Ivan Lopez, 23, met Miranda Hemphill online, and fell hard for her. He kept in contact with her using MySpace and other social networking tools, and wanted to make her his girlfriend--ideally his wife. The problem: At the time, Hemphill was just 13 years old. more ›

Jeffrey Stenroos, the former Los Angeles Unified School District cop who initiated a massive manhunt and community lockdown after falsely claiming he was shot outside a West Valley campus, has been found guilty of lying about the shooting. more ›

The man accused of killing local couple Jean and Scott Adam after hijacking their yacht in the Gulf of Arden has pleaded guilty in a federal court in Virginia, according to the Associated Press. Mohamud Hirs Issa Ali of Somalia is "among 15 suspects from Somalia and Yemen facing charges related to the February hijacking of the yacht Quest." more ›

West Adams Preparatory is the MLA Partner School in the Los Angeles Unified School District where chef and "Food Revolution"-ary Jamie Oliver wasn't allowed to even peek in the cafeteria. However, it is also the school that employed 53-year-old Bradley Ratcliff as the head Varsity football coach and Dean of Discipline; Ratcliff, arrested in February, has just entered a plea of guilty today on a felony charge of possession of child pornography. more ›

A former Santa Clarita resident employed as a revenue agent with the IRS pleaded guilty yesterday on charges he filed false tax returns for himself and relatives, according to the Department of Justice. 51-year-old Albert Bront admitted in court he filed fraudulent tax returns for himself in 2005, for which he is charged, as well as during the tax years 2003-2007, when he took excessive deductions and neglected to declare all his income. more ›

Respect, reward and recognition are the three "R's" of graffiti. Cyrus Yazdani, the graffiti tagger known as "Buket" who bragged about his exploits by uploading videos of himself to YouTube, was definitely recognized when he pleaded guilty yesterday to 32 counts of felony vandalism. The 25-year-old San Jose State graduate was rewarded with "to 10 months in county jail, 256 hours of graffiti removal and five years formal probation," found the LA Times. If you're curious, watch two of the videos here. more ›

Skylar Deleon, 29, was found guilty by an Orange County jury yesterday for killing three people, including a couple who showed him a yacht in 2004. "Prosecutors said Deleon feigned interest in buying the boat and took a test cruise where he and two other men overpowered the Hawkses, forced the couple to sign over ownership of the boat, tied them to the anchor and dumped them into the Pacific Ocean," says CNN. DeLeon claimed he was one of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, but according to IMDB, he only played a small role in a single episode as a guy named Roger. Creepy. more ›

27-year-old Brian Franks, who is one of the five men accused of starting last year's Carral Canyon fire in Malibu that burned 53 homes, admitted Wednesday that he and his friends accidentally started the blaze. "As part of his plea deal, Franks agreed to testify against the other defendants," the Associated Press reported. And here's to hoping no one decides to accidentally start another fire this year. more ›

After weeks and weeks of testimony, the verdict is finally in for Juan Alvarez, the man who left his SUV on Metrolink train tracks in Glendale causing one train to derail and crash into another train back in January 2005. 11 people were killed and another 180 were injured. Alvarez said he was only trying to kill himself and that the resulting train crash was not intended. The jury didn't think so and found him guilty of 11 counts of first-degree murder and one count of arson (he doused his car with gas). more ›