This week, seven high-profile Pasadena criminal cases are scheduled to move forward in the Pasadena Courthouse of the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Monday, 8:30 a.m., Preliminary Hearing for Alberto Fernandez
Alberto Fernandez, 20, of Victorville, is charged in an alleged hit-and-run crash in Pasadena on Nov. 13 that killed a 64-year-old man. Authorities said Fernandez was driving the vehicle that struck the victim at about 9 p.m. at the intersection of Orange Grove Boulevard and Marengo Avenue in Pasadena.
Fernandez reportedly fled the scene but was later arrested by CHP officers in Monrovia. He remains in custody.
This hearing will be in Department G of the Pasadena Courthouse.
Monday, 8:30 a.m., Pretrial Hearing for Lamarr Marquise McDaniels II and Trevor Dorman
Lamarr Marquise McDaniels II and Trevor Dorman are accused of killing a man in Pasadena on Aug. 9, 2019, in what authorities believe was a drug deal gone bad.
That day, Pasadena police officers responded to reports of a shooting incident in the 100 block of Painter Street and found the victim, 24-year-old Anthony Michael Tafoya Ortiz, suffering from a gunshot wound. Ortiz was transported to a local hospital in grave condition and died two days later.
McDaniels was arrested in Monrovia one day after the incident by the U.S. Marshals’ Pacific Southwest Regional Fugitive Task Force and Pasadena police detectives. Dorman was arrested in Covina less than a week later.
On Aug. 16, 2019, Dorman was charged with one count of murder and one count of attempted murder. McDaniels was charged with one count of murder, one count of assault with a firearm, one count of conspiracy, and one count of attempted robbery.
The hearing will be in Department E of the Pasadena Courthouse.
Tuesday, 8:30 a.m., Hearing for LaMin Johnson
LaMin Johnson, 47, of Pasadena, was convicted in 1999 for the murder of an Altadena nurse on her front doorstep as she was preparing to go to work on Jan. 3, 1997.
He was also convicted on 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 San Gabriel Valley. Mency was earlier sentenced to 219 years behind bars plus three life prison terms and ordered to pay $600,000 in restitution.
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.
This hearing will be in Department 109 of the Civic Center Criminal Courts Building, at 210 W. Temple Street in Los Angeles.
Tuesday, 8:30 a.m., Preliminary Hearing Date Setting for Robert Cotton
Robert Cotton, 32, is charged with two counts of murder for the March 22 killings of his own mother and uncle in their Altadena home, while she was on a Zoom call with colleagues from Pasadena City College.
Carol Anne Brown, 67, and her brother, Kenneth Wayne Preston, 69, were found with stab wounds when police responded to the scene.
The charges include an allegation that Cotton personally used a knife in the commission of the crime.
On May 12, he pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The hearing will be in Department J of the Pasadena Courthouse.
Wednesday, 8:30 a.m., Preliminary Hearing Date Setting for Evan Roland Bynum and Dante Dejuan Ward
Evan Roland Bynum, 26, of Los Angeles, and Dante Dejuan Ward, 33, of Irvine, are charged in a shooting outside a Pasadena taco restaurant on March 13 that left a man dead and a woman wounded.
The shooting took place just before 9 p.m. in a parking lot outside a strip mall at the northeast corner of Foothill Boulevard and Altadena Drive, according to Pasadena police officers.
The victims were seated in a parked car when they came under fire.
Bernardo Cortez Velasco, 23, of Azusa, was taken to a hospital but died the following morning. A 19-year-old Duarte woman he was with was struck by flying glass but suffered no major injuries.
The hearing will be in Department J of the Pasadena Courthouse.
Thursday, 8:30 a.m., Status Conference for Telly R. Johnson
Telly R. Johnson, 43, of Los Angeles, is charged with murder for the stabbing death of a man in Pasadena on March 1, 2019.
The victim was identified as 52-year-old Byron Nettles of Pasadena.
The stabbing took place at about 9 a.m. in the 100 block of South Euclid Avenue where the victim lived. Nettles was found later suffering from stab wounds and taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. That night, Johnson was spotted in the 1900 block of Cordova Street in Los Angeles, where he was arrested. Bail was set at $2 million.
The hearing will be in Department F of the Pasadena Courthouse.
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