A deputy fired at a man who ignored an order to remain inside the stolen vehicle he was driving and reached toward his waistband, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said Wednesday.

The incident occurred Tuesday in Huntington Park. The suspect, later identified as Eric Valdez, 27, was not hit and fled the scene, according to the department.

Valdez was driving a suspected stolen vehicle when a deputy prevented him from making a U-turn onto West 60th Avenue. The deputy ordered Valdez to stay inside the vehicle, but instead he got out of the car and reached for his waistband. The deputy drew his weapon and fired one round at him, according to the department.

Three passengers in the vehicle were arrested on suspicion of receiving stolen property. All three were uninjured, authorities said.

The surrounding area was searched extensively, but Valdez was not located and no weapons were found.

The department's Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating the shooting.

-- Sam Allen

Two men were sentenced Wednesday to probation and community service for their involvement in starting the 2007 Corral fire in Malibu, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Eric Matthew Ullman, 21, and Dean Allen Lavorante, 22, pleaded no contest to recklessly causing the fire. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Susan Speer sentenced the men to five years' probation and ordered them to perform 500 hours of fire-related community service.

Ullman and Lavorante were the last of five men charged in connection with the fire, which burned 5,000 acres, destroyed 53 homes and injured five firefighters.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Frances Young said in a statement that Speer determined that Ullman and Lavorante left the scene before the flames began to spread.

Speer ruled that Ullman and Lavorante were not liable for the estimated $25 million in restitution and damages caused by the fire, although she did order them to pay a $1,000 fine to the state restitution fund.

The other defendants -- Brian Alan Anderson, 25; William Thomas Coppock, 26; and Brian David Franks, 30 -- all pleaded no contest. Anderson and Coppock were sentenced to a year in jail and were also placed on probation with community service.

Franks, who testified against Anderson and Coppock, was sentenced to five years' probation and 300 hours of community service.

Anderson and Coppock were found particularly at fault for the fire, which began about 3:30 a.m. two days after Thanksgiving in 2007, because they kicked burning pieces of wood and a pillow or pillowcases out of a cave where the men had started an illegal campfire.

Those three defendants are scheduled to appear before Speer on Dec. 1 for a hearing on restitution. Anderson and Coppock have already been ordered to pay $7.7 million in restitution for firefighting costs. Restitution to homeowners is about $17 million.

-- Sam Allen

More forecasts: Long Beach | Pasadena | San Diego | Santa Monica | Van Nuys

Three people have been arrested in connection with a recycling fraud operation in Riverside County that allegedly bilked millions of dollars out of the state’s recycling program, officials said Wednesday.

Perris Valley Recycling accepted 4.4 million pounds of aluminum trucked in from Arizona and then claimed as much as $7 million in reimbursement from the California Beverage Container Recycling Fund, according to a news release from state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown.

The center’s owner, Howard Leveson, 68, and two of its employees were arrested last week and face a total of 18 felony counts. Leveson was also charged with illegal possession of an assault weapon after authorities found an Uzi assault rifle in his home.

Leveson’s bail was set at $300,000 Wednesday. Bail for employees Jose Barragan, 35, and Susie Ambriz-Molina, 25, was set at $30,000 each.

“These people pretended to be recycling California aluminum cans when they were really importing tons of cans from Arizona, which are not eligible for California’s recycling refunds,” Brown said in a statement. “They brazenly defrauded the states’ successful recycling program.”

Mark Oldfield, a spokesman for the Department of Resources and Recovery -- CalRecycle -- said there have been more recycling fraud arrests recently as the department has “stepped up its anti-fraud effort.”

The Perris Valley investigation was conducted jointly by CalRecycle, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and special agents with the attorney general’s office, he said.

Oldfield said the high volume of aluminum collected by Perris Valley Recycling made investigators suspicious. From February 2009 to July of this year, the center collected as much as 10,000 pounds of aluminum daily, according to the attorney general. Recycling centers typically collect about 500 pounds a day.

Oldfield said that when investigators visited the center, they found long lines of trucks waiting to drop off huge amounts of aluminum. CalRecycle requires centers to report any purchase of more than 250 pounds of aluminum, but authorities claim that Perris Valley tried to hide the large quantities they accepted by creating multiple tickets for each truck.

California bottle deposit laws provide a $1.57 reimbursement per pound of aluminum cans. Consumers pay a deposit when they purchase a beverage. Private recycling centers then pay consumers who bring the used cans to them, collect a reimbursement from the state and then re-sell the scrap metal. The state fund loses money when cans from other states are returned in California, Oldfield said.

Perris Valley Recycling, in the city of Perris in Riverside County, remains open, Oldfield said, although restrictions have been placed on the center.

-- Sam Allen

Photo: Howard Leveson Credit: California attorney general's office

Six people were sentenced Wednesday in San Diego federal court after pleading guilty to being part of a ring to distribute methamphetamine.

Of the six ethnic Laotians, four were naturalized citizens and two were permanent residents, also known as green-card holders. Four lived in San Diego, one each in Escondido and Murrieta.

Sentenced were Chansamone Phrakousonh, 34 (135 months in prison); Vilapheth Phrakousonh, 46 (135 months in prison); Boualivanh Phrakousonh, 67 (time served, 93 days); Khampha Phrakousonh, 72 (time served, 288 days); Kinnalone Phrakousonh, 38 (46 months in prison); and Noy Bouchaleun, 30 (33 months in prison).

Agencies working on the case included the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Asian gang team of the San Diego Police Department.

-- Tony Perry in San Diego

Baja California has been hit by a series of moderate and small earthquakes over the last day or so.

A 4.3-magnitude quake struck after 4 p.m. Wednesday 50 miles southeast of Ensenada, closely following a 4.0 temblor.

Another series of quakes occurred in the Gulf of California near the southern part of the Baja peninsula. Three quakes measuring greater than magnitude 5 strucknortheast of La Paz.

One of those, which hit early Wednesday morning, measured magnitude 5.8.

-- Andrew Blankstein

Image credit: U.S. Geological Survey

California voters now oppose Proposition 19, the measure to legalize marijuana, by 49% to 44%, according to the latest poll from the Public Policy Institute of California.

The poll found a sharp reversal from last month, with support dropping 8 percentage points. The previous poll found that 52% of likely voters favored the measure. That poll, coming after others found that about half the electorate backed legalization, had encouraged supporters and helped bring in high-dollar donations.

The latest poll found a drop in support across all demographic groups, but most steeply among Latino voters. In September, 63% backed it. Now, 51% oppose it.

The latest poll shows that men are evenly split. In September, men favored the measure by 16 points. Women now oppose the initiative  50% to 41%. The earlier poll found them slightly in favor.

Independent voters strongly backed the measure, 65% to 31%, in September, but they now oppose it, 49% to 40%. Democrats support the measure by 56%, down 7 percentage points from last month. Republicans reject it by 66%, an increase of 4 percentage points.

The earlier poll showed overwhelming support among likely voters between ages 18 and 34. Support in that age bracket dropped from 70% to 59% this month. Support also slipped among voters 35 and older.

Much of the change appears to have been driven by evaporating support in Southern California. In September, 56% of likely voters in Los Angeles County and 52% in other Southern California counties supported the measure. This month, those percentages slipped to 41% and 42%.

The Public Policy Institute of California surveyed 1,067 likely voters Oct. 10-17. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

-- John Hoeffel

Mexican officials Wednesday began burning 134 tons of marijuana seized in what authorities believe is the largest pot bust in the nation's  history.

As a drum and bugle corps played in the background, soldiers piled thousands of blocks of marijuana onto a wooden platform during a ceremony at a military base in Tijuana that included dozens of local, state and federal officials. The roughly 10-foot-high by 100-foot-wide pile was then sprayed with diesel fuel.

At 4:40 p.m., an army general pushed a button, triggering an electrical charge that detonated gunpowder beneath the pile.

Baja California authorities seized the marijuana Monday morning. About 15,300 packages of marijuana were hidden inside six cargo containers stored in a warehouse in an industrial area of the border city.  

The marijuana was discovered after police intercepted a convoy of vehicles escorting a tractor-trailer that had left the warehouse, officials said.

After a shootout, 11 people were arrested. Police and soldiers, acting on information from the suspects, raided the warehouse and two homes near the coast, where smaller amounts of marijuana were found.

The nation’s drug czar traveled to California to highlight his contention that legalizing marijuana is not the answer to a drug war he acknowledged has not succeeded.

Instead, Gil Kerlikowske stressed what he called a middle way: increased prevention and treatment.

Kerlikowske’s stated reason for the drop-in visit Wednesday was an invitation from the Pasadena Recovery Center to participate in a round-table with drug treatment specialists that lasted less than half an hour.

Before the event, he spoke to the media about his opposition to Proposition 19.

“The facts are that this proposition would not be helpful to the people of California,” he said, insisting that it would not solve the state’s budget crisis or reduce Mexican drug violence.

He also dismissed the argument made by proponents that children would have less access to marijuana if it were regulated, noting that children can still find alcohol and cigarettes.

“Why do we think that we can suddenly do it with marijuana, which can be grown in a backyard?” he asked. “I think it’s such a false promise.”

A dozen Christian and Jewish clergy offered support Wednesday for a U.S. District Court ruling in August that found California’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. The case is now before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

At a Los Angeles news conference, the group said it planned to file an amicus brief in support of Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision to strike down Proposition 8, the 2008 initiative that banned gay marriage.  The judge said the measure violated due process and equal protection for gays and lesbians.

Representatives from the Los Angeles Episcopal diocese, the United Church of Christ, the Progressive Jewish Alliance and other liberal religious groups spoke of marriage equality as part of religious freedom Wednesday in the gathering at the St. Paul Cathedral Center, the Episcopal diocese headquarters.

“It is not an issue of legal matters, it’s an issue of faith,” said the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, the Episcopal bishop of Los Angeles.

The Rev. Fernando Santillana, pastor of Norwalk United Methodist Church, called it a Christian responsibility to speak up for equality.

“We are all divine creations. Some are heterosexual and some are not.  But we are all God’s creatures,” Santillana said. “We have to be the voice that speaks for God in a society that is divided.”

-- Rick Rojas

A man who was found dead in a truck outside the Hollywood Boulevard studios of "Jimmy Kimmel Live" was identified Wednesday as a 46-year-old special effects movie studio technician.

Larry Addison Bortolott, who worked on films including "Jack Frost," "Doctor Dolittle" and "George of the Jungle," was found at the back of the studio near Hawthorn and Highland avenues about 1:40 p.m. Tuesday when someone noticed him slumped in the truck, officials said.

Los Angeles Police Department investigators said a preliminary investigation showed that Bortolott may have died because of a medical condition. Ed Winter, assistant chief coroner, said that the official cause of death has been deferred pending toxicology tests but that the case was reported as a possible natural death.

--Andrew Blankstein

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