Local News

Fresno County Deputies Capture Evasive Wanted Parolee

FRESNO - The Fresno County Sheriff’s SWAT team took 25 year old Joshua Servis of Fresno into custody Thursday afternoon. He has been booked into the Fresno County Jail for assault with a deadly weapon, evading police and a parole violation.

Just after 9:30 pm on March 5th, deputies spotted Joshua Servis in a vehicle as it was pulling into a gas station at the corner of Olive and Marks Avenues in Fresno. As deputies attempted to stop him, Servis intentionally swerved his car into a patrol vehicle, causing minor damage. Servis headed east on Olive Ave. to try and get away.

Former El Dorado County Gymnastics Coach Charged with Attempting to Produce Child Pornography

SACRAMENTO - A federal grand jury returned a one-count indictment today against Keith Willette, 56, of Cameron Park, charging him with attempted production of child pornography, Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced. According to court documents, between May 2000 and April 2002, Willette attempted to produce child pornography of a juvenile victim.

This case is the product of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Rosanne L. Rust and Trial Attorney Jessica Urban with the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Department of Justice, Criminal Division, are prosecuting the case.

Five Tulare Residents Charged in Superseding Indictment with Possessing and Selling False Identification Documents

FRESNO - A federal grand jury returned a 10-count superseding indictment today for a case involving the production and sale of false Social Security cards and green cards first charged in August 2018, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced.

Today’s superseding indictment adds three counts and a fifth defendant. Tulare residents Elfego Alcala, 46; Aida Corona, 37; Tamilene Cisneros, 48; Lupita Cisneros; and the fifth defendant, Maria Elena Soriano-Salinas, 57, are charged with conspiring to produce false identification documents, the production and sale of false identification documents, and fraud and misuse of visas and related documents.

ACLU Sues Madera County High School for Censoring Students’ LGBTQ Quotes in Yearbook

MADERA COUNTY — The ACLU Foundation of Northern California today filed a lawsuit against Chawanakee Unified School District and Minarets High School administrators on behalf of two students for censoring the students’ speech celebrating their LGBTQ identities in violation of their free speech rights and right to be free of anti-LGBTQ bias in California schools.

Steven Madrid and Mikayla Garaffa, two Minarets High School students, selected quotes for their yearbook senior pages. Although the quotes were generic statements in support of LGBTQ people, the two students received an email from their school’s yearbook advisor rejecting the quotes for being “politically divisive.” Their quotes were:

Suspect In Custody for the Murder of Former Tulare Mayor's Cousin: Dynasty Alexander (18)

TULARE - Detectives with the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office arrested 52-year-old Dale William Watson of Porterville Tuesday for the murder of eighteen year old Dynasty Alexander. Dynasty’s body was discovered in an orchard near the Elk Bayou Park on the 19700 Block of Hosfield Drive in Tulare. At the location, officers found the body of a female and determined it was county jurisdiction.

The victim had visible signs of strangulation and trauma to the upper torso when her body was found near a Tulare orchard on 3/3/19. Upon completion of the autopsy, the official cause of death was determined to be a single gunshot wound to the upper torso. The investigation is being treated as a homicide. The Tulare County Sheriff’s Office Violent Crimes Detectives were then called to the scene and took over the investigation.