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UPDATE: LA judge rejects carjacked camp ranger's request to block Christopher Dorner reward money
Rick Heltebrake relates the tale of how Christopher Dorner hijacked his truck on Highway 38 to reporters while his dog Suni hangs around.
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Grant Slater/KPCC
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Rick Heltebrake relates the tale of how Christopher Dorner hijacked his truck on Highway 38 to reporters while his dog Suni hangs around.
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Grant Slater/KPCC
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Rick Heltebrake with his dog Suni looks over the burned-out cabin where Christopher Dorner's remains were found after a police standoff Tuesday near Big Bear, Calif., Friday Feb. 15, 2013. Earlier, Heltebrake had been carjacked by Dorner.
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Nick Ut/AP
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UPDATE: LA judge rejects carjacked camp ranger's request to block Christopher Dorner reward money
UPDATE 1:59 p.m.: In denying camp ranger Richard Heltebrake's request for an injunction to stop the payment of the reward, the judge determined that if Heltebrake wins his suit, the city Los Angeles could use its own money to pay anything owed.
Heltebrake's attorney, Allen Thomas, says the procedure the city used to decide on the reward's recipients was unfair because it eliminated the right to appeal the decision.
"We consider that a violation of Mr. Heltebrake's civil rights," Thomas said.
The city is expected to file its response to the suit in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Heltebrake has also sued the City of Riverside, the County of Riverside and Irvine, who also offered rewards in the Dorner case.
PREVIOUSLY: A Los Angeles judge has denied the request made by camp ranger Richard Heltebrake, carjacked by rogue ex-LAPD cop Christopher Dorner, to block the dispersal of $1 million in reward money, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Heltebrake argued that his call to 911 led authorities to capturing Dorner, but Judge Luis Lavin wouldn’t grant a temporary restraining order to stop authorities from giving the reward money to four others, according to the Times.
A panel of three judges previously decided that Heltebrake wasn’t entitled to any reward money because the police already knew Dorner was in the area.
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Twelve parties had filed claims for the reward, but only three were chosen. Those include the couple that Dorner tied up who are set to receive 80 percent of the money, the man who found Dorner’s burning truck who has been assigned 15 percent of the reward, and the tow-truck driver who spotted Dorner at a gas station gets the last 5 percent.
Dorner, a fired L.A. police officer, killed four people before shooting himself in a Big Bear cabin in February.
Read the three-judge panel's memo on its decision:
This story has been updated.
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