VICTORVILLE • One out of every three civil cases at Victorville Superior Court has been sent to a courtroom in San Bernardino to relieve the massive case backlog in the High Desert.

But some attorneys say the transfers put an unfair burden on local litigants who have to travel farther for the public service and pay additional legal fees.

About two months ago, San Bernardino County Presiding Judge Douglas Elwell began ordering the transfer of civil cases from Victorville to Judge Marsha Slough’s courtroom in San Bernardino Superior Court.

Victorville simply doesn’t have any more courtrooms, Elwell said, even if it manages to get additional judges.

“I’m relieving the Victorville court of the significant portion of its civil case congestion,” he said. “The entire citizens of the Victor Valley are better off when there are 50 percent more judges handling the cases. That’s my assessment.”

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VICTORVILLE • Jim Stasiak said he was surprised when a judge ordered a former employee to repay the $29,939 she embezzled from his company.

Justice had been served.

Or so he thought.

Stasiak was stunned when he found out it will take 41 years and three months to get all of the money back. And that will be without interest.

“I will be 88 years old when I get paid back,” said Stasiak, president of JSC Companies.

Wanda Lee Hernandez, Stasiak’s former employee, was convicted in November of grand theft by embezzlement, forging company checks and stealing cash and personal items. Victorville Superior Court Judge Miriam Morton sentenced her to 180 weekend days in jail and ordered her to pay $60 a month.

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Diane Bach became a robbery victim — twice in some ways.

Two armed men assaulted Bach’s family in her Victorville home in 2008. Bach’s daughter suffered a head injury, and her daughter’s boyfriend was shot in the stomach. Bach said she vividly remembers an image of a gun pointed at her granddaughter.

Receiving a “wastebasket full” of subpoenas, the family headed to court last March to testify at a preliminary hearing of one of the suspects. Sitting across from the defendant, who would later be convicted, Bach identified the assailant and described what she saw, heard and felt that night.

To protect defendants’ Sixth Amendment rights to confront and cross-examine their witnesses, crime victims have to testify in court, reliving their horrific experiences. Some victims say they are victimized again during the trial.

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VICTORVILLE • Among one of the most affordable housing markets in Southern California, the Victor Valley attracts firsttime home buyers from all over the state.

But at the same time, the area has become an attraction for investors looking to take advantage of the housing market collapse. Some of those investors are pushing the limits of ethical investment practices.

Along with five other California ZIP codes, the 92394 area has the fifth-highest mortgage fraud risk in the nation, according to the 2010 thirdquarter mortgage-fraud risk report compiled by Interthinx Inc. The ZIP code covers the northwest corner of Victorville and neighboring Adelanto, north of Mojave Drive and west of Interstate 15.

The area’s risk index of 412 indicates it had nearly three times as many mortgage fraud incidents as the national average (144) during the third quarter. Other High Desert cities also scored high on the risk index: Hesperia (316), Oak Hills (303), Apple Valley (288), Adelanto (270) and Phelan (256).

"Mortgage fraud always flourishes when there’s instability in the housing market with borrowers who are in trouble,” said Ann Fulmer, vice president of business relations at Interthinx. “If you look at the overall report, California is always No. 1, 2 or 3. What happened in the Mojave (Desert) is the same thing that’s happened throughout the Inland Empire.”

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VICTORVILLE • “What kind of magazine do you read?” defense attorney John Crouch will ask potential jurors.

If the answer is American Rifleman by the National Rifle Association, you probably won’t end up on Crouch’s jury. But if you’re a Rolling Stone reader, there’s a good chance he’ll try to make you one of the 12 jurors who could determine his client’s fate.

The supervising deputy public defender said he looks for different jurors depending on the nature of each case. But he has his preference.

“In general, I was looking for people who had more leftleaning political views,” he said. “I was looking for people who demonstrated in the questioning some degree of tolerance and understanding of alternative lifestyles.”

Picking a jury is a crucial part of criminal trial for both prosecution and defense. The jurors have the responsibility to impartially weigh the evidence and find the defendant guilty or not guilty. Prosecutors usually try to exclude jurors who might show affinity for the defendant, while defense attorneys generally exclude jurors who have professions or backgrounds similar to that of the victim.

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VICTORVILLE • The last five years of Scott Diggs’ life has been nothing but turmoil.

Soon after he moved to Lucerne Valley in 2005, Diggs’ ex-girlfriend, who is also mother to his daughter, was found dead underneath a mattress in an abandoned house back in Tennessee.

“Instead of counseling, I started drinking,” Diggs said. “I self-medicated myself. That pretty much started it. I had a mental health problem, but I couldn’t afford treatment so I relied on them.”

Caught drunk driving, Diggs lost his driver’s license, his job as a truck driver and his house. Then he was convicted of manufacturing a dangerous weapon, which he claims was a potato gun. He was diagnosed with bipolar depression in prison, but after he got out, his biological father talked him out of taking pills. He fled to methamphetamine instead, committing thefts to get the drug.

But now, the 33-year-old is striving to put an end to the mess. Diggs is one of the first 14 participants admitted into Victorville’s mental health court, which was established less than a year ago.

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Carl Riley was teaching his 10-year-old son how to ride a bike in the front yard of their Victorville home when two dogs charged at them.

A pit bull attacked the boy, biting through his boots and puncturing his calf.

“I don’t think anybody should be able to have a pit bull,” said Riley, whose neighbor had been warning him that the dog was uncontrollable. “The dog’s typically trained to be aggressive.”

Pit bulls — a term commonly used to describe American Pit Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terriers and Staffordshire Bull Terriers and their mixed breeds — get a bad rap.

Three pit bulls attacked and seriously injured a 53-year-old woman in April as she was getting her mail in Victorville. A 3-year-old was killed in January by his family’s pit bull in Apple Valley. According to San Bernardino County Animal Care and Control, pit bull-type dogs accounted for all four human fatalities by dog attacks reported in the past five years in the county.

But leading dog experts say that any dog can be dangerous, especially for children. And with a reputation as cutthroat watchdogs, pit bulls likely attract more owners and breeders who want to raise an aggressive dog.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part one of a two-part series analyzing issues in the California family court system.

For the past two years, Shawn Sloan has been fighting in darkness.

The Apple Valley man has been battling for custody of his son in Victorville Superior Court. Without money to hire an attorney, Sloan said he has spent 40 to 50 hours reading the family code, trying to figure out what he’s supposed to do.

Although he alleged that his ex-wife had been abusing their son, a judge ruled against him, removing Sloan’s rights as a father. He submitted paperwork to the judge, thinking that was the way he should communicate. But the judge ruled that he was a troublesome litigant who files frivolous lawsuits.

“I’m basically shooting in the dark,” Sloan said. “The legal system is so inaccessible to the average person because there are so many nuances that we don’t even know about.”

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