The Crime Beat Archives - Friends For Fullerton's Future

December 2, 2025December 2, 2025A Manfro All Seasons

Public Property Lease Rates on Agenda; And the Reality of the Santa Fe Café

The conversation at tonight’s Fullerton City Council meeting will turn to public property leases in Downtown Fullerton. A few years ago the Council raised rates. The jump was high – around 90% – but the City hadn’t increased rents for 10 years so the real increase over time was about 9% a year. Add the three succeeding years and it’s 7.7% per annum. That’s still high, but that’s what the Council approved, most notably the self-styled “pro business” Councilman, Ahmad Zahra.

The matter is now controversial because one restaurant occupying City space, Les Amis, run by the Montecristo clan, is using the 2022 rent hike as justification for their refusal to pay rent for years – dating back to 2011. They don’t bother explaining to their dupes all the years they stiffed their landlord (us) rent; and they never mention all the times they encroached on City property without permit or agreement. The City government bent way over backwards to accommodate Les Amis, who have shown very little gratitude for the latitude they were given for a decade and a half. Quite the contrary.

Apropos of the rent issue, one of the other complaints from the grand bruit Les Amis claque is that that one patio in particular pays no rent – the Santa Fe Café, run by Salma Bushala-Hamud.

Salma Bushala-Hamud, Fullerton small business owner and philanthropist.

First it should be mentioned that the patio in question is included in the Bushala Brothers, Inc.’s lease at the depot. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that the area designated as 9 in the site plan is included in BBIs master lease with the City and is thus included in the entire lease. Here’s the leasehold plan:

Even if this weren’t the case, BBI has obviously decided to let the public occupy shade covered tables and chairs even if they don’t patronize the café. All you have to do is look at the people sitting in the area. Almost none of them are café patrons.

This policy is indicated by an actual sign that lets the public know they can sit there, gratis, a decent and civilized gesture.

But back to the meeting. I hope the item starts out with a reminder from Mayor Jung and the City Attorney to the predictably frothed up Les Amis amigos who show up all the facts of the situation; to relate the years of skipped rent, the tens of thousands in overdue amounts, and the illegal encroachments; to let them know they’re being played by the Noaccounts of Montecristo and the rank-and-file of Ahmad Zahra’s Fullerton Boohoo stooges who demand a victim-of-the-week to weep for.

November 14, 2025November 14, 2025Ahmad Zahra

The Saga of Zahra’s Immigration

by Joe Sipowicz25 Comments

A week and a half ago Fullerton councilman Ahmad Zahra agendized an item to dole out $200,000 from the General Fund to immigrants hassled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He thought it was an excellent opportunity to burnish his own immigrant travails to the full house. He didn’t bother sharing any of the details of his own arduous trail to citizenship, of course – like his marriage fraud – a federal crime.

Fortunately, the distinguished ladies of FFFF’s Fine Arts, Cinema, and Book Club Division have recreated the elevation of the poor, Syrian immigrant to what he is now – a poor (targeted, don’t forget!) American citizen.

Enjoy the histrionics: the wistful smiles, the knowing head bobs, the empathetic tone.

I guess Zahra figures he can get away with telling only a small part of his heroic origin story, even if it changes a little now and then. The whole story, or most of it, was hidden for decades in order to create the Zahra brand he sells to the ignorant.

I guess we’ll see what the 4th District voters have to say.

October 19, 2025About Us

Noise “R” Us

by Mr. Peabody35 Comments

Got noise? Lots of noise? The two “doctors” on the Fullerton City Council and their followers like the Kennedy Sisters and tender young Elijah want you to believe this is vibrancy and culture and small business success!

March 24, 2025March 25, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Accessory to Commit Perjury

by The Fullerton Harpoon28 Comments

Last August supporters of Fullerton 4th District Council candidate, Democrat Vivian Jaramillo, created a fake “conservative” candidate to draw votes away from the person presumed to be Jaramillo’s principal opponent – Linda Whitaker. The candidate, Scott Markowitz, committed, and plead guilty to perjury.

It’s abundantly clear that at least one person helped phony candidate Scott Markowitz commit the perjury when he falsely swore that he collected his nominating signatures. How is it clear? Because at least one of his nominators told the District Attorney Todd Spitzer that it wasn’t Markowitz who got them to sign, it was someone else; either that or Markowitz himself volunteered the information, which isn’t likely since he was arrested and booked into the Santa Ana Jail.

Speculation is increasing and questions are still being asked, such as: what’s the name of the person or persons who suborned Marko’s perjury, and why hasn’t Spitzer prosecuted him/her/them? In fact, a Public Records Act request was recently made to Spitzer’s office to reveal the name of the person or persons involved in the Markowitz case.

Back in the fall, suspicion fell immediately on a guy named Ajay Mohan, a former Democrat operative who held Markowitz’s hand at the City Clerk’s office while picking up nominating materials. But could Mohan have known any of the nominators well enough to get them to sign the papers of a MAGA-sounding candidate?

The Usual Suspects are smiling. For now.

Some folks behind the scenes put early money on creepy and desperate Councilman Ahmad Zahra, the immigrant marriage fraudster and serial prevaricator. Then attention turned to the equally seedy Aruni Thakur, the guy who tried to get elected to the Fullerton City Council in 2020 in a district he didn’t live in. Both are well-known local Democrat office holders who would have been familiar to the Democrat nominators like our old friend Diane Vena. Hey, what about Jesus Quirk-Silva, the dim-witted ex-councilman and husband of wannabe king/queenmaker, Assemblycreature Sharon Quirk?

Recently a new front runner has emerged, a chap named Andre Charles. Charles revels in the lofty title of President of the North Orange County Democrats club. His wife, the self-important, wordy, and ingratiating gasbag, Shana Charles, is on the City Council. Charles had both the motive and the means to sucker local Dems to nominate Markowitz in absentia. Indeed, several nominators of the faux Trumpy Markowitz are members of Charles’ Democrat club. Hmm.

So what was the result of the PRA request? Predictably, the DA’s office isn’t answering, saying they don’t have to – the records are confidential even in closed cases. But if no other crimes were committed, then who cares, right? Yet the response from some guy named Wayne Philips in the DA’s office does include this tidbit:

Is this merely a boiler plate brush-off, or is some investigation really still underway? Personally, I doubt any investigation is going on, but if I were one of the perps involved I’d still be a little nervous. There are probably lots of weak links in the chain of this scandal, and even Spitzer may be induced to do his job if evidence he is now suppressing is published.

March 17, 2025March 17, 2025Bad Cops

Another Police Shooting Fatality

by Joe Sipowicz34 Comments

According to the Fullerton Police Department, their employees killed another person Saturday night.

Responding to a domestic dispute call in the 700 block of West Orangethorpe Avenue the cops arrived on the scene and discovered a 19 year old male “matching the description” on the sidewalk. Here’s the tale from the press release:

Despite repeated commands from officers, the suspect was noncompliant. In a sudden turn of events, he lifted his shirt and pulled what appeared to be a handgun from his waistband, prompting an officer-involved shooting.

Officers immediately began life-saving measures until paramedics arrived, but the suspect was pronounced dead at the scene. A pellet gun, closely resembling a Smith & Wesson handgun, was recovered near the suspect.

Oh, no. Another one of those dreary FPD press releases that always sound like an immediate exculpation rather than a simple statement of the bare facts

At the point of first contact the cops confronted a guy who may or may not have done anything wrong. We know he wasn’t juiced because if he had been the statement would have said so. There goes Excuse Option One.

We don’t know what those “commands” given by the police were, of course, or even if they were reasonable. It will be interesting to see and hear what sort of dialog ensued during this confrontation. Was it calming, or was it the sort of thing that might prompt escalation?

Then there was “…a sudden turn of events.” What is this a high school creative writing class? For some as yet unknown reason this young man decided on the ever popular Excuse Option Number Two: suicide by cop. The inevitable “waistband” is deployed by the cop writer, although the PR had earlier stated that the culprit had been waving a knife at Dad at the incident address. I’m not sure who wanders around with a pellet gun shoved in his pants but there was one, apparently that (closely!!) resembled a Smith and Wesson handgun.

We will be comforted to know that all will be revealed within 45 days via one of those Critical Incident Community Briefing Video.

January 29, 2025January 29, 2025About Us

Bushala Exposed, Yet Again

by The Fullerton Harpoon16 Comments

It seems that the name Tony Bushala has once again become a byword for selfish self-interest among a certain segment of Fullertonions. This time it’s the the ultra-liberal boneheads who want to waste public money on stupid make-work boondoggles like the Trail to Nowhere and the idiot Walk on Wilshire, ideas catapulted forward by ideology instead of commonsense.

Pay no attention to the dinosaur behind the curtain…

Last time, it was the the balding Fullerton Republican Establishment that objected to Bushala’s political involvement in creating the 2012 recall. At the time, these sad relics of an earlier epoch claimed that Bushala wanted to buy the City, failing to admit that it would have been an awful lot cheaper to just give the incumbents a few grand and a pat on the head.

At the time, the following video was made. It’s still worth watching 13 years later.

December 27, 2024December 27, 2024Bad Cops

Legos And Transfiguration

by Joe Sipowicz42 Comments

You can’t make this stuff up. Here’s a press release from DA Todd Spitzer’s office detailing the killing of a driver by Anthony Michael Hanzal, 43, of Anaheim, a drug-addled petty thief who was chased by Fullerton police for shoplifting some Legos from an Albertson’s the week before Christmas.

An undercover cop called in the crime and uniformed cops took over the pursuit of the big heist perp.

The pursuit turned into a high-speed chase on the 91 and in Buena Park and La Palma where the petty thief ran a red light and t-boned the car of his victim.

How in the world did a few bucks worth of plastic culminate in the death of a 67 year old woman in La Palma? Pretty obviously some poor decisions were made all around, but you have to wonder why the cops had to convert this almost ridiculous episode into a chase endangering an awful lot of people and resulting in a death and who knows how many tens of thousands of dollars in vehicle damage.

Somebody needs to do some hard thinking about this sort of thing. Will they?

Of course no OC DA press release would be complete without a stupid speech from Todd Spitzer, and he doesn’t fail to oblige us with this no-nonsense, tough on crime pabulum:

Funny plastic handcuffs graphic borrowed from Voice of OC

“Enough is enough. Actions have consequences and I am mad as hell that an elderly woman is dead because a drug addicted repeat thief decided to steal Legos from a grocery store and then lead multiple police agencies on a high-speed chase through Orange County in the middle of the day,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “Marianne Casey’s family should be planning their holiday celebrations and instead they are planning a funeral because California’s soft-on-crime policies have created an environment where there is no accountability. Those days are over, and while may be of little comfort to Marianne Casey’s loved ones, if you commit crimes in Orange County, there will be consequences for your actions and there will be justice for victims.”

Ironically Ms. Casey is referred to as “elderly” even though she was only a year or so older than Spitzer himself when a completely unnecessary incident ended her life.

December 24, 2024December 23, 2024Boohooism

Victim of Kennedy Abuse Requests FPD Assistance

by The Fullerton Harpoon35 Comments

George Bushala, the public speaker at the December 17th City Council meeting who was verbally assaulted by the Fullerton Observer’s Sharon Kennedy is documenting the harassment he suffered with the Fullerton Police Department . FFFF has received a copy of his communication to Fullerton Chief of Police Jon Radus. Incidentally, it now seems that the second person involved in this abusive incident (as reported by Jack Hutt) was none other than Sharon’s younger sister, Skaskia. Kennedy.

Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)

Here is Mr. Bushala’s communication to Chief Radus:

Dear Chief Radus,

As you may recall, I was a public speaker at the City Council meeting on December 17, 2024.

During my comments I was subjected to several violent verbal interjections by Fullerton resident Sharon Kennedy and her sister, Saskia Kennedy.

It is my intent with this communication to convey to the Fullerton Police Department my concern that the violent verbal attacks were damaging to me and have caused me significant subsequent anxiety.

Prior to seeking legal recourse, I would like to file a report with the FPD documenting this incident and I ask for your assistance with this matter. I would also ask that you use your office to help in forestalling any more threatening behavior directed at me from the Kennedys, and any others who participated in this public verbal assault on me.

Thank you for your help in this matter.

Sincerely,

George A. Bushala
409 E. Amerige Ave.
Fullerton, CA 92832

Well, I think this is a very good idea. We can’t have public speakers intimidated at meetings – that would be a serious breach of the right to free speech that people like the Kennedys pretend to care about. I hope Mr. Bushala seeks redress for this attack on his honesty and his right to be heard.

November 1, 2024November 1, 2024Bad Cops

Hubris at the Observer

by Grover Cleveland64 Comments

You really have to hand it to the Kennedy sisters, Skaskia and Sharon. They are on the verge of perfecting dumbass hypocrisy.

Patsy Markowitz. Left holding the empty bag.

For weeks and weeks they ignored the obviously phony 4th District candidacy of Scott Markowitz and made every effort to dismiss it as a non-story. When Marko was scooped up by the District Attorney and charged with perjury all they did was repost the DAs press release. When Marko plea bargained they then began to delete comments that questioned their obvious dereliction and bias.

When they finally reported the story of Markowitz’s guilty pleas, it was in their print edition – where nobody could comment at all, and where they continued to pretend that the fake MAGA candidate, hand-held by Democrat operative Ajay Mohan, was a real candidate, now dropping out, instead of what everybody knew was true: Markowitz was a plant to take votes away from Linda Whitaker to the benefit of Observer favorite, Vivian Jaramillo. The unstated implication was clear: Marko acted alone and any other conclusion was a Bushala conspiracy theory.

What all of this really means is that the Observer Sisters, despite their self-righteous posturing as an “independent news” operation, is just the opposite. Recent FFFF readers started catching on watching their performance on the Trail to Nowhere and the moronic Wilt on Wilshire where the two studiously omitted passing on relevant facts, but actively engaged in drumming up support for their cherished boondoggles.

Longer term Observer observers, of course, long ago cottoned on to the preachy sanctimony and bias of the Observers, noting the disparagement, snide innuendo, and outright lies aimed at their supposed political enemies. It’s been going on for 45 years and was the stock-in-trade of the paterfamilias, Ralph Kennedy. Just a week or so ago, while they were deleting comments they permitted a salacious and defamatory comment about Councilman Fred Jung.

Of course nobody is forced to go to the Observer blog, and except for the unintended comedy, errors, misspellings and factual errors and omissions, there really is no reason. Ditto the print edition that is still killing trees for absolutely no reason. On the other hand there is no reason anybody has to treat the Observer even with the modicum of respect one might give a legitimate news outlet.

October 22, 2024October 22, 2024Behind Closed Doors

Markowitz Cops Plea

by The Fullerton Harpoon30 Comments

According to the OC Register, phony 4th District candidate, Scott Markowitz pleaded guilty yesterday. In exchange for the plea Markowitz gets a day in jail, probation and a month of community service. Felony charges are dismissed by DA Todd Spitzer.

I’ve never seen the wheels of justice grind out a product so quickly.

But what is the product?

As FFFF writers and commenters have noted, Markowitz’s fate was largely irrelevant given that the whole thing was orchestrated by others connected to the cause of electing Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo, including politicians and Democrat operatives.

Since prosecutors are not given to giving anything away I think we can speculate that Markowitz named a name. Or two. We may surmise, I think, that the investigation into who set Markowitz up in the first place is ongoing. On the other hand this sort of case is probably perceived by the DA as a hassle without a lot of glamor and some potential political pushback from Dems he needs in a non-partisan election.

As to Markowitz, maybe we can let the poor sap get on with his life, free of the encumbrance of a felony rap.