The Brief

A hearing began this week to determine whether Orange County prosecutors continue to hide evidence of misconduct in the wake of a long-running informant scandal that has tainted criminal cases and marred the county justice system's reputation over the past decade.

The judge presiding over the proceedings questioned whether Orange County law enforcement has reformed its ways in the wake of widespread misconduct allegations that were investigated and confirmed by the U.S. Department of Justice.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Daniel Goldstein said that he had read assistant public defender Scott Sanders' 424-page "tome" detailing the allegations and concluded that the effort to withhold evidence in the case "looks like a conspiracy," although he quickly walked back his use of the term and said "it seems like there was some type of plan involved" to refuse to turn over evidence to the defense team.

The judge also questioned whether the Orange County District Attorney's Office had made meaningful enough reforms in the wake of the informant scandal and the subsequent DOJ investigation. He asked a senior prosecutor in the Orange County District Attorney's office to report back with specifics about what "remedial actions" had been taken.

The hearing resumed Tuesday morning, and is scheduled to restart again next Monday.

Backstory on a scandal

The hearing is being held in the context of a decades-old murder case that was ordered retried in 2022 after Sanders said he discovered that the top prosecutor in the case, Ebrahim Baytieh, now a Superior Court judge, had failed to turn over evidence that could have helped his client's defense.

Sanders has accused Baytieh of being at the center of an "enormous web of deception" designed to cover up misconduct that helped prosecutors win cases while cheating defendants out of their right to a fair trial.

Efforts to reach Baytieh were unsuccessful. A spokesperson for the Orange County Superior Court told LAist that sitting judges are prohibited from commenting on active cases.

The proceedings threaten to reopen an embarrassing chapter in Orange County law enforcement history — the "jailhouse snitch scandal" — which led to overturned convictions and dropped or lessened charges in dozens of criminal cases. Sanders says new details he uncovered could give defendants in nearly 100 other cases evidence to question whether law enforcement carried out misconduct. Such evidence could potentially lead to additional cases being reconsidered and convictions overturned.

The case in the spotlight

The case at the center of the hearing involves Paul Gentile Smith. He is accused of stabbing Robert Haugen to death and setting his body on fire in Haugen's Sunset Beach apartment in 1988. Baytieh handled the case against Smith when he was a prosecutor. Smith was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2010.

But starting in 2014, when the O.C. snitch scandal broke, evidence came to light that jailhouse informants were misused in his case. As part of the probe into the allegations, O.C. sheriff's deputies refused to testify about their use of informants in the Smith case, which led a judge to throw out Smith's murder conviction and order a new trial.

Sanders is now asking a judge to drop charges against Smith completely because of what he says is continued law enforcement misconduct.

As for Baytieh, O.C. District Attorney Todd Spitzer hired an independent law firm to look into Baytieh's handling of the case, and Baytieh was subsequently fired in 2022. The former prosecutor went on to win election to the O.C. Superior Court a few months later, with endorsements from dozens of current and former judges and law enforcement leaders.

Spitzer issued a statement to LAist this week that his office had already addressed misconduct by Baytieh in the Smith case and that dropping charges against Smith would be "unconscionable."

Why this matters

Sanders argued this week that law enforcement's misconduct in the Smith case went beyond the misuse of jailhouse informants. And he says it continues to this today, despite O.C. law enforcement's assertions that they've made reforms.

Sanders said 15 pieces of evidence in the Smith case, including letters between investigators and informants and an interview with a key witness, hadn't been turned over to Sanders until he discovered, recently, that they existed.

Prosecutors are required by law to turn over any evidence that could be favorable to defendants. Failing to do so is known as a "Brady violation."

Sanders told the judge that he thought prosecutors were "absolutely" still withholding evidence that could help Smith's case. He said given the history of misconduct in the case, and what he said was an unwillingness by the DA's office to investigate that misconduct, "it's just not reasonable to think that when they came across exculpatory evidence, they turned it over."  

The judge said he would let Sanders make his case. That gives the defense team an initial win, since the judge could have denied Sanders' request to hold a hearing on the misconduct allegations and proceeded with Smith's trial.

The judge also said he wanted to determine whether Smith could get a fair trial considering the hostility against Sanders among Orange County law enforcement. He noted that this hostility had been documented in an appeals court ruling that dated back to Sanders' discovery of the use of a secret, unconstitutional jailhouse informant program while defending Scott Dekraai, accused of killing eight people in a Seal Beach beauty salon.

Sanders said he had additional evidence of law enforcement hostility against him: He said that O.C. Sheriff Don Barnes had recently filed a complaint against Sanders with the state bar, including allegations related to the Smith case.

In an email to LAist, Carrie Braun, a spokesperson for the sheriff's office, denied that Sheriff Barnes had made allegations to the California State Bar about Sanders in regards to the Smith case. She wrote that despite Sanders' assertions, the sheriff had no hostility toward him for uncovering informant misuse "because those issues resolved nearly a decade ago."

The State Bar would not confirm whether a complaint against Sanders had been filed, per their rules.

The snitch scandal origins

It was Sanders who first exposed the widespread and abusive use of jailhouse informants by Orange County prosecutors and law enforcement.

That led to a federal civil rights investigation that lasted six years and ultimately concluded the Orange County District Attorney's Office and Orange County Sheriff's Department "engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct … that systematically violated criminal defendants’ right to counsel."

When the report was released in 2022, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke wrote that: "The failure to protect these basic constitutional guarantees not only deprives individual defendants of their rights, it undermines the public’s confidence in the fundamental fairness of criminal justice systems across the county.”

'Full accounting' still due?

The misconduct happened under the previous O.C. district attorney, Tony Rackauckas, who lost his re-election bid to Spitzer in 2018. Spitzer has implemented reforms and pledged not to tolerate cheating among prosecutors and law enforcement.

But, years later, Sanders says he's still uncovering misconduct that prosecutors haven't owned up to.

"It sometimes feels like we haven't made an inch of headway," he told LAist last week.

Inglewood city leaders broke ground on a new shuttle bus network, planting ceremonial brass shovels in the dirt outside a Market Street shopping center on Wednesday morning.

They took turns at a microphone praising the $287.5 million Inglewood Transit Connector, which will ferry visitors between the Downtown Inglewood Metro K Line Station and the city’s stadium district. Officials hope the project will jump-start the struggling Market Street shopping corridor. 

“We always said that we were going to make Inglewood the city to drive to and not through, and we’re doing that today,” Councilmember Alex Padilla said. 

Inglewood has transformed into a global entertainment magnet over the last decade, pulling in Super Bowls, World Cup matches and megastar musicians. Locals, though, have protested the costs of the rapid development — traffic jams, rising living costs, old haunts demolished — and asked for more ways to tap into the economic benefits.

City officials say the shuttle bus network will help with some of those issues by alleviating traffic jams and driving visitors to spend their dollars at local businesses. Not everyone is convinced. 

Just a few hundred yards from the ceremony, Amelia Hernandez and her team were packing boxes at Selwyn Jewelers, one of the two dozen businesses at the corner of Market Street and Florence Avenue the city took over through eminent domain earlier this year. The city plans to demolish the shopping center to make way for a 1,000-space parking garage, a bus plaza and a pedestrian bridge crossing Florence to the Downtown Inglewood K Line station. 

The jeweler said she’s skeptical the new shuttle system will actually mean more business for local shops, especially those like hers that are more targeted to residents than visitors. 

“Everybody comes, parks and leaves,” she said. “What do they expect? [Stadium visitors] are going to the notary public? They’re going to a hair salon?”

Construction is expected to begin in November, planners say

Wednesday’s ceremony capped nearly a decade of planning for the Inglewood Transit Connector. City officials first pitched it as a $2 billion automated rail line, but pared down their plans to a shuttle bus system after federal funding hit a wall.  

Actual construction is set to start in the first week of November, planners say, and the first buses are scheduled to roll out down dedicated lanes just ahead of the 2028 Olympics. City officials say they hope to bring back automated rail line plans in the future. 

Mayor James Butts said the shuttles are only planned to run on event days — Inglewood’s three major venues have hundreds of events between them — and that the city hasn’t yet picked a vendor to run the actual shuttles. The mayor said the city expects to move 10,000 people through the hub on event days.

Eli Lipmen, executive director of the nonprofit Move LA, is one of the transportation activists pushing for the region to tighten up its transportation network ahead of the Olympics. He said that while the city still has a lot of work to do, he is excited to see the shuttle system roll out to provide an alternative to vehicle traffic.

“This station, this area, has needed a transit hub for a very long time,” he said.

City officials say they’re working to relocate displaced businesses

A few shops were still open in the shopping center on Wednesday, but most of the windows were dark or papered over. 

Project planners said the city has found new spots for half of the two dozen businesses displaced from the bulldozed shopping center and that it is also working with the hair stylists that rent chairs at salons in the center. 

Businesses like Red’s Flavor Table and Randy’s Donuts & Chinese Food will be relocating to new digs on Market Street, according to project planners. CVS Pharmacy opened a new store across the street. Selwyn Jewelers is moving to a space a few blocks away.

Hernandez, the owner of Selwyn Jewelers, said the relocation process has been horrific and was poorly planned. 

“I’m just left with a whole bunch of ill feelings,” she said. 

Other business owners praised the city’s work in a series of short videos.

“Although we are sad to be leaving our current location, we’re happy to continue to stay in Inglewood,” said Sylvia Hollins, manager of Red’s Flavor Table. “We’re going to be on Market Street at a bigger and better location.”

The post Inglewood breaks ground on a new $287.5M stadium shuttle network appeared first on LA Local.

A federal judge in California is putting limits on pre-election field operations conducted by the Department of Homeland Security that the agency says is aimed at trying to find noncitizens who have illegally voted in nine states.

In recent weeks, armed Homeland Security Investigations officers have carried out field operations and visited homes to interview people suspected of illegally voting as noncitizens. The targets can include people who became citizens but voted before they naturalized.

In a 19-page order late Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, an appointee of President Joe Biden, wrote that the federal government was using "flawed" data in the initiative and that its efforts likely violated the Voting Rights Act, which bars voter intimidation.

Martínez-Olguín referenced a disclosure last month from a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services whistleblower that alleged rushed efforts to match data to create a target list of potential noncitizens on voter rolls, and that the list includes U.S. citizens. She also pointed to HSI's social media posts, including one that showed agents handcuffing a California man accused of unlawfully registering to vote.

The judge wrote that the government's use of unreliable and incomplete data along with highly publicized arrests "lead to an objectively reasonable fear of law enforcement entanglements that intimidates citizens from urging or aiding others in exercising their right to vote."

HSI field operations were planned in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin, according to documents produced in the case and CNN reporting.

Martínez-Olguín barred DHS officers in those states from conducting field operations targeting people they "know, suspect, or should reasonably know or suspect are U.S. citizens," or that are based "wholly" on USCIS matching data without further investigation.

In a declaration, USCIS official Nicolas Bartell had told the judge his team manually reviews records before referring them to HSI, but acknowledged the "low possibility" citizens could be "erroneously identified as potential aliens" in federal records. He wrote the risks were mitigated by safeguards his office takes "and any remaining risks were outweighed by the need to support the agency's law-enforcement and election-integrity mission."

It's unclear how much of an effect the judge's order will have on the federal government's highly publicized campaign to find noncitizen voters.

States reviews and audits have consistently found voting by noncitizens to be extremely rare.

"DHS is laser focused on identifying, prosecuting, and removing aliens who vote and dilute the votes of U.S. citizens. ONLY Americans should elect American leaders," the agency wrote in a statement. "We have no plans to question or investigate people we believe to be U.S. citizens."

The order is set to take effect on Friday and would be in effect through election night, though the federal government could appeal.

The judge's ruling came in a lawsuit filed last month by a coalition that includes San Francisco and Santa Clara counties, the city of San Francisco, nursing unions and Voto Latino Foundation. Protect Democracy and the National Immigration Law Center are litigating the case against the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.

"Today, the courts affirmed a vital principle of our democracy: Voting is a fundamental right that citizens — whether born here or naturalized — should be able to exercise without armed government agents harassing them," Beau Tremitiere, a lawyer with Protect Democracy, said in a statement.

"It was clear from the start that DHS built its lists on bad data, never checked how often it was wrong, and recklessly sent agents to people's homes weeks before an election," he added.

A court filing by the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United described naturalized citizen members who no longer wanted to attend political rallies, sign up to be election poll workers, or vote in person because of the federal operations.

The order comes as the Department of Justice is suing California and demanding the state segregate 20,000 ballots from people federal officials say they believe are "likely" noncitizens.

A preliminary review of a sample of that list by Los Angeles County election officials found many of the registrations were canceled, inactive or had no voting history, and some pertained to people who indicated they were born in the U.S.

The DOJ announced charges against 28 green card holders across the state on Monday who are accused of illegally voting or registering to vote.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Joseph Babbitt of Springfield, Mo. has a pretty good deal when it comes to health insurance. He works as a senior financial controller for West Plains Veterinary Supply, which employs about 50 people and distributes pet food, toys and vet supplies across the region.

Like about 157 million Americans, Babbitt gets insurance through his job. Unlike most Americans, his job has exceptionally generous benefits. "Our owners are very nice — they give all of our employees healthcare and they pay for it," he says. The company offers several different plan options and covers most or all of the monthly premium cost.

So why, even with free premiums, does it still feel like health costs are way too expensive? "Everybody talks about healthcare and how much it's costing them," says Babbitt. He explains that even without monthly premiums, a high deductible can be brutal — that's the amount the patient has to spend out-of-pocket before the insurance company starts paying for doctors visits and procedures, etc.

Now age 60, he remembers a time when it wasn't so bad. "Back in the '90s, our deductibles were $250 [or] $500 — now they're $5,000," he says. "That seems like a lot."

"We are the only country on our planet that forces people into bankruptcy because they get sick," he adds.

The cost of a new car, every year

Healthcare costs are rising fast in the U.S., and even workers with solid healthcare benefits through work are feeling it, according to an annual survey of nearly 2,000 employers about their health benefits. The report was published Thursday by KFF, a nonpartisan health research organization.

"The average health insurance premium for a family of four is now $28,000, which is just a ton of money," says Matthew Rae, associate director for the Health Care Marketplace Program at KFF. "It's basically the cost of a new car every year just to keep a family of four insured." Of that total for family premiums, workers pay about $7,000 per year on average and employers pay the rest.

A glimmer of positivity is that the costs for plans isn't growing as fast as it has in years past, he explains. "We're seeing a 5% increase in family health insurance premiums, which continues a period of modest growth," he says. That increase is roughly on par with worker wages and inflation.

However, "a 5% increase on a big number is still a lot of money," Rae points out. Plus, the growth for the portion of the premium costs that workers pay was 9%. "If this is the beginning of a shift of costs onto workers, that would be a big deal in terms of affordability," he says.

"We are asking people to chip in a lot of money," Rae adds. "Many people are committing a big chunk of their income to health insurance."

The uninsured rate is rising 

Another report published Thursday demonstrates the way these high costs affect people's health. The survey, conducted every two years by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit foundation that supports independent research, is entitled "The State of Health Insurance Coverage in 2026."

Even for workers fortunate enough to have health benefits, "about 43% of them said that they didn't get healthcare because of cost over the past year, and about 31% reported that they had medical debt," says Sara Collins, lead author of the report.

Another key finding was that the overall uninsured rate rose in the last two years. Collins says that's significant but not surprising, because of federal policy decisions like letting extra federal subsidies for people enrolled in Affordable Care Act plans expire, and people losing Medicaid after the pandemic emergency ended.

Federal data shows millions of people have lost health coverage already from either Medicaid or the ACA marketplaces. When work requirements take effect next year, millions more people are projected to lose Medicaid.

"There is a, I think, a strong feeling across the country that something probably does need to be done to the situation that people are facing in their health and health insurance — both on the cost side and then also on these coverage losses," Collins says.

"We asked people whether the federal government has a responsibility to ensure that all Americans have coverage and nearly three quarters said yes to that — that included about 45% of Republicans, 93% of Democrats and 76% of independents."

Copyright 2026 NPR

Mike Obedoza’s Lumpia Smash Burger begins with the flavorful marinade his mother uses for making lumpia, a crispy Filipino spring roll. He folds it into a beef patty, then tops it with a fried lumpia wrapper, creamy avocado slices and fresh jalapeño.

For Obedoza, who grew up in Carson as the son of Filipino immigrants and now resides in Tustin, the burger is more than a winning recipe. “This is me on a plate,” he said.

Fresh off back-to-back Best Burger wins at the Old Towne Burger Fest in Orange County, Obedoza has landed a residency at Grand Central Market in downtown L.A. as Banger Lumpia.

He attributes his current success to the broader Filipino American food moment happening in Southern California, from Lord Maynard Llera of Kuya Lord winning Best Chef: California at the 2024 James Beard Awards to other Filipino food business upstarts' local success, including San & Wolves in Long Beach.

Mike Obedoza works the griddle, making Filipino-American Smashburger dreams come true.

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Courtesy Banger Lumpia

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“I’m one component of a whole movement that’s happening right now,” he said.

His residency closes this weekend as part of Filipino American History Month, capping off a whirlwind couple of months Obedoza doesn’t take for granted, especially the love he's received from his own community.

“We get a lot of Filipinos that pass by us glowing. … They’re stoked that there’s some Filipino representation,” he said.

Building the burger

Before Banger Lumpia, Obedoza’s pop-up was called Banger, and he folded Filipino flavors like sisig into tacos. Once customers learned the food was Filipino, they kept asking for the classics. “Where’s the lumpia? Where’s the pancit?” he recalled.

Since lumpia filling is marinated ground meat, a burger felt like the natural next step. Obedoza took the marinade from his mother’s lumpia recipe (onions, carrots, soy sauce and fish sauce) and worked it into an all-beef smash patty.

Back-to-back wins: Obedoza’s Lumpia Smashburger took home Best Burger at the Old Towne Burger Fest in 2025 and 2026.

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Courtesy Banger Lumpia

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Jalapeño and avocado add a California finish. “It’s like this perfect blend of being Filipino and Californian,” Obedoza said.

The idea has deep roots in Southern California. Obedoza points to Kogi, the Korean taco truck Roy Choi launched in L.A., which Choi said drew on a kind of local terroir. “I don’t see mustard plants and sheep grazing,” Choi said in a 2014 CNN segment with Anthony Bourdain. “I see barbed wire and telephone poles.”

“It’s a representation of the soil we were raised in," Obedoza said. “I think the Lumpia Smash burger is just my version of that.”

From skater to chef

Growing up in Carson, Obedoza found his creative outlet in rollerblading, competing and filming for sponsors. His favorite skater was Jon Julio, a Filipino American legend of the sport. “That was big for someone, a Filipino growing up in America,” Obedoza said. “I can’t think of anyone else at that time that was a representation of that.”

Obedoza studied hotel and restaurant management at Cal Poly Pomona, where a broken ankle from a skate competition pushed him to get serious about cooking. After graduating in 2007, he completed an accelerated program at the Culinary Institute of America in Greystone in St. Helena. Then, in 2008, he took a trip to the Philippines with his dad that reshaped how he saw himself.

From the skate park to the griddle, Banger Lumpia’s Mike Obedoza puts his whole self on the plate.

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Courtesy Banger Lumpia

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“In the States, I’m Filipino. But when I go there, I’m American,” he said.

Back home, he cooked at hotels including Hyatt and Terranea Resort before moving into marketing and e-commerce. In 2022, he started serving tacos at skate parks under the name Banger. He went full-time in 2023 and has been popping up in L.A. and O.C. ever since.

That same cultural tension carries over into his food. While his Lumpia Smash burger has won praise, Obedoza says some Filipino customers pick apart the more traditional dishes on his menu: the lumpia isn’t made right, they say, the dipping sauce and adobo need more sugar, the adobo isn’t dark enough or has no bone.

“I guess I win on the burgers, but I’ll never win on being Filipino enough,” he said.

He said his cooking reflects his parents’ style and their home region of Central Luzon, north of Manila on the Philippines’ largest island. If it doesn’t match what someone grew up with, he says to get it from their own family.

Despite those differences, Obedoza says that lumpia is “the gateway drug to Filipino food” and hopes that his customers will feel emboldened to try the rest of the menu. He sees the Grand Central Market residency as a test run for an eventual brick-and-mortar. Whatever comes next, he credits one choice: “I went all in on being unique.”