Dorfman's new tools.

Harry Dorfman, a prosecutor who has worked at the San Francisco District Attorney's Office for 28 years, is set to be a judge. Governor Jerry Brown appointed him on Tuesday to one of the open seats on the San Francisco Superior Court.

Dorfman, who successfully prosecuted the Edwin Ramos case, has been the managing attorney for the office's homicide unit since 2010.

He won't be the only freshman at the Hall of Justice. Rochelle East, chief deputy attorney general at the California Department of Justice, and Tracie Brown, an assistant U.S. attorney, were also appointed San Francisco Superior Court judges. The trio will replace retiring judges Judges Jerome Benson, Donna Little and Kevin McCarthy.

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George Gascon.

District Attorney George Gascon's office has convicted seven people for scamming elderly Chinese women out of their life savings, making San Francisco the first city in the country to prosecute defendants in the now-infamous ghost scams. Another case is plodding along through pretrial motions.

Still, given that there have been more than 50 reports of the scam over the past year or so, it's likely that other perpetrators are still out there, whether here or elsewhere. In this case, authorities probably won't be able to catch all the bad guys. But they can strip the scammers of their most effective tool: the ability to gain a victim's trust.

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A San Francisco jury has determined that 24-year-old Marcus "Wolfie" Herrera is not guilty of murdering and robbing 55-year-old Robert Musial during an argument over marijuana.

According to the Public Defender's Office, the jury took about three days before acquitting Herrera of causing Musial's fatal heart arrhythmia following a confrontation on Golden Gate Park's Hippie Hill in April 2012.

Jurors also acquitted Herrera of assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury, instead convicting him of misdemeanor assault, a lesser charge.

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An SFUSD must read

Six San Francisco Unified School District employees were hit with felony charges after allegedly diverting $15 million in public money into slush fund accounts that were later used for employee bonuses, among other things.

The accused include: former Associate Superintendent Trish Bascom; former Senior Executive Directors Linda Sue Lovelace and Meyla Fatma Ruwin; former Principal Administrative Analyst Lilian Lamorena Capuli; former Assistant Principal Mychel M. Navales; and Senior Clerk Typist Betty Chuey Wong.

District Attorney George Gascón said the group also misappropriated some $250,000 for their own personal use.

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Oakland's lone burglary investigator

Earlier this week, we probably shocked nobody with the news that Oakland was officially the robbery capital of America. But now we're going to tell you something that probably will shock you.

According to news reports, Oakland police assigned only one part-time investigator last year to solve more than 10,000 burglaries.

That's like trying to solve global warming with a single ice cube.

See Also: Confirmed: Oakland Has More Robberies Than Any Other American City

See Also: Second Chief Resigns From Oakland Police Department in 48 Hours

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Hang up!

San Francisco police are warning everyone to be skeptical when getting a phone call from a PG&E representative.

There's a scam going around where crooks pose as PG&E reps or sometimes the Water Department, demanding payment for overdue bills.

According to police, the faux workers contact innocent people by phone, claim their bills are overdue and that their electricity (or water) will be shut off within an hour unless payment is received.

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Albert Samaha

Gascon standing beside a mug shot of Reza Eslaminia.

District Attorney George Gascon wanted to charge Reza Eslaminia with felony vehicular manslaughter for allegedly killing a pedestrian when his cab ran a stop light last year. Because of a flawed police investigation, though, Gascon will have to settle for a misdemeanor charge.

But not even that will come easy. On March 29, Gascon issued an arrest warrant Eslaminia -- who had been convicted of murder in 1988 before getting freed on appeal -- but SFPD has been unable to locate him. Gascon suspects he's fled town.

"Given his arrest record and the fact that he is no where to be found, this is an individual who is dangerous," said Gascon, who at a press conference today asked the public for help in locating Eslaminia. "We do not believe Mr. Eslaminia is in the immediate area."

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The jury in the ghost scam trial reached its final verdict today: the four defendants are guilty on all counts of grand theft.

In the hallway, after the hearing, multiple jurors explained that they were not persuaded by the defense team's argument that the defendants-- Yachang Lei, Yannu Tan, Mudi Wu, and Yonghua Zeng-- were human trafficking victims, coerced into the crime by a criminal organization based in China. Instead, the jurors believed that the defendants "were part of it," as one put it.

The verdict comes after two weeks of deliberation.

See Also: Closing Arguments Pit Charges of Greed Against Human Trafficking Defense

Jury to Decide if Crime Was Committed Out of "Legal Necessity"

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It's never a good look when someone with a net worth of $18 million dollars claims that his employer is forcing him into "indentured servitude." Then again, radio personality Michael Savage isn't a man of tact.

In 2010, he sued Talk Radio Network, which controlled his syndicated radio show, for "attempting to force Dr. Savage into accepting a sub-standard agreement containing what can only be described as an indentured servitude provision." Anticipating a legal victory, Talk Radio Network withheld $862,454.92 of Savage's pay, to cover the damages the company expected to be awarded.

While there are no laws for tact, there are laws for contracts. And last week, a federal judge in Oakland, ruled that Savage, who received a Ph.D. in nutritional ethnomedicine from UC Berekley, had a right to that withheld money.

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Mike Linksvayer via Creative Commons

Howard Jordan

Just as his city was granted the dubious honor of being the nation's robbery capital, Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan announced that he is stepping down, citing medical reasons for his departure.

He's the second chief in as many years to abandon the troubled police department, which he took over on an interim basis when former chief Anthony Batts resigned in 2011. Jordan's appointment became permanent in February 2012.

See Also: Confirmed: Oakland Is the Nation's Robbery Capital

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