Kidnap Attempt leads to arrest in Brawley

Police arrest a man suspected of trying to kidnap a 9-year old girl.

Brawley police say Emilio Mario Rivas attempted to grab the young girl while she was walking home from school with a friend Wednesday.

They say it happened around 3:20p.m. in the 1000 block of I Street in Brawley.

Police say after the girls ran away from Rivas, one of their fathers returned to the area, and a fight ensued between the two.

BPD says they were notified about the incident but when they arrived Rivas had fled in a taxi.

They say with the help of the local cab companies, officers were able to locate Rivas in the area of Brawley Avenue and 1st Street.

After Rivas was positively identified, he was booked into Imperial County Jail.

Brawley police say this incident is not related to the attempted kidnapping incident on I street last Friday.

However, they say people should always remain vigilant to their surrounding and report any suspicious activity to the police.

Cooked Allowed Again

posted: Feb 15, 2012 3:28 PM Updated: Feb 15, 2012 3:31 PM

San Luis, AZ-- CBP says cooked eggs can now be crossed into U.S. once again.

After just about a year of restricting cooked eggs to be crossed into the United States, officials now say it's ok to do so.

U.S. Customs and border Protection officials say travelers may now once again cross fully cooked eggs into the United States from Mexico.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture restricted live bird and poultry imports from Mexico to protect the U.S. from Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, also known as HPAI.

The restriction included any cooked eggs including eggs inside breakfast or lunch meals to be eaten by individuals.

The change is effective immediately.

2011 Ca. Taxes

Franchise Tax Board News

California taxpayers should be aware that the Franchise Tax Board (FTB), the state income tax collection agency, will not be mailing tax forms to taxpayers this year. You can download the forms from the FTB website at ftb.ca.gov or receive copies of the forms from local post offices or Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) and Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE) offices. VITA and TCE volunteer programs provide free assistance to individuals with limited income or who are over the age of 60 and need help in completing simple federal and state income tax returns. Assistance is limited to full-year residents because nonresident and part-year resident returns can be complex. Assistance is generally available from February 1 through April 15th. FTB also offers some basic tax tips for the 2011 filing season.

The VITA program specializes in assisting disabled taxpayers, those with low to limited income, and non-English speaking taxpayers. The TCE program provides free income tax assistance for middle- or low-income taxpayers, giving special attention to those aged 60 and older. A list of VITA and TCE offices can be found here.

Prevert Arrested In Az. At Truck Stop

Buckeye, AZ- The U.S. Marshals arrest a suspected sexual predator.

Robert Franz is wanted out of Pampa, Texas for aggravated sexual assault with a minor.

The Arizona WANTED violent offender task force in Yuma was contacted by the Pampa Police Department Tuesday afternoon about the 63-year old being in the area.

Authorities say it was later discovered Franz had fled Yuma and was in the Phoenix area at a truck stop in Buckeye.

They say after brief surveillance Franz was located near 339th Avenue and Van Buren Road, where he was arrested exiting a truck stop.

Franz is wanted for an incident that occurred in October of 2011, in which investigators discovered he sexually assaulted a child under the age of five.

In December, a warrant was issued for his arrest by the Gray County Sheriff's Office in Pampa, TX. They say shortly after the warrant was issued, Franz fled the state of Texas.

2011 INM Minors returned to Mexico

U.S. authorities handed over 14,237 unaccompanied children and teenagers of different nationalities found traveling alone on the border to Mexico last year, the National Migration Institute, or INM, said.
Of the minors handed over to authorities in Mexico, 11,520, or nearly 81 percent, were Mexican and the other 2,717 were of various unspecified nationalities.
The children were all cared for the INM's office of children's services.
Since 2007, Mexico has had a program in effect to protect undocumented minors who are handed over by the United States, the INM said.
Countries such as Argentina, Panama, Spain, Colombia and Senegal have expressed an interest in the welfare of these children, the INM said in a statement.
Mexico has worked since 2009 with 384 officials from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and the Dominican Republic "to replicate this model and train their officials to provide the specialized care required by the migrant child population," the INM said.
The program deals with immediate problems and "the specific needs" of young migrants, "detecting those minors who are victims of possible abuse, exploitation or people trafficking," the INM said.
"The program for aiding migrants who are minors has yielded such good results that it has been emulated by several countries in Latin America," the INM said.
The INM currently has 362 children's services offices.

extradited to Mexico

Bruce Beresford-Redman, the reality television-show producer accused of murdering his wife, Monica, in Cancun in 2010, has been extradited to Mexico, NBC News reported Wednesday.

The one-time "Survivor"producer’s attorney, Richard Hirsch, confirmed that Beresford-Redman's extradition process began Tuesday and he was extradited to Cancun, where he must face the magistrate within six days.

Hirsh told NBC News that Beresford-Redman has retained an attorney in Mexico.

In December, officials said Beresford-Redman was dropping his extradition fight, but a "delivery date" had not been set.

NBC News reported that Beresford-Redman arrived in Cancun at 12:30 a.m. local time (1:30 a.m. ET) and was taken to the attorney-general's office. The Associated Press said that he was wearing a bulletproof vest and was escorted by nearly a dozen agents.

Monica (Burgos) Beresford-Redman, 42, disappeared from a Cancun resort where the couple was vacationing with their two children. Her body was found stuffed in a sewer cistern at a swank resort.

The Burgos family, in a prepared statement issued by attorney Alison Triessl and obtained by NBC News, hailed Bruce Beresford-Redman's return to Mexico.

"This day marks a major milestone in our journey to ensure justice for Monica," the family said. "It is our hope that Mexico will pursue his prosecution zealously and that once convicted, Bruce Beresford-Redman will be sentenced to the maximum term allowable by Mexican law."

In December, Hirsch said of the producer, "He is innocent and it is his hope that the court in Mexico will assure that he receives a fair trial in which, he is confident, he will be exonerated."

The family of Monica Beresford-Redman has said the couple went to Cancun to try to save their marriage. They claim Bruce Beresford-Redman, who is also the co-creator of the series "Pimp My Ride," was having a long-term affair with another woman. His wife, originally from Brazil, owned and operated a restaurant in Los Angeles.

U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez upheld an extradition order in December, saying that there are many pages of competent evidence supporting prosecution claims that the producer killed his wife.

From December 27, 2011: Carla Burgos, the sister of slain Monica Beresford-Redman, and family attorney Alison Triessl talk about Bruce Beresford-Redman's decision to not appeal a judge's ruling to extradite him to Mexico to face murder charges in his wife's death.

"All of this evidence points to homicide committed by the fugitive," said the judge's ruling.

Prosecutors presented statements from hotel guests who said they heard loud arguing and cries of distress coming from the couple's room on the night Monica Beresford-Redman went missing.

The producer's attorneys have claimed the noises came from Beresford-Redman and his children playing loud games throughout the night. They introduced statements from the couple's 6-year-old daughter to corroborate the claim, but judges who have reviewed the case were not swayed.

Beresford-Redman had been ordered to stay in Mexico after his wife's body was found but he left and returned to his home in Los Angeles. He voluntarily surrendered to U.S. authorities after a warrant was issued in Mexico for his arrest.

Mexican courts do not have juries, and the producer will be tried by the same judge who issued the warrant for his arrest, Hirsch had said.

If he is convicted of aggravated homicide in Mexico, Beresford-Redman faces 12 years to 30 years in a Mexican prison.

His two small children have been placed in the custody of Beresford-Redman's parents with visitation by their mother's sisters.

Mexico Travel Warning Feb 9, 2012

Mexico Travel Feb 9, 2012 Things are fine Here at Los Algodones, B.C., Mexico 2/10/2012

The State Department advised Americans this week to defer “non-essential travel” to vast stretches of Mexico, warning that 14 of the country’s 31 states are so dangerous that visitors should avoid them if at all possible. For four other states, it counseled caution or extreme caution.

The travel warning is at once broader, more detailed and more alarming than the previous one for Mexico, issued in April.

Mexico's ongoing drug war continues to claim lives and disrupt order in the country.

The new warning became public as Mexican troops announced Thursday that they had seized 15 tons of pure methamphetamine outside Guadalajara — an amount equal to half of all meth seizures worldwide in 2009.

State Department travel warnings are based on internal guidance that embassies and consular offices use to decide where it is safe for U.S. diplomats and federal employees to travel, so they often err on the side of caution.

Still, this one, issued Wednesday evening, is sweeping. To begin with, it warns against all but essential travel across most of the states along the U.S.-Mexican border: Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon (except the city of Monterrey, where caution is advised), Coahuila, Chihuahua and Sonora.

Things are fine Here at Los Algodones, B.C., Mexico

Come Visit Us And Enjoy Wonderful Old Mexico You Won't Be Sorry You Did

Monterrey is Mexico’s version of Houston, a boom town filled with corporate boosters and an aspirational middle class. But the State Department discloses that since September 2010, the U.S. Consulate General in Monterrey became an “unaccompanied post with no minor dependents of U.S. government personnel permitted.” The warning concludes: “The level of violence and insecurity in Monterrey has increased, illustrated by an attack on a popular local casino in August that resulted in 52 deaths. One U.S. citizen was injured in that incident. Local police and private patrols do not have the capacity to deter criminal elements or respond effectively to security incidents.”

Ciudad Juarez, in Chihuahua, merits “special concern,” the warning says, advising that the border city “has one of the highest murder rates in Mexico” and that “three persons associated with the Consulate General were murdered in March 2010” there.

Moving south, also on the no-go list for all but essential travel: Sinaloa (except the Pacific Coast resort of Mazatlan), Durango, Zacatecas, Aguascalientes and San Luis Potosi, where two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were ambushed and one was killed a year ago.
This means a visitor who wants to drive from the United States to Mexico City has no viable route that would be in accord with the U.S. guidelines.
If you do drive, the warning says, remember: “TCOs [Transnational Criminal Organizations] have erected their own unauthorized checkpoints, and killed or abducted motorists who have failed to stop at them. You should cooperate at all checkpoints.”
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The State Department also warns against travel in Jalisco along its borders with Michoacan, another no-go, and Zacatecas.

Some of the State Department’s advice can be chilling. For example, it warns travelers to avoid much of the southern Pacific states of Nayarit and Guerrero, except for the popular beach resorts of Riviera Nayarit, Ixtapa, Zihuatanejo and Acapulco. But watch your step even there, the department said: “In Acapulco, defer non-essential travel to areas further than 2 blocks inland of the Costera Miguel Aleman Boulevard, which parallels the popular beach areas.”

And skip the highways: “Flying into the coastal cities in southern Guerrero remains the preferred method of travel.”

The advisory does note that “millions of U.S. citizens safely visit Mexico each year for study, tourism, and business, including more than 150,000 who cross the border every day.” Still, it says, U.S. travelers should be aware of Mexico’s efforts against “TCOs [transnational criminal organizations] which engage in narcotics trafficking and other unlawful activities” throughout the country.

Mexico is a country of 110 million people, so the odds of running into trouble are low. The number of U.S. citizens reported to the State Department as murdered in Mexico increased from 35 in 2007 to 120 in 2011.

Where to go? Much of the Yucatan Peninsula is free of murder and mayhem. No advisory is in effect for the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatan and Quintana Roo. Good to go, too, are the popular art and food destinations of Oaxaca and Puebla.