Crime

Reputed Gang Member Charged in USC Student’s Slaying

LA WATTS TIME — A reputed gang member was charged today with killing a USC jazz student, who was the son of an Oakland city councilwoman, during an attempted robbery just blocks from campus.Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Teresa Sullivan ordered Ivan Hernandez, 23, to be held without bail while awaiting arraignment Aug. 7 at the downtown courthouse in connection with the March 10 death of 21-year-old Victor McElhaney.

Published

7 years ago

July 21, 2019

dpgisme45@yahoo.com City News Service

By City News Service

A reputed gang member was charged today with killing a USC jazz student, who was the son of an Oakland city councilwoman, during an attempted robbery just blocks from campus.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Teresa Sullivan ordered Ivan Hernandez, 23, to be held without bail while awaiting arraignment Aug. 7 at the downtown courthouse in connection with the March 10 death of 21-year-old Victor McElhaney.

Hernandez is charged with one count each of murder and attempted second-degree robbery – the latter charge involving a friend who was with Victor McElhaney.

The murder charge includes the special circumstance allegations of murder during an attempted robbery and murder by an active participant in a criminal street gang, along with an allegation that he personally and intentionally discharged a handgun. Prosecutors will decide later whether to seek the death penalty against Hernandez, who was arrested Friday by detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery-Homicide Division.

Evidence and witness statements led detectives to believe that Hernandez was involved in the attack, Los Angeles police said in a statement.

Victor McElhaney was killed just after midnight March 10 near Maple Avenue and Adams Boulevard.

Authorities said the young man, who was a student at USC’s Thornton School of Music, was with a group of friends when they were approached by three or four men in their 20s during an attempted robbery that led to the shooting.

McElhaney was the son of Oakland City Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney. He was part of the USC jazz studies program with an interest in the relationship between music and social and political movements. He also mentored young musicians and taught at the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music.

Shortly after the killing, Lynette McElhaney said her son “believed that music could heal the world of violence and sickness and addiction.”

The young man’s shooting death marked the latest of several high- profile killings of students in apparent robberies or attempted robberies near USC’s campus in the past seven years.

Alberto Ochoa, the last of four defendants charged in the July 24, 2014, beating death of Xinran Ji, a USC graduate student from China, was sentenced in March to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Two others, Alejandra Guerrero and Andrew Garcia, had already been sentenced to life in prison without parole, while the getaway driver, Jonathan Del Carmen, was ordered to serve a 15-year-to-life state prison sentence.

Ji had been walking back to his apartment near campus after a study session when he was attacked, and managed to make it back to his apartment, where one of his roommates discovered the 24-year-old electrical engineering student’s body.

Two other USC graduate students from China – Ying Wu and Ming Qu – were shot to death during an April 2012 robbery as they sat in a car that was double-parked on a street near the USC campus. Javier Bolden and Bryan Barnes were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for their killings.

This article originally appeared in the LA Watts Times.

dpgisme45@yahoo.com City News Service

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Business

AG Bonta Announces Action on Cryptocurrency, Sextortion Fraud – Increasingly Targeting Gen-Z

California Attorney General Rob Bonta is warning residents about a surge in cryptocurrency fraud and online sextortion schemes that increasingly target Gen Z through social media platforms. With internet-based scams costing Americans nearly $21 billion in 2023, Bonta highlighted how artificial intelligence and deepfakes allow criminals to impersonate loved ones and promote fraudulent investment groups. The Attorney General’s Office has already shut down over 100 fraudulent websites and is now utilizing new legislative tools to recover assets for victims. Read more.

Published

2 weeks ago

November 3, 2026

Post News Group

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

California Attorney General Rob Bonta warned residents about rising cryptocurrency fraud and online sextortion scams, urging Californians to recognize warning signs and protect themselves as scammers increasingly target younger people through social media.

Speaking at a news conference on Oct. 19, Bonta said Americans lost $20.9 billion to internet-based scams in 2025, including $11.4 billion to cryptocurrency scams. He said artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and malicious smart contracts have made fraud easier to carry out and more difficult to detect and prevent.

While older Californians remain targets, Bonta said his office has seen a sharp rise in reports of Gen Z consumers being targeted on platforms such as Twitch, TikTok, and Instagram.

One growing scheme involves so-called rug-pull scams, in which fraudsters promote low-priced stocks or volatile cryptocurrencies through online investment groups and streaming communities. After generating interest and driving up prices, scammers sell their holdings, causing values to collapse and leaving investors with losses.

Bonta also warned about sextortion, in which scammers trick or coerce victims into sharing explicit images before threatening to distribute them to friends and family unless they pay. He advised victims not to give in to demands, saying scammers often do not release the images when victims refuse to pay. Instead, he recommended ignoring and blocking the perpetrators.

Another scheme, known as recovery fraud, targets people who have already lost money to cryptocurrency scams. Fraudsters impersonate blockchain recovery specialists or law enforcement officials and demand additional payments while promising to recover stolen assets.

Bonta urged Californians to be skeptical of promises of large returns on small investments, fake cryptocurrencies resembling established ones, and celebrity endorsements that may have been generated using artificial intelligence. He also warned that scammers can use AI to impersonate loved ones through manipulated video and audio.

“Never use a crypto ATM,” Bonta said, emphasizing that transactions can be difficult to trace and reverse and that the machines lack adequate consumer protections.

His office has shut down more than 100 fraudulent websites over the past two years that collectively scammed victims out of at least $8.3 million, he said.

Bonta also highlighted Senate Bill 1208, which he said was recently signed into law. The measure allows law enforcement to petition a court to return seized cryptocurrency to victims, including when alleged perpetrators are outside U.S. jurisdiction.

Residents who have fallen victim to scams can report them to the California Department of Justice at oag.ca.gov/report.

Bonta also urged victims not to feel embarrassed, stressing that scammers are responsible for the harm they cause.