After a two-year investigation into alleged Medicare fraud involving homeless patients, federal agents raided three hospitals this morning: City of Angels Medical Center, Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center and Tustin Hospital and Medical Center. The schemes involved defrauding the state and federal governments out of millions of dollars by using homeless skid row residents. A top executive at City of Angels was arrested as well as one other person, according to the LA Times. City......

Photo by hinducow via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Looks like the Hollywood sex tape predates YouTube and Betamax by a landslide. A sex tape featuring late film icon Marilyn Monroe--on 16mm film--sold for $1.5 million to a NY businessman. Did you check out the Songkran fest yesterday in Thai Town? Did you ride the Red Line? Did you wonder why the hell the MTA only put in two ticket vending machines......

It sounds a little like something you might see on COPS: What was just going to be a routine traffic stop in Glendale turned out to be a major nab for the FBI. Police pulled over Sarkis "Sako" Militonyan on January 27th because his white Chevy Tahoe had no plates and was positioned in two lanes. According to the Daily News, the cops "discovered he was a fugitive and a search of his SUV turned......

We've all seen phishing e-mails before (thank you eBay, PayPal) but it's a bit trickier when the e-mail deliberately asking you to pony up your e-mail username and password comes from a sender purporting to be USCTEAM. The e-mail received today by several USC e-mail account holders suggests that the user's e-mail account will be terminated "permanently" within 7 days lest the recipient respond with account details including username, password, date of birth, and "country......

She has her eye on becoming City Controller and maybe she has a knack for it. After working on a "Clean Money" system for City elections and helping to create the Waste, Fraud and Abuse Investigation Unit in the City Controller's office, Councilwoman Wendy Greuel introduced a motion yesterday that asked the City Ethics Commission to expand the City's ethics code to ex parte communication with City Commissioners. Whoa, what? Ex parte communications are communications......

Last night's playoff game to see who would go to the playoffs was really great. But bro was out at home. Therefore the outcome of the game is a sham. Colorado and San Diego played 162 games and they had to play an extra game last night to settle their tie. The game went into 13 innings. Totally exciting, totally awesome, a classic game. But when Brian Giles threw home to Michael Barrett, Barrett......

So Barry Bonds hit his big dinger last night, and we hate him for it. But we're allowed to, we live in LA. The Commissioner of Baseball, however, is not allowed to hate Barry Bonds. At least not publicly. Why? Because the Commish is supposed to be fair and without allegiance. All he is supposed to care about is Baseball's Best Interest. But clearly Bud Selig only has one interest: money. The former used......

Guest Day Editor Zuma Dogg will be joining LAist with a few posts throughout the day. Read his introductory interview here and check out his site as well as Mayor Sam where he contributes. He also wrote an article in the current edition of the LA Weekly Dear Los Angeles City Council, We all know legislation, administration and meetings take up a good amount of your time, whether ZD shows up that day, or not.......

LAist Editor Tony Pierce has blogged here non-stop for more than a year deserving a well-earned vacation (and did he ever earn it). While out of town, we decided to have a little fun and bring some guest day editors in from around the blogLAsphere. Monday we had Green LA Girl and Tuesday saw Fred Camino of MetroRiderLA. Today, get ready for Zuma Dogg who has his own website, but also contributes to Mayor......

Paris and ex BFF's ex K-Fed party together in Vegas - X17 In other Paris news, here is a wasted Cameron Diaz leaving Paris's house party - DListed In more Paris news, she hooked up with Brit singer James Blunt last week at Teddy's - Rush and Molloy Lindsay Lohan pulls out of filming sexy threesome scene with Kiera Knightley. Some call it a "responsible choice", we here just call it chicken. - NOW Mug......

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week. Torontoist Special Report: Rosie to Trump: "Fire 300 Bicyclists for Fraud!" On DCist: Students Go Wild for Slogans, Secrets and Sexual Harassment The action was thick......

- LAPD seeks felony charges against a 13-year-old alleged dogfight organizer caught in South LA on Monday. The injured pitbulls are expected to recover. The kid, however, may be another story. - LA Times. - Claiming a victory in mission:gangbusters 2007, LAPD central division Capt. Andrew Smith reports, "We really believe we have taken the head off the 5th and Hill Gang." - Daily News. - The transcripts are out on the Khalid Sheikh......

#14 Because of widespread voter fraud, FL lawmaker is proposing a "none of the above" selection for people who don't want to vote for any candidates on selected races - KTUU #15 Pro-Abortion Floridians want their own license plates too. Pissed / jealous / miffed at the fact that anti-abortionists can order a "Choose Life" license plate, pro-choice advocates are demanding similar but opposite plates. "Choose Death?" - Life News #16 Trailer home owners......

On Nov. 21 UCLA discovered that an unauthorized person or persons had exploited a previously undetected software flaw and fraudulently accessed the school's database between October 2005 and November 2006. While UCLA cannot pinpoint exactly whose info was stolen, they know that "the hacker sought and retrieved some Social Security Numbers." Personal information for 800,000 people including current students, former students, faculty, staff, even some parents of students who had applied for financial aid......

Just because Thanksgiving is over doesn't mean we can't be thankful for some excellent people. Now, this might blow your minds, but LAist doesn't just innately know everything, some of our information is handed to us either via email or snail mail or singing telegram. For example, we just didn't roll out of bed this summer and suddenly discover two of our favorite new bands, The Grates and The Format, their cds were mailed......

Instead of writing how the OC just accused 11 12 people for alleged voter registration fraud in the same congressional district hit with that other OC alleged voter fraud, we're just going to watch this video of this Welch Corgi puppy and think about how fucked up his life would be if people were just allowed to vote, and those votes would be accurately counted. Here's to you, evil doers! And then we're going......

- Last week Santa Monica extended its tyrannical smoking ban to now include restaurant patios, bus stops, ATMs and movie theater lines(!); now Burbank wants to further restrict freedoms. Why not grow a pair and just ban the sales of smokes? Oh thats right, you like the taxes you collect on them. - LA Daily News - CBS wants you to know that Terry Lee Shields, 350 lb., accused child molester, of Anaheim, 51......

- Snoop Dogg Popped for Guns N' Weed at Burbank Airport - AP - Clippers Don't Suck - the Merc - Barry Bonds might become an Angel - AP - LA Archdiocese will pay most of the $10 million sex settlement in Encino - Newsday - Reward for Palm Springs arsonist tripled to $300,000 - AP - 11 charged with OC voter fraud - LAT - A billion gallons of gas could have been......

- A Correction letter was sent out by CA Secretary of State to all 14,000 OC voters who got the illegal voter fraud from the GOP wannabe - Lonewacko - Miami-bound American Airlines jet returns to LAX due to odor - NBC4 - Marilyn Manson to open an LA art gallery on Halloween - EarthTimes - Two plead guilty in $30+ million bank fraud scheme - AP - Orel interviews for Oakland opening. Will he......

This election has officially begun. Politicians on both sides have decided to take their gloves off. In Orange County, we've been following the drama happening with the young man who decided to commit possible voter fraud to get into congress. While in Missouri, Senate candidate Claire McCaskill has enlisted a powerful plea by Michael J. Fox to consider hopefuls dedicated to furthering the progress of science, namely stem cell research. The Huffington Post reports......

On Thursday LAist reported that Universal was running a trailer for the soon-to-be released film "Accepted", whose sole critical raves were from one source, Paul Fischer of Dark Horizons.com. At that time we could find no review on the website that stated that "Accepted" was a "total triumph" or "raucously funny". In fact the only place that we saw Fischer's praises for the film were on other blogs, where fellow critics were dissing Fischer.......

Flights into Los Angeles International Airport were disrupted this morning after an instrument landing system failed on one of the airport's runways, authorities said. - LA Times The Los Angeles Police Department is asking for the public's help in locating 19-year-old Jessica Edwards, who is autistic and has the mental capacity of a 7-year-old child. - LAPD Blog Hospitals in Los Angeles County overall lag behind the statewide average when it comes to in-hospital......

The Oklahoma federal judge who was accused of multitasking with a penis pump while conducting court was found guilty and will be sentenced in a few weeks. Thomas served more than 20 years on the bench in eastern Oklahoma before his retirement in 2004. The conviction will require Thompson to register as a sex offender, and could jeopardize his $7,489.91-a-month pension from the state. Meanwhile Slate asks the burning question: "Do Penis Pumps Work......

Score one for the little guy. The verdict is in on the fraud and conspiracy trial of Enron's Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, and it's guilty, guilty, guilty. Lay was found guilty on all charges while Skilling was found guilty on 20 of 28 counts (conspiracy, fraud, false statements, insider trading). Maybe they weren't the smartest guys in the room after all. Here's extensive Enron coverage from our brothers at Houstonist. They've been on......

Judge nails jail Judge Dean Pregerson, who is presiding over a long-standing suit about conditions at the jail, left his chambers and visited Men's Central in downtown Wednesday. And he really didn't like what he saw. Inmates are being housed in a way "not consistent with basic human values." Jail in South Korea? Hwang Woo-suk, the respected South Korean scientist who was thought to be the first to clone human embroys and extract stem......

Cigar-smoking right-wing nutjob Rush Limbaugh, the former Oxycontin addict, has been arrested in West Palm Beach, Florida for prescription drug fraud. According to the AP, authorities discovered he'd gotten 2,000 painkillers in 6 months, prescribed by 4 doctors. That is, by our count, more than 10 pills per day. Limbaugh was released on $3,000 bail — how much Oxycontin would that buy? Also out on bail: USC freshman quarterback Mark Sanchez had to cough up......

Yesterday the LA County Board of Supervisors voted to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries, effectively lifting a ban on medical marijuana in unincorporated areas of the county. The Daily News reports that several facilities had been dispensing medical marijuana anyway, including 20 in the San Fernando Valley. Long Beach police found 400 marijuana plants growing in a warehouse under the careful supervision of one Philip Northcutt. Northcutt had been using a silkscreen business as a......

DCist helps us make more sense of the world this week. Posts like this concert review are the reason for Scott Stapp. DCist also enumerates the reasons for playing ultimate frisbee, Condi's tight buns, their love of a local convenience store, and their jealousy of a person in Seattle calling the city. We documented graf artist Banksy's most recent visit to LA in one two three posts. We also found the best possible use......

This morning authorities announced that Jack Abramoff will plead guilty to fraud charges in Washington and Miami, allowing him, as the AP writes, "to cooperate in a massive government investigation of influence peddling involving members of Congress." If you haven't been following what Wonkette called, somewhat prematurely, Abramoffukkah (it arrived a little late this year), here's the gist. Jack Abramoff is a big bad lobbyist who hung tight with the Republican elite. He helped......

When the biggest splash your public relations firm makes involves getting itself itself in the headlines on charges of fraud, that’s probably not a good sign. Two former executives at the Fleishman-Hillard public relations firm, Douglas R. Dowie and John Stodder Jr., were accused yesterday of inflating the number of hours for which they charged the city for the firm’s work, and of working on projects for former mayor James Hahn on a contract......