VICTORVILLE • A Victorville mother convicted of starving her disabled son to death got off with the 359 days she served while awaiting trial because evidence showed Child Protective Services repeatedly told her the victim was doing fine.

Victorville Superior Court Judge Jules Fleuret put Rosondra Marie Clay, 30, on five-year supervised probation for involuntary manslaughter, following the plea agreement and a probation officer’s recommendation.

Clay, who was originally charged with the murder of 5-year-old Kevin Baldwin, accepted the prosecution’s offer and pleaded guilty to the lesser charge on April 2.

After postponing the sentencing for a week to review facts of the case, Fleuret said Thursday the plea agreement was appropriate.

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VICTORVILLE • Prosecutors dropped felony charges in what they believed to be the first criminal case in the High Desert against an alleged medical marijuana dispensary.

The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office filed the charges against Kenneth Elswick, 47, and Harvey Wolfe, 63, last year in the midst of the county’s effort to crack down on medical marijuana. The owners of California Association of Patient Collectives and Dispensaries in Phelan were charged with selling marijuana.

But Deputy District Attorney Kurt Maier told the court Friday morning his office dismissed the case because he was not ready to go to trial.

Elswick rushed out of the courtroom as soon as Judge John Tomberlin declared the dismissal.

“I never wanted this. I never thought it was going to turn into a witch hunt,” Elswick said, trying to fight back tears. “I’m a good person. I’ve never committed any crime in my life. I’ve never done anything wrong in my life.”

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VICTORVILLE • A local hotel owner convicted of stealing more than $800,000 from Orbitz.com was sentenced Tuesday to 270 weekend days in jail.

Victorville Superior Court Judge Lynn Poncin also ordered Ashka Patel, 28, to pay restitution to the online travel company.

The prosecution alleged Orbitz’s losses totaled about $863,000, whereas Patel claimed the amount was closer to $500,000. She agreed to give up $680,000 authorities seized from her three bank accounts after her arrest. Patel’s restitution hearing is set for July 15.

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VICTORVILLE • An ex-Victorville sheriff’s deputy was sentenced to 20 years in prison Wednesday morning for soliciting bribes and sexual favors in exchange for reduced charges.

Victorville Superior Court Judge Jules Fleuret sentenced Matthew Linderman, 34, to the maximum prison term under  the law.

Because Linderman is eligible for half-time credits, he could get out in 10 years if he’s not disciplined in prison. He will have to register as a sex offender when he gets released.

His hands and ankles cuffed, Linderman appeared in court wearing a protective custody jumpsuit with stubble on his face.

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VICTORVILLE • A couple awoke to the sound of breaking glass from downstairs in their Kemper Campbell Ranch apartment.

Alice Sauls said her husband, Joel Auest, told her to call 911 before he ran downstairs. Upset and terrified, she couldn’t dial the phone, Sauls testified Tuesday, recalling the early morning of Oct. 4, 2003.

Auest soon came back into the bedroom, followed by a slender, young man wearing blue medical scrubs.

“You’re gonna have to calm down ma’am,” the stranger told Sauls, according to her testimony. “You’re gonna have to have my baby.”

The intruder approached Sauls and struck her in the head with an object in his hand, Sauls said. She went downstairs to get help after the man went out to the balcony, Sauls testified. Later Auest came downstairs with blood dripping from his head.

The couple was airlifted to Loma Linda University Medical Center where Auest died three days later from blunt force trauma to the head.

The prosecution began presenting its witnesses Tuesday in the trial of Melvin Douglas Cannon, accused of murdering 55-year-old Auest — a crime that shook the tranquil Victorville ranch community more than seven years ago. The 23-year-old is also charged with the attempted murder of Sauls, burglary and other allegations.

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VICTORVILLE • A repeat felon convicted of beating an Iraq War veteran to death with a ball-peen hammer was sentenced to 81 years to life in prison Tuesday morning.

Victorville Superior Court Judge John Tomberlin sentenced Johnny Acosta, 47, to the maximum possible  for the 2009 murder of Trevor John Neiman.

More than 50 family members and friends of Neiman — most of them wearing black commemorative T-shirts — packed the courtroom as eight of them delivered victim impact statements.

“I will never again see my son give me his ‘stink-eye’ look and a grin. We will never again hear him laugh or crack a joke,” Neal and Lorale Neiman, the victim’s parents, wrote in their impact statement letter. “I will never again see him tear off into the desert on his dirt bike while I yell at him to be careful. ... I will never get to bounce his children on my lap or baby-sit and spoil my grandbabies.”

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VICTORVILLE • Daryl Kraemer walked inside his mother’s Lucerne Valley home and smelled “something dead,” almost like a septic tank.

It was a quiet September morning except for the blaring music from a radio. Kraemer looked inside a bedroom, and there he saw his 55-year-old mother, naked on her bed. He cried and screamed and ran out of the house. Looking up at the sky, he yelled, “Why?”

More than 25 years after Kraemer discovered his mother’s body, he relived that terrible moment on Monday in a Victorville courtroom as he testified in the jury trial of John Yablonsky, who is accused of strangling Rita M. Cobb to death with a wire coat hanger.

“I just went crazy in shock,” Kraemer told jurors about discovering his dead mother on Sept. 23, 1985. Across from him sat the 47-year-old defendant dressed in a gray suit with a shaved head and glasses, diligently taking notes.

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VICTORVILLE • An Apple Valley man convicted of murdering his girlfriend’s 16-month-old daughter was sentenced to 25 years to life Thursday after a judge cleared the courtroom following a melee among family members.

David Anthony Jackson, 28, appeared at Victorville Superior Court wearing a green jumpsuit, signifying protective custody because he is a child abuser. A jury found Jackson guilty in September of second-degree murder of Jayanna Eason and assault on a child resulting in death.

Jackson listened to Eason’s family members make victim impact statements, looking straight into their faces.

After the third impact statement, however, a female member of Jackson’s family shouted toward the victim’s family, and the two sides began screaming and pushing each other. A male in the audience yelled at Jackson before the defendant was escorted out of the room. Sheriff’s deputies immediately cleared more than 25 people out of the courtroom, but the family members kept shouting at each other in the hallway and the parking lot.

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VICTORVILLE • It was heart wrenching for Trevor Neiman’s family and friends who gathered at Victorville Superior Court dressed in identical black T-shirts to commemorate the murdered former Marine.

In one courtroom on Friday, Richard Monroe Harris was sentenced to 33 years to life for stabbing Neiman in the head with a knife in May 2009. In another courtroom, Johnny Acosta, who allegedly struck and killed 25-year-old Neiman with a ball-peen hammer in November, appeared for a pre-trial hearing.

What’s shocking is that both Acosta and Harris had been convicted of killings in the past — but both had walked free to prey again.

Acosta pleaded guilty in 1993 to voluntary manslaughter and attempted rape of an Upland woman. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison but was released on parole in half the time in 2004 for his good behavior. He got off probation in 2007.

“I don’t understand how criminals can be good little boys in prison and get home early so they can repeat it,” said Neiman’s mother, Lorale Neiman, fighting back tears. “Because if Acosta had not been released, my son would still be alive. I just can’t get behind it. It just tears me up every day. I wake up every night seeing Trevor and this crazy man.”

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VICTORVILLE • Judge Robert Lemkau recently defended his unpopular ruling to deny Katie Tagle’s plea to keep the father away from their son, and his peers are supporting his claim.

The Victorville Superior Court judge upheld a pre-existing custody agreement in December when Tagle warned him that her estranged boyfriend, Stephen Garcia, was threatening to kill their son. Lemkau told Tagle, “My suspicion is that you’re lying.”

Garcia shot and killed the 9-month-old son and himself just 10 days after the hearing, and Lemkau later apologized to Tagle for his comment.

But in his recent interview with the Daily Press, Lemkau emphasized that he made the right decision based on evidence. He said what’s important is not what was said in court that day, but what he did.

“I think I made the correct decision based upon the facts available to me at the time,” Lemkau said. “Obviously, none of us have a crystal ball. One cannot determine what will occur in the future, at least not a judge.”

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