the former owners their owed share. The total tab of the stolen merchandise came to $138,000 filched from nine victims.

As owner of Encore Vintage Pianos, Gilner had entered into agreements with the hapless piano owners to move their antique instruments for an agreed upon price, 10 percent of which Gilner would keep as commission.

Dennis Herrera, man in the middle

​In a letter to U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello, posted on the city attorney's Web site, Herrera asks that Russoniello "provide an assurance that if the City proceeds to implement this Amendment... City law enforcement officers and employees will not be prosecuted for violating federal criminal laws." The city law revises the sanctuary ordinance so undocumented juveniles would only be reported to federal immigration authorities if convicted of a crime -- not after they are arrested, which is the current city policy.

Herrera's letter goes on to state that if the U.S. Attorney's office does not provide "an adequate assurance" of city employees' freedom from criminal liability under the new sanctuary policy, the city might file for declaratory relief in federal court -- essentially asking a judge to decide the matter.

A crowd gathers around Supervisor David Campos after today's veto override

​"This veto override cannot really take effect," Newsom spokesman Nathan Ballard said immediately after the vote, which took place at today's full board meeting. Ballard contended that the legislation cannot be enforced because it conflicts with federal immigration law. "The board can't force our law-enforcement officials to break federal law." He added, "We've got to protect our city officials from symbolic gestures like this bill, no matter how well-intentioned it is."

Supervisor David Campos, the bill's chief sponsor, anticipated this response in his remarks before the vote on the ordinance, which passed 8-3 with Supervisors Michela Alioto-Pier, Carmen Chu and Sean Elsbernd voting no. "It is unfortunate that we are at this point," Campos said. "It saddens and pains me to say that what we hear from the mayor is that he is going to ignore the democratic process that's been followed."

Photo by Coaster 420, Wikimedia Commons

Coming to a dispensary near you

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Ethics staffer Oliver Luby lawyered up after receiving that curiously timed complaint in June, and charged that this was all retaliation against a whistleblower. That charge may never be truly put to rest -- but the complaint is. Over the weekend Luby received an official letter informing him that the charges have been dismissed.

"Since the maximum consequences of an ethics violation could include up to a $5,000 fine, termination of employment and a permanent bar against holding office or employment with the City and County, I am very much relieved that the retaliatory ethics complaint was dismissed," Luby wrote SF Weekly.

Luby's most recent troubles started back in the summer, when he wrote to his supervisors about how it appeared the Ethics Commission was jumping through hoops to avoid citing and fining Supervisor Carmen Chu -- a client of well-connected campaign attorney Jim Sutton -- when Supervisors Gerardo Sandoval and Chris Daly had been punished for near-identical campaign finance transgressions.

A lawsuit in every box...

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Turns out Kellogg's isn't immune to lawsuits, either. A class-action suit filed in Los Angeles goes one step further than Herrera -- asking the cereal company to pay back the customers supposedly duped into buying a so-called immunity aide that just happens to be 40 percent sugar by weight.

Howard Rubinstein, one of the platoon of lawyers representing the plaintiffs, told SF Weekly that Kellogg's capitulation to Herrera won't keep the Los Angeles suit from moving forward. "Are they gonna pay everyone their money back?" queried the lawyer. "What they're trying to do is mitigate damages. Our suit has to do with paying back money to the people who bought that particular product."

Among other counts, the suit charges Kellogg's with false and misleading advertising and unjust enrichment. The latter charge is a nifty double-entendre for a cereal that had claimed to be enriched with vitamins and antioxidants.

The tide is turning...

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A Santa Cruz man named Robert Norse twice gave the Sieg Heil to members of that city's government, in 2002 and 2004. Following his '04 ejection, he sued the city for abrogating his First Amendment rights. That case made it all the way to the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which sided with the city of Santa Cruz' claim that it was authorized to eject anyone who "disrupts the proceedings of the Council." Yet that case was remanded back to San Francisco District Court as the 9th was uncertain how to assess the "reasonableness" of giving Norse the heave-ho.

Well, the district court determined that it was plenty reasonable to toss Norse. And, in a ruling released this week, the 9th once again concurred. And this time they saw a video of Norse's behavior: "The [2004] videotape shows that Norse was engaged in a parade about the Council chambers, protesting the Council's action and his conduct was clearly disruptive," wrote Judge Mary M. Schroeder. "...The behavior that prompted Norse's [2002] ejection was his giving a Nazi salute in support of a disruptive member of the audience who had refused to leave the podium after the presiding officer ruled the speaker's time had expired ... the salute was obviously intended as a criticism or condemnation of the ruling."

It's a great start -- breakfast is the most litigious meal of the day. But the world of cereal is a treacherous one. Luckily, we've found draft copies of several other letters Herrera soon intends to send to these milk-soaked miscreants.

Lucky Charms:

"It has come to this office's attention that you have made repeated allegations of theft of your eponymous "Lucky Charms" (hereafter referred to as "LC"). Yet we have found no pertinent records indicating any police reports regarding theft of the LC.  ... Moreover, it has come to our attention that you refer to said LC as being "magically delicious." Following the passage of AB 4066 in 2004, most types of magic are actually illegal in California (with exceptions in various tribal domains). We ask that you send us written proof regarding what spells, enchantments, or other magical methods you are using as a taste enhancer for the LC. We will be expecting your owl shortly. ... 

Alpha-Bits:

"Dear sir or madam: This is an amicus brief filed on behalf of the underrepresented letters of the alphabet, Q, J, X, Z, and sometimes Y, who feel they have been given scant notice in your cereal for years -- and, when utilized, given marginal and demeaning roles. Q's mandatory accompaniment by U, furthermore, is a blatant violation of a bevy of state labor laws. This action has also been enjoined by the letters L, A, W, S, U, I, and T."

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The bar for amazing legal theater shouldn't have been difficult to clear in a case involving a homeless man with a history of mental illness entering a zoo enclosure. And yet, the Herron trial vaulted into the stratosphere on Tuesday, when the District Attorneys prosecuting the case listened, open-mouthed, as an expert witness for the defense calmly explained that Herron breached the vicious animals' lair because the voice of actor and male model Tyson Beckford penetrated his skull and ordered him to save a damsel in distress at the zoo.

"That was so incredibly strange and we were as surprised as anybody," said Brian Buckelew, an Assistant District Attorney and spokesman for the office. "We weren't privy to the psychiatric reports about how Tyson Beckford told him to go into that grotto until it came out on the stand." 

But wait -- it gets better! Did you know that after your lawyer convinces a jury that you're not guilty of unlawfully disturbing a wild and dangerous animal because you've got the voice of Tyson Beckford in your head that you just walk out of the courtroom, scot-free? There's no supervised release, no mandatory mental health counseling (let along custody) and no reason Tyson Beckford's disembodied voice can't tell you to kick the bailiff in the crotch, too. 

Well, there's the law and there's the law. A recent police report described officers from Taraval Station stopping a driver for an alleged road rage incident, then citing him for possessing an air pistol. A sergeant familiar with the case told SF Weekly that the citation was not due to the man brandishing the pistol or employing it during his aggressive driving -- but merely for possessing a BB gun, which the police still consider illegal within city limits (you are allowed to possess a real gun, by the way). 

The wheels of justice move slowly, it would seem. Unless you're toting a BB gun.

This morning, Kellogg's released a statement that they are discontinuing the immunity statements on all of their Rice Krispies cereal boxes because of the recent public attention on the swine flu. But never fear, they also write that their cereal will still be fortified with antioxidants. Most importantly though, it will still be 40 percent sugar by weight, which is the reason most people buy the cereal anyhow.

A spokeswoman for the company, Susan Norwitz, wrote in an e-mail that the company started their immunity marketing in May 2009 -- well before the swine flu became an issue. Norwitz said it's coincidental that the package made it to the shelves at the same time that H1N1 fears blew up.

The opposing attorneys' stories seem to go together like oil and water...

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After reviewing the $10 million class-action suit filed in San Francisco court on Friday, the lawyer for the Dubai Star ship and the corporations that own and operate it gave the legalistic version of "meh."

"The owners have reviewed the lawsuit and believe that it is without merit," said city attorney Greg Poulos. "Surveys by the [Coast Guard], state and local agencies and by the spill response organizations have confirmed the spill was contained south of the Oakland Bay bridge. No commercial fishery has been closed as a result of the spill, and the owners do not expect any impact on the commercial crab fishery when it opens later this month. After explaining its position to the plaintiffs' attorney we can confirm he did not disagree and has offered to stay the lawsuit for up to ninety days to allow time to determine if his clients have sustained any damages."

Meanwhile, plaintiffs' attorney Anthony Urie of Seattle didn't recall things that way. Not at all.

Yesterday, Judge Wallace Douglass ruled that Kenneth Herron's much-publicized foray into the bear enclosure did not constitute trespassing, as the 21-year-old homeless man "did not intend to make the bear enclosure his place of residency, nor did his actions convey any indication that he would." Like most folks, Talbot assumed that vaulting multiple fences and bridging wide moats to enter a zoo habitat would naturally be labeled as trespassing -- and, unlike most folks, Talbot is a legal expert and University of San Francisco law professor focusing on criminal law.

An duck soaked with oil by the 2007 Cosco Busan spill

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The defendants "were negligent and spilled toxic diesel fuel and or bunker fuel into San Francisco Bay while taking on fuel," reads the complaint, which was filed in San Francisco federal court. "Defendants, their agents, operators, and managers are strictly liable to plaintiffs for all losses of income or property damage that are proximately caused by the wrongful conduct of defendant."

The $10 million sum is the class action suit's estimation of "loss of fishing profits and related fish-processing profits." 

You tell 'em Mr. Kazemi!

​The artificial leather so bounteous in Payless ShoeSource footwear leads to sweaty, stinking feet. Naturally, one thinks of SPAM -- and, there you go. Lawsuit.

Actually, it wasn't like that at all -- But, yes, Payless ShoeSource is being sued in San Francisco Federal court ... over SPAM.

A man named Mohammed Kazemi is charging the footwear giant with "an especially pernicious form of marketing": the bombardment of customers' cell phones with Spam text-messages hawking their wares. Not only is this a pain in the ass, says Kazemi, a San Jose resident, but it's costing people money. Also, it forced Kazemi to read junk like this (repeatedly):

​Turns out that a flak in Brown's press office recorded a telephone conversation he had this week with Chronicle political reporter Carla Marinucci and two senior staff lawyers from the AG's office about a ballot measure on car insurance. The story -- by Marinucci and fellow Chron scribe Joe Garofoli -- takes pains almost immediately to imply that the action might have been illegal, citing a relevant section in the California Penal Code in the third graph.

So far, sounds like a great story: The state's top law-enforcement official breaking the law in a manner suggestive of the sleaze and secrecy that so many of us love to loathe in government. The only problem is that the actions of Brown's press office, while unquestionably stupid and a PR blunder, are almost certainly not illegal -- as the Chron should know.

If Senator Leland Yee has his way, this won't happen again. But not for that reason. Not that he's saying.

The San Francisco State Senator on Thursday announced plans to introduce legislation that would require Californians who desire a White Pages be delivered to their homes "opt in" with their phone service provider, rather than have it delivered whether they like it or not. State law currently requires phone providers to send a White Pages for every phone line in a home -- meaning those with multiple phone lines end up with two, three, four or more books.

"Is there any way you can use that many books," queried Yee. (High chair? Weights? Object to drop on noisy drunks outside window?) "A lot of these books are simply tossed out and never used whatsoever."

The Chron reported last week that Steve Vender, a private investigator working with defense attorney Eric Safire, had called Ladarius Greer, 21, on the eve of the trial and threatened that he would be arrested if he showed up for trial. The victim played police the investigator's message: Vender tells the victim that he knows he has an outstanding warrant in Solano County, and "it's a good time to visit the Fresno Riviera."

Police had no luck locating the Greer throughout the trial to testify about the shooting or identify the suspect, said District Attorney spokesman Brian Buckelew.