Chronicle briefs for Oct. 20

U.S. charges Russian nationals with smuggling oil, tech

The U.S. Justice Department charged five Russian nationals Wednesday in an alleged sanctions evasion scheme that involved millions of barrels of smuggled oil from Venezuela and U.S. military technology that was traced to the battlefield in Ukraine.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn accused Yury Orekhov and Svetlana Kuzurgasheva of purchasing “sensitive” military and dual-use technologies from the United States and shipping them to Russian companies, including some that service the country’s defense sector.

Orekhov and Kuzurgasheva are accused of helping Russians acquire items including advanced semiconductors and microprocessors, which can be used in fighter aircraft, missile systems and other military technology, the Justice Department said. In some cases, the electronic components were found in Russian weapons platforms seized from the battlefield in Ukraine. They were charged with bank fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the United States and other counts.

Russian nationals Timofey Telegin and Sergey Tulyakov, who control sanctioned Russian companies that received some of the shipments, also face several charges, including money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

California woman collected $145,000 in jobless benefits using names of death row inmates Peterson, Stayner

A Sacramento, California, woman has been charged with multiple counts of felony grand theft and forgery after she allegedly collected more than $145,000 in unemployment benefits using the identities of convicted killers Scott Peterson and Cary Stayner, the state attorney general’s office announced Wednesday.

From April 2020 to September 2021, Brandy Iglesias allegedly filed and collected unemployment benefits from the California Employment Development Department using the names of Peterson and Stayner.

“Don’t let the infamous names distract you from who this crime really hurt – the most vulnerable in our society,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. “EDD theft hurts families in need, parents left without jobs during a pandemic, and Californians struggling to get by. That’s why I’m thankful for my agents, and for our partners in the EDD and CDCR, for their work together on this case.”

Prosecutors said Iglesias worked for a private company that contracted with San Quentin State Prison, and it may explain how she was able to obtain access to prisoners’ personal information. According to the criminal complaint, Iglesias is charged with using Peterson’s identity to collect $18,562 in unemployment benefits in June 2020, and she later filed for additional benefits using Stayner’s identity, collecting $20,194.

Death row inmates Stayner and Peterson are serving life sentences in San Quentin. Stayner, a convicted serial killer, was sentenced to the death penalty in 2002 for the kidnap and murder of four women at Yosemite National Park in 1999. Peterson is facing the death penalty for the murder of his pregnant wife, Laci, and unborn son, Connor, in 2004.

suspected fentanyl pills found in candy boxes at LAX

LOS ANGELES – Authorities seized about 12,000 pills believed to contain fentanyl that a person tried to bring in candy boxes through a security checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday morning.

Narcotics detectives and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration task force agents made the seizure around 7:30 a.m., according to the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.

The suspect tried to go through Transportation Security Administration screening “with several bags of candy and miscellaneous snacks with the intent of boarding a plane,” deputies said.

Security officers discovered that the candy boxes contained pills believed to contain fentanyl, deputies said.

“The suspect fled prior to being detained by law enforcement but has been identified and the investigation is ongoing,” according to the Sheriff’s Department.

Information on whether the pills had tested positive for fentanyl was not available Wednesday evening.

Though the pills were hidden inside candy boxes, it’s not likely they would have been passed off as candy, said Nicole Nishida, a spokesperson for the DEA’s Los Angeles Division.

Pence on 2024: ‘There might be somebody else I’d prefer’

Once upon a time, they ran the country together. Now former vice president Mike Pence has suggested he might not lend his support to his old boss, Donald Trump, if Trump runs in the next presidential election.

Asked whether he’d back Trump in 2024, Pence took a long pause and, with a wry smile, told an audience at Georgetown University late Wednesday: “Well, there might be somebody else I’d prefer more.”

It’s possibly the heaviest hint yet that the former veep might put himself in the running instead – fueling the possibility of a clash that has been the subject of Washington speculation since the tensions between the two leaders in the last days of the Trump administration.

Shrugging off applause, Pence continued, “What I can tell you is, I have every confidence that the Republican Party is going to sort out leadership. All my focus has been on the midterm elections, and it’ll stay that way for the next 20 days.”

“But after that, we’ll be thinking about the future, ours and the nation’s,” he added. “I’ll keep you posted.”

College enrollment declines for third straight year

College and university enrollment has declined for the third straight year, according to a new national report, with the undergraduate count now about 7% lower than it was in fall 2019 before the coronavirus pandemic rocked higher education.

The report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, released Thursday, found that undergraduate enrollment has dipped 1.1% since last fall. That was smaller than the previous annual decline of 3.1%, recorded in fall 2021. But analysts said the trends remained worrisome and are nowhere near pre-pandemic levels.

“I certainly wouldn’t call this a recovery,” said Doug Shapiro, the research center’s executive director. “We’re seeing smaller declines, but when you’re in a deep hole, the fact that you’re only digging a tiny bit further is not really good news.”

The enrollment trends for this fall are estimates based on partial and preliminary data from colleges and universities. There are no precise figures available yet for total head counts.

Shapiro said the initial data suggest that steep drops after the pandemic disrupted colleges globally in early 2020 have not been reversed. Many high school graduates in 2020 and 2021 who ordinarily would have gone to college did not. And they might never do so.

Freshmen enrollment is down this fall about 1.5 percent.

”We don’t see a huge upsurge of first-year students, of freshmen, especially at the four-year institutions,” Shapiro said. Noting the “lost classes” of high school graduates who fell off the college track, Shapiro said: “There’s not a lot of evidence in these numbers that they’re coming back now.”

The sharpest undergraduate declines this fall, compared to a year ago, were at for-profit schools. The research center found those numbers down 2.5 percent. Undergraduate enrollment was down 1.6 percent at public four-year schools and 0.9 percent at private nonprofit colleges and universities.

At community colleges, enrollment was down 0.4 percent. That marked a slowdown in what had been precipitous declines for the public two-year schools. But they are still far from recovery to pre-pandemic operations.

Graduate enrollment, the report found, was down 1 percent compared to the previous fall.