ICE officers were conducting a vehicle stop around 6:30 a.m. at the 2800 block of Vineyard Ave in Ontario, according to Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security. During the stop, an unknown person who was not the target pulled a vehicle in front of the officers, she said.

Officers ordered the driver to leave, McLaughlin said, but as the driver began to pull away “the car stopped and attempted to run officers over by reversing directly at them without stopping.”

“An ICE officer, fearing for his life, fired defensive shots at the vehicle,” McLaughlin said. “The subject fled the scene and abandoned his vehicle.”

McLaughlin called it “another example of the threats our ICE officers are facing day-in and day-out as they risk their lives to enforce the law and arrest criminals.”

Immigration agents have been increasingly involved in aggressive confrontations with suspects and protesters.

Last week, ICE officers fired at a man in South Los Angeles who was in a vehicle after agents boxed his car in. The man, Carlitos Ricardo Parias, was shot in the elbow, and a deputy marshal was hit by what authorities said was a ricocheted bullet. They accused Parias of trying to ram agents’ cars.

On Wednesday, a man was hospitalized after a shooting in Phoenix involving an ICE agent. According to local media reports, ICE officers conducted a traffic stop, but the driver began speeding away and an officer in the vehicle’s path feared for his life and fired his weapon.

In September and October, there were two shootings, by ICE and Border Patrol, into vehicles in Chicago, one fatal. And in August, federal agents shot into a car in San Bernardino during an immigration stop.

In a news release, the Ontario Police Department said it responded to a request for emergency assistance from DHS officers regarding an officer-involved shooting.

Police officers were not involved in the initial incident, according to the release. Several officers then responded to the scene to provide traffic control and security while DHS conducted its investigation.

DHS and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are investigating the incident, police said.

The post Federal authorities investigating second ICE shooting in California in a little more than week appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Frank Seung Noah, 64, of Corona pleaded guilty Friday to one count of tax evasion and two counts of wire fraud. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for each wire fraud count and up to five years in federal prison for the tax evasion count. U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton scheduled a May 8 sentencing hearing.

According to his plea agreement, Noah owned and operated Comis International Inc., a Cerritos-based logistics and supply-chain company that offered customs import brokerage services.

Comis was a customs import broker for Daiso, a popular Japan-based variety and value store with locations across the United States, including Southern California. In June 2024, Daiso celebrated the grand opening of a location at Menifee’s Town Center Marketplace, 30099 Haun Road. The 5,870-square-foot store features low-priced, quirky Japanese-inspired home decor, stationery, beauty items, food, and other products.

According to federal prosecutors, from 2007 to 2019, Noah provided Daiso with false customs duty forms and invoices to support his fraudulent requests for duty fee reimbursement. The forms differed from those Noah submitted to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. He inflated the numbers, resulting in Daiso overpaying Noah nearly $3.4 million.

After Noah was indicted in 2022 for defrauding Daiso, he continued scamming his other clients out of more than $2 million using a different scheme. Prosecutors said he ripped off two other clients by invoicing and receiving funds from their companies and then pocketing the money instead of paying the customs duties to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

After Customs and Border Protection notified the victims about their unpaid customs duties, they asked Noah about the situation, and he sent them altered bank statements falsely reflecting that he had paid the customs duties, according to prosecutors.

Noah also failed to pay federal taxes, resulting in an IRS loss of approximately $2.4 million. Penalties and interest continue to accrue.

After agreeing with the IRS in 2014 that he owed more than $1 million in taxes, Noah actively avoided IRS attempts to collect the money.

Instead, he paid for two homes in his former girlfriend’s name. He used check-cashing businesses to avoid IRS levies on his bank accounts, lied to IRS collection agents, and spent thousands of dollars on country club memberships, travel and golf purchases, according to prosecutors.

The post Clients Bilked Out Of More Than $5 Million By Corona Businessman appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The “voluminous” amount of data taken during discovery in the sweeping sex abuse and racketeering case against Combs was revealed in a letter filed by the U.S Atty. for the Southern District of New York and comes as Combs’ lawyers are making a third bid to get him released from a Brooklyn jail on $50 million in bonds.

The data came from more than 40 electronic devices and five cloud storage services associated with Combs. Prosecutors say they continue to seek even more data as part of the investigation. Combs’ lawyers are pushing back, demanding copies of the seized data.

In a filing with the court, Combs’ legal team also questioned how information from the grand jury indictment of Combs for sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution was leaked.

“At some point today, Mr. Combs intends to file a motion for a hearing and other remedies related to unauthorized and prejudicial leaks of grand jury information,” his lawyers noted in the filing.

Combs has been the subject of a sweeping federal probe since at least the beginning of the year and was arrested in New York on Sept. 16.

Combs is accused of using his entertainment empire since as far back as 2009 to lure female victims and use violence, coercion and drugs to get women to take part in what were known as “freak off” parties — elaborate sex performances that often were recorded and sometimes lasted days. Prosecutors allege the music icon’s business network was ultimately about furthering his criminal conduct. Combs has denied any wrongdoing.

Prosecutors informed U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian that during search warrants, Homeland Security Investigations seized “several terabytes of electronic material” from cellphones, laptops, tablets, hard drives, and cloud service accounts as well as business records and physical evidence as part of its investigation into the alleged decades-long sex trafficking and forced sexual acts in the sex parties.

Federal prosecutors say they are still “copying over forty devices and the other five iCloud reports belonging to the defendant, which is expected to take several days due to the volume of the materials.”

Prosecutors told the court that their forensic team is working “expediently as possible since their seizure,” and expects to turn over the data in discovery to Combs’ attorneys “on a rolling basis by the end of the year.”

Combs lawyers, however, say they intend “to ask the Court to require the government to immediately produce certain categories of information – namely, copies of Mr. Combs’ electronic devices that were seized over six months ago.”

“The government also seized additional devices belonging to Mr. Combs at the time of his arrest about three weeks ago,” Combs’ lawyers said in the filing. “We also understand that the government is only now beginning to review and copy these electronic devices, including those that were seized in March 2024.

”Combs’ lawyers reiterated Wednesday said they want a trial as soon as possible. “Mr. Combs continues to assert his right to a speedy trial and intends to request a trial date in April or May 2025,” they told the judge.

The investigation involves more than 50 witnesses and 300 warrants all of which unfolded since last fall, when Combs’ former girlfriend, Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura, filed a lawsuit against him alleging sex abuse and sex trafficking. Combs settled the suit with significant payout within 24 hours, according to his lawyers.

Combs’ legal troubles had been building for months. In civil lawsuits, multiple women have accused Combs of rape, assault and other abuses, dating back three decades.

The post Terabytes of data from phones, computers seized in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sex probe appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Gov. Gavin Newsom took action Feb. 6 urging the federal government to investigate the recent price spike affecting the Western U.S. and highlighted the state’s action to provide relief to Californians.

In a letter to the federal agency responsible for regulating wholesale natural gas, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or FERC, the Governor requested that the agency “immediately focus its investigatory resources on assessing whether market manipulation, anticompetitive behavior, or other anomalous activities are driving these ongoing elevated prices in the western gas markets.”

Additionally, millions of Californians will soon see relief from high utility bills – with credits of $90 to $120 showing up on gas and electric bills as soon as next month.

On Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission or CPUC voted to accelerate the California Climate Credit to help California families with high gas bills.

The CPUC and the California Energy Commission Feb. 7 will host an en banc hearing to examine the causes and impacts of the recent spike in natural gas prices.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Gov. Newsom Calls for Federal Investigation of High Natural Gas Prices As California Provides Relief appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.