FBI searches Las Vegas home of fugitive

Federal and local authorities served a search warrant at the Las Vegas home of an ex-police officer sought in connection with a series of shootings in Southern California, but said the suspect was not located.

FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller confirmed agents and Las Vegas police searched the home Thursday as part of the ongoing investigation into Christopher Jordan Dorner, 33, but did not elaborate as to what was recovered. The surrounding neighborhood was cleared as a precaution, she said.

No one was home at the time, Eimiller said.

PHOTOS: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer

Several law enforcement agencies are involved in the ongoing manhunt for Dorner and alerts have been issued all across California and in Nevada, warning Dorner was considered "armed and extremely dangerous." Dorner was believed to be carrying multiple weapons, including an assault rifle.

In California, a SWAT team clad in military fatigues spent Thursday afternoon combing the mountain community of Big Bear after Dorner's burned-out truck was found on a forest road. Authorities were going door-to-door and checking all vehicles coming and going from the mountain.

Dorner, who was fired from the LAPD in 2009, is suspected of shooting three police officers, one of whom died, in Riverside County early Thursday.

PHOTOS: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer

He also is suspected of killing a couple who were found shot in a car in Orange County earlier this week. One of the victims was the daughter of a former LAPD captain named in a lengthy online manifesto that law enforcement officials attributed to Dorner.

The Los Angeles Police Department had dispatched units across the region to protect at least 40 officers and others named in the document, which threatened "unconventional and asymmetrial warfare" against police.

Dorner received awards for his expertise with a rifle and pistol, according to military records obtained by The Times. He received an Iraq Campaign Medal and was a member of a mobile inshore undersea warfare unit.

Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz, calling the attack on his officers a "cowardly ambush," said Dorner is suspected of opening fire with a rifle about 1:30 a.m. Thursday as he pulled up to two police officers waiting at a traffic light.

The attack was carried out about 20 minutes after Dorner wounded an LAPD officer in a shooting in nearby Corona, police said.

Early Thursday, two women delivering the Los Angeles Times in Torrance were shot by Los Angeles police who were headed to the home of a police captain named in the manifesto.

The women, shot in the 19500 block of Redbeam Avenue, were taken to area hospitals, Torrance Police Lt. Devin Chase said. One suffered a minor wound, and the other was struck twice and listed in stable condition, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck told reporters.

"Tragically," Beck said, "we believe this is a case of mistaken identity."

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Ex-LA cop, murder suspect sent CNN anchor parcel

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Law enforcement officials are inspecting a package CNN's Anderson Cooper received from a former Los Angeles police officer who allegedly killed three in a shooting spree.

CNN spokeswoman Shimrit Sheetrit said Thursday that a parcel containing a note, a DVD and a bullet hole-riddled memento were sent by Christopher Dorner and addressed to Cooper's office.

LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith says LAPD robbery-homicide detectives will inspect the package for clues.

The package arrived Feb. 1, days before the first two killings Dorner is accused of.

It contained a note on it that read, in part, "I never lied."

Dorner was fired from the LAPD in 2008 for making false statements.

A coin typically given out as a souvenir by the police chief was also in the package, and riddled with bullet holes.

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Daniel Doctoroff Enlists Bloomberg in A.L.S. Research

Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times

Daniel L. Doctoroff, second from right, chief executive of Bloomberg L.P., at Columbia University’s Motor Neuron Center.

Daniel L. Doctoroff watched in pain as his father developed a limp one day, was found to have Lou Gehrig’s disease, and died within two years. Then an uncle also developed symptoms of the same disease, and died soon after.

Now Mr. Doctoroff, like many other relatives of Lou Gehrig’s disease victims, worries that he or his children may someday develop the illness.

But unlike many, he is in a position to try to do something about it. At a time when scientists are making rapid gains in the genetic roots of many diseases, Mr. Doctoroff, a former deputy mayor and private equity investor, is working with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and a private equity director, David M. Rubenstein, to put together a $25 million package of donations to support research to try to cure this rare and usually fatal degenerative neurological illness.

“This is a devastating disease,” Mr. Doctoroff said in an interview this week in the glass high-rise on the Upper East Side that houses Bloomberg L.P., the mayor’s media and financial information company, where Mr. Doctoroff is now chief executive. “Up to now, there’s been basically no hope. I have the resources, and I think it’s my obligation to do that.”

The gift is part of a wave of investment based on the booming field of genomic analysis. The money will go to a project called Target A.L.S., a consortium of at least 18 laboratories, including ones at Columbia and at Johns Hopkins, the mayor’s alma mater, working to find biological “targets,” like gene mutations, and the biochemical changes they cause in the spinal cord, that could be used to test potential drug therapies for the disease, formally known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

It comes on top of a previous $15 million gift by Mr. Doctoroff, Bloomberg Philanthropies and other donors. By comparison, the National Institutes of Health, the single largest source of research financing for the disease, expects to give $44 million in 2013.

This is not Mr. Bloomberg’s first time supporting charitable causes that are dear to his close associates. The mayor quietly gave at least $1 million to put the name of his top deputy mayor, Patricia E. Harris, on a new academic center at her alma mater, Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa.

Mr. Doctoroff said the conversation about A.L.S. in which he got Mr. Bloomberg involved “lasted about five seconds.” He declined to say what share of the money each of the three donors was giving.

Mr. Rubenstein, a founder of the Carlyle Group, said Wednesday that he had long been fascinated with A.L.S. because of its association with Gehrig, the baseball player who died of it. He wondered why more than 70 years later so little progress had been made in treating it.

He said he jumped at the chance to join in because he thought that A.L.S. research was underfinanced owing to the rarity of the disease, and that even a small amount of money could make a big difference.

In the Bloomberg administration, where he was deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding from 2002 to 2008, Mr. Doctoroff was best known for his dogged — and ultimately dashed — attempt to bring the 2012 Olympics to New York City. (London got the Games.) Now that he has left City Hall, he no longer rides his bike to work — he says the 2.6-mile route from the Upper West Side to his office is too short — but he sometimes runs.

At Bloomberg, he sits in front of a conference room with walls of hot-pink glass, while carp swim in a giant fish tank nearby. He keeps no family photos or other personal mementos on his desk, and talking about his family’s disease history does not seem easy for him.

A.L.S. is rare, with about 2 new cases diagnosed a year per 100,000 people, according to the A.L.S. Association. A vast majority of cases are “sporadic,” in people who have no family history, while only 5 to 10 percent of cases are inherited. There appear to be no racial, ethnic or socioeconomic predispositions.

There is some speculation about environmental factors, like exposure to toxic chemicals and high physical activity that athletes might endure, “but nothing firm,” said Christopher E. Henderson, a researcher at Columbia and the Target A.L.S. project’s scientific director. Some researchers suspect a link between A.L.S. and head trauma suffered by professional football players.

Mr. Doctoroff’s father, Martin, an appeals court judge in Michigan, received the diagnosis in 2000 and died in 2002. One of Martin Doctoroff’s brothers, Michael, was found to have the disease in 2009 and died in 2010.

“When my father contracted the disease and passed away, it was very easy to chalk it up to bad luck,” Mr. Doctoroff said. “When my uncle got it, it obviously had broader implications.”

Given his family history, Mr. Doctoroff estimates that there is a 50-50 chance that he has the gene, C9orf72, that could lead to A.L.S. But he has chosen not to be tested, which would have implications not just for him but for his three children. “It’s very personal, but I’m not sure that I want to know,” he said.

Even when family members develop the disease, it can occur at vastly different ages, so he could still be in suspense even after testing. “Assuming you have the gene, you don’t know when you would actually get the disease,” he said. His uncle was 71. His father was 66. He is now 54.

Sheelagh McNeill contributed reporting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 8, 2013

Because of an editing error, a picture caption on Thursday with an article about efforts by Daniel L. Doctoroff, a former deputy mayor of New York, to research Lou Gehrig’s disease misstated his title at Bloomberg L.P. in some editions. He is the chief executive, not the executive director.

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South Korea firm aims for the sky in L.A.

Ambitious South Korean enterprises continue to make noise on the global economic stage.

Electronics giant Samsung is giving Apple fits in markets across the globe with its hot-selling smartphones and tablets. Seoul-based Hyundai and Kia have been among the world's fastest-growing automakers in recent years. Portly singer Psy put South Korea on the pop culture map with his monster hit “Gangnam Style,” which has become the most popular video of all time on YouTube with nearly 1.3 billion views.

So it was only natural that South Korea's top airline, Korean Air, on Thursday took the wraps off its design for a dramatic, skyline-changing tower for downtown Los Angeles. The $1-billion skyscraper is to become the tallest building west of the Mississippi River — and a symbol of South Korea's status as an up-and-coming economic powerhouse.

The 73-story hotel and office building will include 900 guest rooms, double-decker elevators and an observation deck that will afford views of the Pacific Ocean. Slated to replace the old Wilshire Grand Hotel at Wilshire Boulevard at Figueroa Street, the new building will be slightly taller than the nearby U.S. Bank Tower, which has held the title of tallest building west of Chicago since 1989.

Originally planned as two smaller towers when it was announced four years ago, the Korean Air plan has morphed into a single tower that will give the Seoul company bragging rights to the highest skyscraper on the West Coast.

Experts said that's in keeping with South Korea's hard-charging business ethos. The skyscraper, currently dubbed the Wilshire Grand, is an outgrowth of a competitive corporate culture that has come to dominate the South Korean economy over the last 30 years, according to UC Riverside Ethnic Studies professor Edward Taehan Chang.

After the nation endured poverty, dictatorship and political unrest during much of the 20th century, attaining superlatives has become part of the country's fabric, Chang said. Corporations strive to dominate their industries, while younger generations take pride in the near universality of South Korea's popular culture.

“They always want to reach for No. 1 status,” Chang said. “The rapid economic growth has been about striving for the top spot.”

Korean Air is already at work dismantling the closed 1950s-era Wilshire Grand Hotel to make way for the glass-clad tower, which is expected to be completed in 2017. Korean Air has provided airline service to Los Angeles for more than 40 years and has owned the Wilshire Grand since 1989.

Korean Air is the flagship company of Hanjin Group, one of South Korea's largest conglomerates. Hanjin has interests in land, sea and air transportation as well as construction, heavy industry, finance and information services. A high-end hotel fits well with Korean Air's operations in Los Angeles: The company makes parts for airplanes, flies the planes here as the busiest Asian carrier at Los Angeles International Airport, runs travel agencies that book the tickets and operates a catering business that serves the food on the planes.

“The new Wilshire Grand is an investment that makes sense, and we are excited to continue our relationship with this great city,” Korean Air Chairman Y.H. Cho said Thursday at the offices of AC Martin Partners, the project's architect.

The sail-shaped skyscraper will light up at night and dwarf many of its neighbors. Most of the building will be devoted to a hotel, though an operator has yet to be named. Arriving guests would be whisked by high-speed elevators to the “sky lobby” on the 70th floor for check-in.

According to the plan, the 71st floor will be a restaurant. The floor above that will house window-washing gear and engineering equipment, clearing the top floor for an infinity swimming pool and observation deck.

Near street level will be about three floors of restaurants and shops, topped by 30 floors of offices for rent. Elevators will be double-decked, carrying two stacked cabs of passengers for additional capacity during peak hours.

Perched at the very top of the building will be a decorative “crown” and a mast-like spire that will have embedded LED lighting that can change colors. The display will be eye-catching and visible for miles, but it will not be used for advertising, said Christopher Martin, chief executive of AC Martin.

“It's not Coke bottles, it's art,” he said.

With the spire reaching to 1,100 feet, the Wilshire Grand would become one of the tallest structures in the country, surpassing the 1,046-foot Chrysler Building in New York, which has 77 stories.

The contemporary design of the Wilshire Grand, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, is intended to set it apart from surrounding granite-clad office towers, said architect David Martin, who is Christopher Martin's cousin.

He hopes the building, which is to include 400,000 square feet of office space, will reflect the city better than the last generation of skyscrapers does. The Wilshire Grand, for instance, will have operable windows in its guest rooms and offices.

“This is about the culture and climate of L.A.,” Martin said. “We are creating a sense of place, only it's 1,000 feet up in the air.”

AC Martin also designed the Figueroa-at-Wilshire high-rise across the street from the Wilshire Grand in 1990. The family firm was the primary architect of Los Angles City Hall in the 1920s.

Work on the new skyscraper will create 11,000 union construction jobs, Korean Air's Cho said, and employ 1,700 workers when it opens in four years. The project has obtained most development approvals from L.A. city officials.

Cho, who lives in Seoul and has a home in Newport Beach, is on the board of trustees at USC, where his children attended college and where he obtained his MBA.

“L.A. is like a second home,” Cho said.

The 936-room Wilshire Grand, built in 1952, was originally a Hotel Statler and later a Hilton. Once one of the city's best hotels, it was most recently a mid-market inn catering to conventioneers and tour groups from overseas before it closed at the end of 2011.

The property is a few blocks north of Staples Center.

roger.vincent@latimes.com

Times staff writer Frank Shyong contributed to this story.

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L.A. County Sheriff's Department intends to fire seven deputies

Seven Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies have been notified that the department intends to fire them for belonging to a secret law enforcement clique that allegedly celebrated shootings and branded its members with matching tattoos, officials said.

The Times reported last year about the existence of the clique, dubbed the Jump Out Boys, and the discovery of a pamphlet that described the group's creed, which required aggressive policing and awarded tattoo modifications for police shootings.

The seven worked on an elite gang-enforcement team that patrols neighborhoods where violence is high. The team makes a priority of taking guns off the street, officials said.

The Sheriff's Department has a long history of secret cliques with members of the groups having reached high-ranking positions within the agency. Sheriff officials have sought to crack down on the groups, fearing that they tarnished the department's reputation and encouraged unethical conduct.

In the case of the Jump Out Boys, sheriff's investigators did not uncover any criminal behavior. But, sources said, the group clashed with department policies and image.

Their tattoos, for instance, depicted an oversize skull with a wide, toothy grimace and glowing red eyes. A bandanna with the unit's acronym is wrapped around the skull. A bony hand clasps a revolver. Smoke would be tattooed over the gun's barrel for members who were involved in at least one shooting, officials said.

One member, who spoke to The Times and requested anonymity, said the group promoted only hard work and bravery. He dismissed concerns about the group's tattoo, noting that deputies throughout the department get matching tattoos. He said there was nothing sinister about their creed or conduct. The deputy, who was notified of the department's intent to terminate him, read The Times several passages from the pamphlet, which he said supported proactive policing.

"We are alpha dogs who think and act like the wolf, but never become the wolf," one passage stated, comparing criminals to wolves. Another passage stated, "We are not afraid to get our hands dirty without any disgrace, dishonor or hesitation... sometimes (members) need to do the things they don't want to in order to get where they want to be."

Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said starting the termination process shows that Sheriff Lee Baca "does not take any of this lightly and will move forward with the appropriate action."

Investigators were less concerned about the tattoos, and more focused on the suspected admiration they showed for officer-involved shootings, which are expected to be events of last resort. The deputy told The Times, however, that investigators reviewed their shootings and arrests and found nothing unlawful.

"We get called a gang within the badge? It's unfair," he said. "People want to say you have a tattoo. So do fraternities. Go to Yale. Are they a gang?.... Boy Scouts have patches and they have mission statements, and so do we."

"We do not glorify shootings," he continued. "What we do is commend and honor the shootings. I have to remember them because it can happen any time, any day. I don't want to forget them because I'm glad I'm alive."

If the firings are upheld, it would be one of the largest terminations over one incident in the department's history. In 2011, the department fired about half a dozen deputies who were also said to have formed a clique. Those deputies worked on the third floor of Men's Central Jail and allegedly threw gang-like three-finger hand signs. They were fired after they fought two fellow deputies at an employee Christmas party and allegedly punched a female deputy in the face.

As part of the widening federal investigation of the Sheriff's Department, a criminal grand jury recently subpoenaed the agency for materials relating to deputy cliques, specifically citing several of the groups including the "3000 boys" and the Jump Out Boys.

When the pamphlet revealing the existence of the Jump Out Boys was initially found, officials didn't know if the group was real. But eventually, one member came forward and named the others, according to an official who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The seven deputies can fight the department's decision to fire them.

robert.faturechi@latimes.com

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Selena Gomez works the front row at Neo show

NEW YORK (AP) — Selena Gomez sat front and center at the fashion show to preview the first collection in her collaboration with Adidas' streetwear Neo label.

But the runway at Wednesday evening's show was a next-gen catwalk: Teenager bloggers were charged with styling the outfits instead of industry professionals.

Gomez thanked them as she stood on stage at the end of the show. She was flanked by models in denim shorts, Bermudas, slouchy sweats and T-shirts that read "Pirate Love." There were a few graffiti prints sprinkled in, and some varsity jackets.

The clothes, mostly in sunny yellow, bright pink and navy, were more surf than sport, which is Adidas' normal niche.

The show was very briefly interrupted by a protester trying to hand out leaflets about sweatshops.

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Psychiatric Hospitals Alter Rules on Patient Smoking

MANDEVILLE, La. — Annelle S., 64, who has paranoid schizophrenia, took an urgent drag on a cigarette at a supervised outdoor smoke break at Southeast Louisiana Hospital.

“It’s mandatory to smoke,” she explained. “It’s a mental institution, and we have to smoke by law.”

That was 18 months ago, and Annelle’s confusion was understandable. Until recently, Louisiana law required psychiatric hospitals to accommodate smokers — unlike rules banning smoking at most other health facilities. The law was changed last year, and by March 30, smoking is supposed to end at Louisiana’s two remaining state psychiatric hospitals.

After decades in which smoking by people with mental illness was supported and even encouraged — a legacy that experts say is causing patients to die prematurely from smoking-related illnesses — Louisiana’s move reflects a growing effort by federal, state and other health officials to reverse course.

But these efforts are hardly simple given the longstanding obstacles.

Hospitals often used cigarettes as incentives or rewards for taking medicine, following rules or attending therapy. Some programs still do. And smoking was endorsed by advocates for people with mental illness and family members, who sometimes sued to preserve smoking rights, considering cigarettes one of the few pleasures patients were allowed.

New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the nearly 46 million adults with mental illness have a smoking rate 70 percent higher than those without mental illness, and consume about a third of the cigarettes in the country, though they make up one-fifth of the adult population.

People with psychiatric disorders are often “smoking heavier, their puffs are longer and they’re smoking it down to the end of the cigarette,” said William Riley, chief of the Science of Research and Technology Branch at the National Cancer Institute. With some diagnoses, like schizophrenia, rates are especially high.

A report by the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors said data suggested that people with the most serious mental illnesses die on average 25 years earlier than the general population, with many from smoking-exacerbated conditions like heart or lung disease.

Now more treatment facilities are banning smoking, with some finding it easier than expected. Others still allow it, usually outside on their grounds during scheduled times. About a fifth of state hospitals are not smoke-free, a survey issued in 2012 by the State Mental Health Program Directors association found. Occasionally, hospitals that banned smoking have reinstated it to avoid losing patients.

Moreover, smoking is so deeply ingrained that smoke-free hospitals can only dent the problem; many patients are now hospitalized only for short stints and resume smoking later.

New research suggests scientific underpinnings for some of the affinity, said Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Nicotine has antidepressant effects and, for people with schizophrenia, helps dampen extraneous thoughts and voices, she and other experts said.

Other chemicals in cigarette smoke set off a perilous cycle, causing some medications to be metabolized faster, making them less effective and allowing symptoms to return. Because patients feel sicker, they may seek even more comfort from nicotine. “You may think, ‘Well, I need to smoke more,’ ” said Dr. Steven Schroeder, a professor of health and health care at the University of California, San Francisco.

Then, as smoking increases, “blood levels of their medication go down, and they end up back in the hospital,” said Judith Prochaska, an associate professor of medicine at Stanford University’s Prevention Research Center.

Socially, smoking provides “cover rituals for patients having psychiatric symptoms,” said Dr. Rona Hu, medical director of the acute psychiatric inpatient unit at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif. “You tamp the box, you kind of play with the lighter, you can exhale and look into the middle distance and not look like you’re hallucinating.”

Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the C.D.C., said hospitals had historically resisted going smoke-free, fearing it would interfere with treatment. “In my very first job as an aide in a psychiatric hospital,” he said, “if patients behaved better they got additional cigarettes.”

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Pitfalls seen in growth of part-time work

Although the state's unemployment rate is at its lowest level in almost four years and the number of employed Californians is growing, labor experts see a different reality: Full-time work has faded in many industries.

Nubia Calderón Barillas, 32, left a job in retail in May for a housekeeping job at the Holiday Inn LAX that promised better pay and steady work.

But nearly nine months later, the mother of three said, she rarely works more than two days a week. She has asked for more hours, she said, but to no avail, even in an industry that set a new peak employment level last year.

"It's been difficult lately," she said. "I practically didn't work all of December except for the holidays."

California employers picked up the rate of hiring during 2012 — at times at nearly twice the rate of the country as a whole. But a significant portion of those jobs are less than full time, according to federal data released last week.

The number of people involuntarily working part time nationwide has grown to 7.9 million, an 80% increase from 2006, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show.

That trend is particularly pronounced in the Golden State, which saw the number of involuntary part-time workers swell to 1.3 million, up 126% from 585,100 in 2006. Only four other states, Nevada and Florida among them, had higher rates of involuntary part-time workers.

Various industries are increasingly relying on part-time workers and other contingent employees, such as temporary workers, to save money, said Michael Bernick, a Milken Institute fellow who studies labor markets.

"As you have more and more costs associated with full-time workers in terms of healthcare or other costs, employers look for alternative ways to reduce costs," Bernick said. "One way is on-demand and part-time work."

The increase isn't limited to industries that typically employ part-time workers, such as leisure and hospitality. Other sectors with strong job growth, such as professional and business services, have also seen a rise in part-time workers as employers aim to keep payroll costs down, Bernick said.

Nationwide, the number of involuntary part-time workers in professional and business services, which includes white-collar occupations such as accountants and lawyers, nearly doubled to 711,000 last year from 367,000 in 2007. A sector-by-sector breakdown is unavailable for California because the sample size of the household survey that the federal data rely on is too small.

Part-time work is common in California's leisure and hospitality sector, which added almost 61,000 jobs since December 2011, accounting for more than a quarter of the state's net jobs created in that time period.

Growth of low-wage industries such as hospitality provides work opportunities for people with limited education, even if the work is only part time, said Jerry Nickelsburg, senior economist at the UCLA Anderson Forecast.

"We shouldn't look with dismay" on the rapid growth of a sector that is so dependent on part-time work, he said. "If that were the only sector we were growing, then that would be worrisome."

Tom Walsh, president of Unite Here Local 11, a union representing hospitality workers in Los Angeles and Orange counties, said in negotiations with employers, his group has pushed for workers' hours to be maximized.

Although full-time work sometimes isn't ensured, Walsh said, employers are urged to give part-time workers as many hours as possible.

"I think it's an example of certain employers being penny wise but pound foolish," he said. "They figure they can save money by having more part-time workers and having low pay. If they don't change that, folks are going to take jobs somewhere else the first chance they get."

The long-term implication of part-time work, economists said, is growing wage disparities and the risk of dampening consumer spending, a major driver of the economy. Part-time workers also are more likely to rely on state aid, such as food stamps, to make ends meet.

Kellie Flowers moved to Los Angeles late last year hoping to find work as an event coordinator or wardrobe stylist.

But full-time work has been elusive, even with a college degree.

The 30-year-old Virginia native managed to land two part-time jobs when she first relocated, one at a Manhattan Beach boutique and the other at a running store.

She earned $10 per hour at both jobs but didn't have benefits or health insurance.

"It was very hard working two jobs," she said. "You definitely don't have any spending money."

Flowers recently started a new job, selling spa packages, on commission. She sells between six to 10 a day, earning $15 for each.

"I'm going to look for other jobs that make me happier. Until then I just need to make money," she said.

Meanwhile, Barillas, the Holiday Inn housekeeper, said she hopes she'll eventually work more hours.

She and her husband are falling behind on utility bills at the one-bedroom Koreatown apartment they share with their three children. She recently applied for food stamps, a decision she said was embarrassing.

"I've always had work," she said. "I used to think people on food stamps just didn't want to work, but now I find myself with the need to ask for help."

ricardo.lopez2@latimes.com

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Child porn suspect indicted by federal grand jury

A North Hills woman whom authorities allege plied a young girl with crack cocaine and photographed her having sex with an older man was indicted Tuesday on federal charges of producing child pornography and sex trafficking.

Letha Montemayor Tucker was named Tuesday in a four-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury. If convicted of all the charges, Tucker would face a mandatory minimum federal sentence of 10 years and could get up to life in prison, authorities said.

The charges come a month after authorities sought the public's help in the investigation by releasing photographs of a man and woman depicted in a set of widely circulated child pornography photos.

Tips started pouring in immediately after the photos were released, investigators said.

Tucker, who goes by the name Butterfly, was located about 10 hours after the release of the photos and taken into custody, said Claude Arnold, special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in Los Angeles, a division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The alleged victim, who was about 12 when the photos were taken, was found within a week of the case going public, Arnold said. She is an adult now and is cooperating with authorities, he said.

In addition to photographing the girl having sex with the man, authorities said, Tucker also committed sex acts with the alleged victim.

The photos were part of a child pornography collection known as the "Jen Series."

The 40-plus photos were first discovered by investigators in the Chicago area in 2007. Investigators said images in the series have been reported about 300 times and have been found on computers across the country.

The victim "didn't even know these images were out there," Arnold said.

"The horror of child pornography is it's for life, the victimization," Arnold said. "Once the photos are there in cyberspace, they're there forever."

The girl, identified in court records only by the initials J.M.M., lived in the same Los Angeles County residential hotel as Tucker, who worked as a prostitute, authorities said.

Around 2000 or 2001, the girl stopped attending school regularly and spent more and more time in Tucker's room, smoking crack cocaine Tucker provided, according to the indictment.

The girl was present when Tucker engaged in prostitution with clients and was usually high when this happened, authorities allege. Tucker instructed the child to take off her clothes in front of the clients, prosecutors alleged in court papers.

The faces of Tucker and the girl are "clearly visible" in the photos, according to the indictment. Tucker had an eyebrow piercing and a tattoo of a sleeping cat behind her shoulder, which made her easier to identify, authorities said.

The face of the man, however, is blacked out in the photographs. Authorities are still trying to identify the man, Arnold said.

"Obviously, we want him also to answer for his crimes," Arnold said.

Arnold said the alleged victim is "going to be dealing with this for a long time."

Now that she has been identified, she will receive a victim notification every time one of the images turns up in an investigation, he said.

Tucker is being held without bond and is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court on Feb. 13. Her attorney could not be reached for comment.

hailey.branson@latimes.com

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Fox cuts ties to commentator Dick Morris

NEW YORK (AP) — Political commentator Dick Morris' prediction of a huge landslide for Mitt Romney didn't pan out. And now he's lost his job at Fox News Channel.

Network spokeswoman Dana Klinghoffer said Tuesday that Fox wasn't renewing its contract with Morris, who was steadfast throughout the campaign in his prediction of a big Romney win over President Barack Obama. He has made few appearances on Fox since the election.

Morris had also been criticized for accepting paid advertisements on his website from candidates that he discussed on the air at Fox.

On his website, Morris said he'll be appearing on CNN's Piers Morgan show Wednesday to talk politics.

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