A lengthy and complex civil fraud trial featuring Kelly Gearhart and his associated property predators ended Tuesday with complete exoneration of three escrow companies alleged to have conspired with the disgraced North County developer. Hurst Financial investors, many of whom... (Continue reading)
Heritage Lending’s former president Candy Wells was sentenced on Thursday to five years in prison for fraudulent practices in the offer and sale of securities. Wells plead no contest in August to five counts of securities fraud. After listening to... (Continue reading)
Community Action Partnership of San Luis Obispo (CAPSLO) director of homeless services Dee Torres has lost her slander case against Mike Brennler, a private investigator who had been working with CalCoastNews on news articles about abuses of the homeless. San... (Continue reading)
By CALCOASTNEWS STAFF Attorneys argued Tuesday over allegations of malice and the theft of gift cards from homeless clients during a hearing regarding a slander lawsuit filed by a homeless services manager against an Atascadero private investigator. In depositions, Dee... (Continue reading)
A 50-year-old Watsonville woman suspected to be the Central Coast Bandit pleaded not guilty Wednesday to all of the charges she faces, despite telling KSBY that she was indeed the bank robber. [KSBY] Cristina Fernandez Padilla faces nine counts of... (Continue reading)
Christina Fernandez Padilla, known as the Central Coast Bandit, is scheduled to appear in San Luis Obispo Superior Court Wednesday. Padilla, 50, is charged with several counts of robberies for bank robberies she is accused of committing along the Central... (Continue reading)
Dee Torres is a public figure, San Luis Obispo Superior Court Judge Barry LaBarbera said Thursday, seriously undermining the homeless program official’s slander lawsuit against Atascadero private investigator Michael Brennler. Torres, director of homeless services for Community Action Partnership of... (Continue reading)
By DANIEL BLACKBURN A San Luis Obispo Superior Court judge, in a tentative ruling, is planning to uphold an anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss a slander lawsuit brought by a homeless services official against Mike Brennler, a North County private investigator.... (Continue reading)
A San Luis Obispo judge denied a request made by CAPSLO Homeless Services Director Dee Torres’s attorney to delay a hearing scheduled for Thursday that could halt a suit Torres filed against private investigator Mike Brennler. Torres alleges Brennler slandered... (Continue reading)
An attorney for Cuesta Title suggested to jurors Thursday in a San Luis Obispo courtroom that investors’ greed was partly responsible for alleged fraud committed by former lender Jay Hurst Miller, developer Kelly Gearhart, and title company officials. In a... (Continue reading)