The Brief

A Los Angeles Metro contractor hired a man with an open sexual assault case against him to be a transit ambassador, the green-polo wearing personnel that the countywide transportation agency brands as a friendly presence on its trains and buses.

The ambassador, Fernando Vinicio Chavez, met his next alleged victim while working on Metro’s system, according to police.

In August 2023, four months after he was hired, Santa Monica police arrested Chavez for assault to commit rape, according to a public information bulletin the department published.

“Chavez met the victim while working in Downtown Los Angeles and the victim agreed to meet after Chavez ended his shift,” according to the bulletin. The bulletin said the two went to the beach in Santa Monica.

He was arrested while wearing a green Metro-branded polo, a spokesperson for the Santa Monica Police Department said.

Metro’s ambassador program, which is managed by two third-party vendors, was established to place easily identifiable helping hands on the system that riders could rely on. The answer to how a potentially dangerous person was hired to help carry out this duty comes down to an imperfect backgrounding process.

An executive at Strive Well-Being, the vendor that hired Chavez, said the check the San Diego-based wellness company ran on him did not surface his pending sexual assault charges or anything else of concern. The company, which has a $30 million contract with Metro, has since adopted a “more comprehensive” background check, the executive said.

Metro will continue to rely on its vendors to facilitate the program until the ambassadors are brought into the agency’s in-house public safety department, which is in its early stages.

Details on the case

In June 2022, the Orange Police Department arrested Chavez. He was charged with forced sexual penetration by a foreign object and assault with intent to commit a sexual offense originating from an incident in October 2021.

Chavez was working as a ride-share driver at the time, and the victim was his passenger, a spokesperson for the Orange Police Department said.

Chavez posted bail for $100,000 in August through a bail bonds company after he was charged and originally pleaded not guilty to both counts. The office of the Orange County public defender did not respond to a request for comment from Chavez or the attorney who represented him.

Strive Well-Being hired Chavez in April 2023 to work as a transit ambassador while he was on bail awaiting trial.

Sanjay Sangani, the president of Strive Well-Being, said his company conducted a pre-employment criminal background check that searched for felony and misdemeanor records over a seven-year period.

Sangani and Metro cited the state’s Fair Chance Act as the reason Chavez’s legal history slipped through the cracks.

The law, which went into effect in 2018, prohibits most employers from asking about conviction history before making a job offer or considering arrests that don’t result in convictions in their decision to hire someone.

The law, however, does not prevent an employer from asking about “an arrest for which the employee or applicant is out on bail,” according to state labor code. 

When asked about this exemption, Sangani said Strive Well-Being would consider pending charges in its hiring decision.

“However, [the] Ambassador has to disclose that voluntarily to us or it must show up in the pre-employment background check report we receive,” Sangani said.

LAist has reached out to the company that Strive Well-Being used to conduct its background check and will update this article if it hears back.

A judge in Orange County placed Chavez back in custody in August 2023 after the Santa Monica arrest. Sangani told LAist Chavez was fired three days after his arrest.

In May 2024, Chavez pleaded guilty to assault with intent to commit a sexual offense in Orange County. The other charge from that case was dropped.

A judge sentenced him to four years in state prison. He was admitted to the California Rehabilitation Center, a medium-security prison in Riverside County sometimes called “Norco,” in June 2024, according to the state’s inmate search portal.

The L.A. County District Attorney’s Office declined to pursue charges from the alleged Santa Monica assault. When asked why a case wasn’t filed, the office referred LAist to its public records request process.

Through that process, LAist obtained a charge evaluation worksheet in which the District Attorney’s Office said there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue a case.

“Victim alleged that Suspect attempted to sexually assault her on the beach,” the charge evaluation worksheet stated. “Suspect said that he was ‘just chilling’ with Victim and never made a move on her. Due to lack of corroboration the case is declined for insufficient evidence.”

How did Metro and Strive handle the case?

Metro said that in the days following the 2023 arrest, it investigated the case with Strive Well-Being and worked with both contractors to “tighten background checks going forward.”

The augmented background still covers a span of seven years. It considers a total of 10 counties of residence of potential hires, up from the five county search that Chavez was subject to, and looks for applicant names on “multi-state” sex offender registries, Sangani of Strive Well-Being said. Originally, the background check considered only the national and California state sex offender registries.

Metro said it requested Strive Well-Being re-run the wider-reaching background check on Chavez and other ambassadors.

The charges against Chavez in Orange County didn’t show up on the more comprehensive background check, Sangani told LAist.

In October 2023, just two months after Chavez was arrested in Santa Monica, Metro recommended that the program be moved under the agency’s control. The move was pitched as a way to improve retention, efficiency and “uniformity in … pre-employment background checks,” according to the presentation staff presented to the Metro Board Operations, Safety and Customer Experience committee.

Metro said the decision to move the program in house wasn’t motivated by Chavez’s case. Instead, Metro said the move would offer ambassadors the job security that comes with union representation, a rich benefit package and a career path.

The ambassador program

Following the nationwide reckoning with police brutality and the murder of George Floyd, Metro, along with security and police forces across the country, reevaluated its approach to public safety.

A Metro Ambassador helps a person at Union Station in Los Angeles on this April.

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In 2022, Metro entered into agreements with two companies to “develop, operate, and manage a cohesive unit of qualified and effective public-facing personnel,” according to a presentation agency staff delivered to board members.

The Metro Board agreed to pay security firm RMI International more than $55 million to oversee 244 personnel and Strive Well-Being nearly $16 million for its 55 personnel.

In 2024, the Metro Board voted to increase Strive Well-Being’s contract since the original agreement to continue its services and account for additional ambassadors that were added under the wellness company’s purview. Strive Well-Being’s contract with Metro now totals more than $30 million.

Metro officially launched its transit ambassador program in March 2023. The agency now deploys 220 people on an average day across the system to help with wayfinding, direct riders to helpful resources and report wrongdoing.

Ambassadors engaged with Metro riders nearly 70,000 times per month on average last year. They also administered naloxone, the opioid-overdose reversing drug, around 11 times per month, according to an LAist analysis of Metro data.

According to a 2023 customer survey, more than 60% of respondents who had seen ambassadors on the system said that they help them feel safe.

The agency announced in May that outgoing San Francisco police chief Bill Scott will lead the new public safety department, which will bring the ambassadors together with law enforcement officers, security that enforces the system code of conduct and social service-oriented teams, like homeless outreach and crisis intervention specialists.

Metro cited lack of central accountability as one of the reasons for the new public safety department.

As part of its vision for a multilayered public safety department, Metro wants to increase the average daily deployment of ambassadors by 60%.

That means that once the new public safety department is fully stood up later this decade, there will be more than 360 ambassadors patrolling Metro trains and buses per day.

Metro said that once the ambassadors are brought in-house, they’ll be subject to the agency’s “stringent background checks.”

“Metro is authorized by the Department of Justice to access state and local criminal history records as well as subsequent arrest notifications for all personnel,” the agency said.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced several significant rule changes for the 99th Oscars, including AI protections for actors and writers as well as expanded eligibility for international films.

In a statement to NPR, the Academy on Saturday said the changes are in response to listening to the global filmmaking community and addressing barriers to entry in its eligibility process.

The Academy added that its rules and eligibility standards have always evolved alongside technologies such as sound, color, and CGI, and that AI is no different. Awards rules and guidelines are reviewed and refined each year.

A blow for Tilly Norwood 

Among the most noteworthy changes, the Academy now explicitly states that only roles, "demonstrably performed by humans with their consent" are eligible for Acting awards. In other words, AI creations like the much-hyped Tilly Norwood cannot hope to win a Best Actress Oscar anytime soon.

Particle6, the production company behind Norwood, did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment on Saturday about its creations' ban from consideration. In March, Norwood commented, "Can't wait to go to the Oscars!" in an Instagram post announcing its newly released music video.

The Academy also requires screenplays to be "human-authored" and said it reserved the right to investigate the use of generative AI in any submission.

Meanwhile, qualifying flesh-and-blood human actors can now be nominated for multiple performances in the same category if those performances get enough votes to land in the top five. So, someone like Anne Hathaway, who has five major movies scheduled for release in 2026, could now theoretically sweep the nominations – though that outcome seems extremely unlikely.

"If an actor has an extremely prolific year, might we even see someone swallow up three of the five nominations?," wrote Deadline's awards columnist and chief film critic Pete Hammond about the changes. "Probably won't happen, but it's now possible."

Under previous rules, an actor could only receive one nomination per category. If they had two high-ranking performances in Best Actor, for example, only the one with the most votes would move forward.

International films prioritizes filmmakers over countries

While international films can still be the official selection of their countries, now they can qualify by winning the top prize at a major international festival such as the Palme d'Or at Cannes, the Golden Lion at Venice, or the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

Historically, countries "owned" the nomination, and only one film per country was allowed. The new rules allow multiple films from the same country to compete if they are critically acclaimed, and it shifts the honor from a geopolitical entity to the filmmakers themselves.

Largely positive response

The changes have prompted a largely positive reaction from the film community on social media, such as on the popular The Shade Room entertainment and celebrity-focused Instagram feed, where commenters widely praised the "human-only" move to protect creative jobs.

The Academy's Awards Committee oversees the rules in tandem with branch executive committees, the International Feature Film Executive Committee and the Scientific and Technical Awards Executive Committee.

The rules are scheduled to go into effect next year, covering films released in 2026.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Los Angeles changes fast, and oftentimes that means some of the architectural relics of our shared past get swept up and paved over in all the "progress." (RIP Garden of Allah.)

But there are still places where you can find ruins that tell a tale, like a long-forgotten speakeasy reputedly for old Hollywood near La Crescenta.

The ruins are still there 

On a recent afternoon, author and local historian Mike Lawler led me just beyond the boundary of Crescenta Valley Park. Joggers like me might have seen an old, towering stone arch shrouded by bushes there — and wondered what lies beyond.

Turns out there was once a place called the Verdugo Lodge back there and Lawler has spent years excavating its history.

A car speeds away from the lodge onto New York Avenue. The stone archway that still stands can be seen in the background.

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“It was a very high-end speakeasy for a time,” Lawler, who also helps run the Historical Society of the Crescenta Valley, said. “An amazing thing. And all the ruins are still here, just like this arch.”

Lawler said we don’t know exactly when the lodge was built, but we do have some of the picture starting in the late 1920s. The place was set up kind of like a timeshare where people bought 10 x 10 foot ‘tent lots’ that gave them access to on-site amenities. There was a golf course, stables, trout stream, a swimming pool — and a lodge with gambling and alcohol.

“The Crescenta Valley in the teens and '20s was a hotbed of moonshine, prostitution, all that stuff," Lawler said. "It was a quiet little community. But in all these canyons up here, stuff was going on. Illegal stuff!”

We don’t have a full guest list, but Lawler said it’s likely at least a few Hollywood types had gone up to the lodge to circumvent Prohibition era laws.

In some ways, it was kind of like the original glamping. Lawler said patrons probably weren’t doing much sleeping, though.

“They might have been unconscious!” he said with a chuckle.

Lawler led me to a road that swooped around a meadow. We passed by a massive swimming pool nestled into the hillside.

Once known as the “Crystal Pool,” it’s now empty and fenced off, with pitch black locker rooms below.

The exterior of the locker rooms for the old Crystal Pool.

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We continued our journey up the hill and eventually arrived at a cascading stone stairway.

And at the top, the big show: overgrown with orange monkey flowers and goliath agaves lies the foundation of the old Verdugo Lodge, with lofty stone fireplaces the only guardians keeping the surrounding oak trees at bay.

Lawler takes out a floorplan that one of the former owners drew up for him.

“This is what it was laid out like on the inside. So a dancehall, and band stand on that side... And then upstairs was the gambling,” Lawler said.

Lawler had in hand a copy of a Los Angeles Times article from 1933 he found. The headline reads: “Revelers Flee in Lodge Raid.”

“The police that raided it were here at 3 o'clock in the morning. And there were still 500 people here. And they said it was the classiest joint they had ever raided... Anyway, people were diving out of windows and everything,” Lawler explained.

In a ruin like this, covered with moss and overgrowth, the imagination can run wild, too.

The archway that still stands outside of what's now known as Mountain Oaks.

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Lawler pointed out a questionable door jam below the old dancefloor that’s been cemented over.

“That is a door. So what is behind there? So there’s a room in there that got walled in for some reason,” he said.

What we do know is that, sometime after the raid, the tawdry Verdugo Lodge and the surrounding land were purchased and then renamed Mountain Oaks by the Kadletzes — an entrepreneurial family who had run everything from a Turkish bath to a mini golf course. Over the next few decades, the family would rent the place out to local groups for recreational retreats.

The future of Mountain Oaks 

After they sold it in the ‘60s, Lawler said Mountain Oaks faced a “nightmare” of development threats. Over the years, some of the subdivided "tent lots" had been combined and sold off, Lawler said. A dozen private homes now stand on these pieces of land, next to the ruins of the Verdugo Lodge.

A map showing the Mountain Oaks public property acquired by The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA).

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Last year, with help from the City of Glendale, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant among other funding sources, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) put up $6.1 million to acquire 33-acres of the land — not including the private lots where the homes stand — so the public can continue to roam the meadow and ruins.

Paul Edelman, MRCA's director of natural resources and planning, said his group will continue to manage the land, doing things like brush clearance, trash pickup and sign maintenance. And he said there are no current plans to remove the ruins or make any major changes to the property.

“If somebody comes up with a grand idea where they can find some funding for us to do something to enhance it, we’re always open to it,” Edelman said.

The purchase was good news for local preservationist Joanna Linkchorst.

“I grew up directly up the hill. But I always saw the sign that said ‘private property’ and didn’t really think about it until several years ago when I finally asked Mike. And he said, ‘Oh yeah, we got a resort speakeasy down the street,’” Linkchorst said standing among the oaks and overgrowth.

Linkchorst, who founded the group Friends of Rockhaven to preserve another nearby historic site, said it’s been amazing to see all of the decaying structures that were still hiding out at Mountain Oaks.

“There’s almost like these little ghosts in your head as you imagine what it was like when there was a beautiful wood floor and there was a second floor that people came jumping out of,” Linkchorst said.

Now, let’s check in to the Overlook Hotel.

That’s the fictional place Stanley Kubrick brought to life in his 1980 film The Shining, loosely based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name.

A local architect who hails from South Pasadena meticulously crafted a 3D model of the iconic space so Shining fans everywhere never have to check out.

‘I just couldn’t stop’ 

At his day job, architect Anthony Chieh mainly works on residential and boutique commercial spaces. But over the course of five months, he spent his nights meticulously recreating a virtual replica of the Overlook Hotel from the film that first scared him when he was 12.

Of course he started with the deeply haunted Room 237. That’s where Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson, has a terrifying encounter with a ghostly woman.

Chieh's 3D rendering of Room 237

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Anthony Chieh

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“But once I started, I just couldn’t stop,” Chieh told LAist.

“I ended up modeling the Colorado Lounge, and then after that I was thinking maybe I should make the lobby and then arriving to the Gold Room, and then Grady’s bathroom.”

“It’s like a rabbit hole,” he said.

Users who download Chieh’s free 3D model can fly through all of those spaces, immersed in atmospheric sounds and music from the film.

“It’s interesting to dive into these kind of fictional environments and try to make sense of it,” Chieh said. “And the hope is people will get a different perspective once they’re in there.”

Kubrick’s take on the Overlook was famously inspired by real hotels like the Timberline Lodge in Oregon and the Ahwahnee in Yosemite. But the interiors you see in the film were created on sound stages in England.

“Real architecture, physical buildings, are built for people to live. And for movies, these are more meant to express the emotional aspect of things. It’s a psychological construct,” Chieh said.

In a recently published video essay on YouTube, Chieh dives deep into those psychological constructs and how, as he puts it, “Kubrick designed the Overlook Hotel not as a backdrop, but as the film's true villain.”

How spaces scare 

Chieh said during the monthslong process he was reminded of the power of architecture and design in the real world too – whether it’s an uncomfortably repetitive carpet design or a claustrophobic hallway.

“A physical construct can affect your emotion,” Chieh said.

“You can use it in a way to make people feel comfortable and you can also use it in a way to create fear.”

Chieh's 3D rendering of the Torrance's apartment in 'The Shining'

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Anthony Chieh

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What’s next for this architect moonlighting as a 3D modeler?

Chieh says he’s thinking about giving the spaceship from “2001: A Space Odyssey" the virtual treatment next. Or maybe turning to a local non-fictional space, like the Stahl House.

That is, of course, if he can ever escape the Overlook.