CA Unpub Decisions

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County, Harry Elias, Judge. (Retired Judge of San Diego Sup. Ct. assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to art. VI, § 6 of the Cal. Const.) Affirmed.
Austin Andrew Clay in pro. per.; and Shaghayegh Dinata-Hanson, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
No appearance for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Austin Andrew Clay entered into a plea agreement, under the terms of which he pleaded guilty to false imprisonment by force (Pen. Code § 236/237, subd. (a)) and agreed to an immediate sentence of two years in local prison. The remaining charges were dismissed, and Clay was sentenced in accordance with the plea agreement.
Clay filed a timely notice of appeal.
Appellate counsel has filed a brief pursuant to People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436 (Wende) indicating counsel has not been able to identify any arguable issues for reversal on appeal.

Defendant, born in September 1993, was charged with forcible rape of a child under 14 years of age (§ 261, subd. (a)(2)), showing pornography to a minor (§ 288.2, subd. (a)(2)), possession of child or youth pornography (§ 311.11, subd. (a)), and continuous sexual abuse, from December 2013 to February 2016, of a child under 14 years of age (§ 288.5, subd. (a)).
Defendant pleaded no contest in an open plea to continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14 years old and the remaining counts were dismissed with a Harvey waiver. The probation report was stipulated as the factual basis for the plea.
The probation report, which relied on the police reports, stated defendant had lived with A.Y. and her two daughters, C.Y. and K.M., for about a year and a half and A.Y. said during that time, “defendant was a ‘father figure’ to both of her daughters.”

Mother and E.R. (father) are the parents of L.R., who was born in December 2019. When this case arose in January 2020, he was one month old. L.R. lived in an apartment with his parents and other paternal relatives.
On January 28, 2020, the Department of Children and Family Services (Department) received a referral alleging L.R. was at risk of physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. The reporting party stated she has often heard mother yelling at her child and “‘telling the child to shut up and shut the [expletive] up[.]’” Children in the area told the reporting party that they heard mother yell at the child, and that “‘they have seen mother hit the child, threaten to throw the child[,] and on one occasion threaten to kill the child.’” Upon receiving the referral, the Department asked the police to conduct a welfare check at the family residence.
When the police went to the home, mother stated “she was very upset and frustrated with [L.R.] because he is always c

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. Laura F. Priver, Judge. Reversed and remanded with directions.
Tanya Dellaca, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Assistant Attorney General, Michael R. Johnsen and Blythe J. Leszkay, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

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In July 2014, pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement, defendant and appellant Jose Luis Cortes pled no contest to carjacking (Pen. Code, § 215, subd. (a)) and second degree robbery (§ 211). Defendant admitted an allegation of personal gun use as to both counts (§ 12022.53) and further admitted having suffered a prior conviction for a serious or violent felony within the meaning of the “Three Strikes” law and section 667, subdivision (a)(1).

The People charged Depaz with four counts of committing a lewd act upon a child under age 14 (Pen. Code, § 288, subd. (a); counts 1, 7, 8, 9) , one count of continuous sexual abuse of a child under age 14 (§ 288.5, subd. (a); count 3), two counts of sexual penetration by use of force on a child over the age of 14 (§ 289, subd. (a)(1)(C); counts 4, 6), and one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child under the age of 14 (§ 269, subd. (a)(5); count 5).
At trial, the prosecutor presented evidence showing the following. Depaz’s daughter, J.D., was born in the United States. When J.D. was around two years old, her parents broke up and she moved to Mexico with her mother. About eight years later, J.D. moved back to the United States to live with Depaz and his wife.
J.D.’s mother and siblings remained in Mexico, and Depaz forbade J.D. from visiting them. However, J.D. frequently communicated with her family living in Mexico.

ISCM, a freight forwarding company, was originally solely owned by Scott. In early 2012, in order to rescue the company’s fortunes, Scott sold membership interests in ISCM to Alex Knowles (Knowles) (48 percent), Peter Lamy (Lamy) (10 percent), and Graham Burford (Burford) (10 percent). The four members agreed that Scott would be responsible for securing the necessary legal documentation for the newly-recapitalized ISCM. Scott retained Roten, who was the managing partner of the Los Angeles office of Duane Morris, to act as ISCM’s general counsel and to provide legal services to the company and its four members. Although Roten had a history of working with Scott, he did not disclose his prior relationship with Scott to the other members of ISCM.
Without notice to the other members of the company, and at Scott’s insistence, Roten structured the company’s revised operating agreement so that it favored Scott.

In 2014, mother’s four other children, S.R.’s half siblings, were removed from mother and their father, J.J., due to mother’s substance abuse and mental health issues and J.J.’s failure to protect them from mother. Mother received family reunification services, and J.J. received family maintenance services. In June 2015, a psychological evaluation of mother concluded that mother was unlikely to benefit from further reunification services within the legal time frame for reunification and that she would likely require a residential treatment program to address her mental health and substance abuse issues. In July 2015, the dependency case was closed and J.J. was granted sole physical and legal custody of the children.
In September 2015, S.R.’s half siblings were again removed from their parents’ care due to domestic violence and J.J.’s failure to protect the children. At the time, mother was living in the home with J.J. and the children in violation of a court order.

The following facts were set forth in this court’s prior nonpublished opinion, People v. Superior Court (Phillips) (Feb. 5, 2010, A124599) (Phillips I): Defendant was charged by amended information with committing a lewd act on a child under the age of 14 (John Doe 3) (§ 288, subd. (a); count 1), videotaping a child engaged in sexual activity (John Doe 1) (§ 311.4, subd. (c); count 2), three counts of surreptitiously recording a confidential communication (sexual conduct) without the victim’s consent (§ 632, subd. (a); counts 3, 6, & 8), exhibiting a videotape of a child engaged in sexual activity to a child (§ 311.2, subd. (d); count 4), exhibiting a videotape of a child engaged in sexual activity to an adult (§ 311.1, subd. (a); count 5), photographing a child (John Doe 2) engaged in sexual activity for commercial purposes (§ 311.4, subd. (b); count 7), and dissuading a witness (John Doe 2) (§ 136.1, subd. (b)(1); count 9).

Lopez and his codefendant, Rodolfo M. Rodriguez, were convicted of first degree murder, second degree murder, robbery, carjacking, and related crimes. Our unpublished opinion from 2014 describes the circumstances of the murders as follows:
“A. The Murder
“[Rafael] Ochoa owned his own trucking company and drove a Freightliner tractor-trailer. He regularly carried cash of around $300 to $500 for fuel. He did not own a handgun, and while he used a rifle when he went hunting, he kept neither guns nor ammunition in his truck. Ochoa kept his truck very neat, and he would never let anyone borrow it, even for a fee, nor did he pick up hitchhikers.
“On December 15, 2009, Ochoa drove from his home in Tulare County to deliver frozen juice to a business in Ontario. While en route, he spoke on his cell phone around 4:00 p.m. with his friend Maricela Martinez, who arranged to meet him at the Truck Stop of America (TA truck stop) in Ontario.

On April 18, 2020, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Kevin Nguyen was dispatched to a liquor store in a strip mall in the city of Adelanto in response to a complaint of people loitering in the parking lot. When Nguyen, who was in uniform and driving a marked patrol vehicle, pulled into the parking lot, he was flagged down by a woman who pointed at A.R., who was standing six to eight feet away, and said he had assaulted her son. A.R. turned and began walking away, and Nguyen followed in his vehicle and called out to A.R. through the open car window to stop and come talk to him. A.R. turned to look at Nguyen and then continued walking away, tossing an unknown object into a trash can. Nguyen told A.R. to stop and place his hands on the hood of the patrol car. A.R. responded, “‘For what?’” He told Nguyen he had done nothing wrong and continued walking away.

In January 2022, Angel had been R.H.’s nanny for about a month and a half. R.H., who was four years old, lived alone with Father; they had not lived in San Diego for long. On Monday, January 10, Angel noticed that Father was behaving strangely. That day, Angel went to pick up R.H. and Father at a park. Father would not let Angel get out of the car. He looked around until “it was safe for him to talk” and then told Angel “he didn’t want them to hear him.” By “them,” Father meant R.H.’s mother, her boyfriend, and the grandmother. He told Angel the grandmother was “in town” and “that [wa]s how the mother and her boyfriend knew where they were.” (Mother was living in Oregon at the time.)
Angel had seen Father talk of Mother and her boyfriend living “in the walls.” One time, Father “was yelling in his room telling them to get out.” He “made [Angel] sit in the room listening to them talk in the walls.”

On June 1, 2011, the City obtained a judgment for possession and damages in an unlawful detainer action against Howard concerning her lease of a space at the former De Anza Cove Mobilehome Park. Howard appealed the judgment. The appellate division of the superior court stayed execution of the judgment and as a condition ordered Howard to deposit rent and utilities charges into court while the appeal was pending. The appellate division affirmed the judgment on January 30, 2014. After the remittitur issued, the trial court added attorney fees and costs to the judgment.
Howard received notice in 2018 that a portion of the funds deposited into court during the pendency of her appeal of the unlawful detainer judgment had escheated to the state, and in response she commenced a new case by filing a petition for release to her of the “several thousand dollars” she had deposited.

As the issue in this appeal concerns a challenge by Failla to the trial court’s good faith determination regarding the settlement between Waymire and IPS, we begin by focusing on those three parties, along with IPS’s president and Chief Operating Officer, Robert Moberg.
1. Failla
Failla was the Chief Executive Officer of Clean Conversion Technologies, Inc. (“CCT”) from June 2010 until its dissolution in 2019. As Failla explains, “CCT was a clean energy company that sought to develop and sell industrial technology and machinery capable of extracting recyclable materials from landfill waste, thereby reducing the amount of waste disposed of in landfills.” In addition, according to Failla, he owned 47 percent of IPS.
2. Waymire
In 2012, Waymire invested $250,000 in CCT. When CCT dissolved, Waymire lost the $250,000 that he invested.

A police officer responded to defendant’s residence, where she resided with her codefendant boyfriend, to investigate a landlord-tenant dispute. The officer noticed a gun cabinet and several cardboard and plastic boxes of personal property stacked in front of defendant’s residence. Defendant’s landlady told the officer that she believed the boxes of personal property were stolen because defendant and codefendant had been arrested for theft in the past. The landlady also gave the officer a stack of driver’s licenses she found at defendant’s residence. Defendant told the officer that she inherited the gun cabinet and the personal property from her late grandparents and denied they were stolen.
After leaving the property, the officer reviewed the driver’s licenses and found one belonging to T.S.