In the Pasadena Courthouse This Week, Four High-Profile Cases Scheduled

This week, four high-profile Pasadena criminal cases will move forward in the Pasadena Courthouse of the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Note that several cases are listed on some court calendars for hearing at the same time; it will be the judge who determines the order in which they actually will be heard. All the scheduled listings are subject to revision.

Here’s an update and profile of each of these cases.

Hearing for LaMin Johnson, August 11

LaMin Johnson, 46, of Pasadena, was convicted in 1999 for the murder of an Altadena nurse as she was preparing to go to work on January 3, 1997. He was also convicted on about 15 other felony counts stemming from a five-month crime rampage that he and co-defendant Jason Mency, 46, of Monrovia carried out in the west San Gabriel Valley in 1997.

Mency was sentenced to 219 years behind bars plus three life prison terms and ordered to pay $600,000 in restitution.

The victim, Marsha Lee Birch, was reportedly shot on her porch after she saw the defendants breaking into a vehicle nearby. The mother of four died in her husband’s arms.

Hours later, Johnson and Mency were arrested in Monrovia after police investigators saw them throw a purse that when found yielded an ID card in the victim’s name.

During the trial, prosecutors said the defendants used police scanners and cut alarm and phone wires to burglarize homes and cars several times a week, and shot anyone who got in the way. They called the series of burglaries one of the worst crime rampages in the San Gabriel Valley.

Tuesday’s hearing will be at the Civic Center Criminal Courts Building, at 210 W. Temple St. in Los Angeles.

Preliminary Hearing Setting for Daniel Cervantes, August 11

Daniel Cervantes, 30, from Pomona, is facing a murder charge in connection with the shooting death of Julio Robles-Castaneda, 22, whose body was found early on November 6, 2019 along the Angeles Crest Highway in Pasadena.

Cervantes was arrested the next day on Brigden Road in Pasadena, and pleaded not guilty to the charge.

He has been held on a no-release bond of $2 million at the Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles since his arrest.

Arraignment for Telly R, Johnson, August 12

Telly R. Johnson, 42, of Los Angeles, is facing a murder charge in connection with the stabbing death of 52-year-old Byron Nettles of Pasadena on March 1, 2019, according to Pasadena police officials and Los Angeles County coroner’s records.

The stabbing attack led to the five-hour shutdown of a large, mostly-residential area of Pasadena as police hunted the suspect with a helicopter, ground officers and canine units.

Reports said Nettles was the manager for the Euclid Villa Transition Housing facility overseeing occupants maintaining their sobriety and needing housing for their families. He was attacked about 9:05 a.m. at the facility in the 100 block of South Euclid Avenue. Paramedics transported him to the Huntington Hospital in Pasadena where he died of his injuries.

During the police search, Mayfield Junior School was placed on lockdown and area residents were asked to shelter in place during the hours-long search.

Hours later, the defendant was arrested without incident in the 1900 block of Cordova Street in Los Angeles, by joint police and U.S. Marshals of the Pacific Southwest Regional Fugitive Task Force.

Johnson is currently in custody, with bail set at $2 million.

Post-trial Status Conference for Richard Thompson vs. City of Pasadena, August 12

Richard Thompson, a former supervisor at Pasadena’s Department of Water and Power, filed a lawsuit against the City of Pasadena alleging he was subjected to retaliation for stating that another City employee, Aurora Isabel, was denied a promotion because of her Latina ethnicity, and then testifying on her behalf at trial in 2015.

The backlash allegedly included an accusation that he improperly signed a work order.

In the lawsuit, Thompson said the collective retaliatory moves against him impacted his ability to obtain better job positions within the city.

On June 7, 2019, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded him a sum reported to be approximately $825,000.

The status conference in connection with the case will be conducted on Wednesday at Dept. 16 of the County Courthouse, at 111 N. Hill St. in Los Angeles.