Los Angeles Times - 05.03.2020

LATIMES.COM THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2020B

CITY & STATE

had prior knowledge about

the attack.

But when family mem-

bers arrived at the home lat-

er in the afternoon, Shareef

expressed her belief that

Malik and Farook were the

attackers, according to a

court filing.

Before leaving home,

Shareef walked into her

son’s bedroom and shred-

ded at least one document, a

map. In her plea agreement,

Shareef acknowledged that

she knew her son had pro-

duced the map and that it

was “directly related to Fa-

rook and Malik’s planning of

the attack.” Authorities did

not elaborate further on

what the map depicted.

Shareef, a resident of Co-

rona, signed the plea agree-

ment on Feb. 26 and is

scheduled to appear in fed-

eral court in Riverside on

March 16. Her attorney,

Charles Swift of the Consti-

tutional Law Center for

Muslims in America, did not

respond to messages seek-

ing comment.

The case is the latest in a

handful of prosecutions of

the wider Farook family that

continue more than four

years after the attack.

Enrique Marquez Jr., a

former neighbor accused of

buying the rifles that Farook

and Malik used in the

killings, has sought to with-

draw his 2017 guilty plea to

providing material support

to terrorists.

Shareef ’s son Syed Ra-

heel Farook; his wife, Ta-

tiana Farook; and her sister,

Mariya Chernykh, have all

pleaded guilty to immigra-

tion fraud charges in con-

nection with Chernykh’s

sham marriage to Marquez.

All three are scheduled to be

sentenced this year.

The mother of Syed

Rizwan Farook, who carried

out the 2015 San Bernardino

terrorist attack that left 14

people dead, has agreed to

plead guilty to shredding ev-

idence in her home that con-

nected her son and his wife

to the massacre, federal

prosecutors announced

Tuesday.

Rafia Shareef, 66, will

plead guilty to one count of

altering records with the in-

tent of impeding a federal in-

vestigation, a charge that

carries up to 20 years in fed-

eral prison. The U.S. attor-

ney’s office in Los Angeles

said the plea agreement

called for no more than 18

months behind bars.

Shareef was living with

her son and his wife, Tash-

feen Malik, in Redlands at

the time of the Dec. 2, 2015,

attack. That day, the couple

left their infant child with

Shareef, falsely telling her

they were going to a medical

appointment, according to

the plea agreement.

Over the next hours, Ma-

lik and Farook stormed the

Inland Regional Center in

San Bernardino, killing 14

people at a holiday party

and wounding 22. The cou-

ple then died in a firefight

with police.

Shortly before noon, Sha-

reef learned that authorities

had linked her son to the

rampage. Prosecutors noted

in the plea agreement that

there is no allegation she

San Bernardino

terrorist’s mom

will plead guilty

Rafia Shareef admits

shredding evidence

that connected couple

to the 2015 attack.

By Matt Hamilton

SACRAMENTO — At-

torneys for the man accused

of being the Golden State

Killer said Joseph James

DeAngelo Jr. would be will-

ing to plead guilty if prose-

cutors agreed not to seek the

death penalty, according to

new court papers.

The statement from the

public defenders represent-

ing DeAngelo appears as a

footnote in a 41-page dis-

missal motion filed in Sacra-

mento County Circuit Court

late Monday and obtained

by The Times on Tuesday.

“Mr. DeAngelo is 74 years

old. He has offered to plead

to the charges with a lifetime

sentence,” the statement

says.

Assistant public defend-

er Joe Cress did not respond

to a request to clarify the

statement. Nor did Sacra-

mento County prosecutor

Anne Marie Schubert re-

spond to a request for com-

ment. But victims in the case

told The Times they had re-

ceived a letter from the pub-

lic defender asking them to

tell a mediator what they

think about resolving the

case without trial.

“I would be OK with

that,” said Kris Pedretti,

who was 15 when she was

raped in 1976. “But in ex-

change we want answers.

Where he was. What he was

doing.... He owes us answers

... real answers.”

A second victim voiced a

similar opinion. Victor

Hayes, who was held captive

and threatened with death

while his girlfriend was

raped, said he is more inter-

ested in knowing details of

how the crimes would have

been committed by DeAn-

gelo, a patrol duty police offi-

cer for the small Northern

California town of Auburn.

DeAngelo faces charges

in 13 murders and 13 rape-re-

lated kidnappings in six

counties. Beyond that, he is

accused of some 50 rapes

and scores of ransackings

attributed to a serial preda-

tor who attacked women,

men and children across a

large swath of California in

the 1970s and 1980s.

He was arrested in April

2018 based on DNA tracing

through his relatives. Prose-

cutors allege that DNA re-

trieved from DeAngelo the

day of his arrest matches

that from eight of the crime

scenes, but they have so far

been stymied in collecting

additional DNA samples

from DeAngelo so that crime

labs in those counties can

run their own tests.

A spokeswoman for the

Orange County district at-

torney, among those seeking

the death penalty, called the

public defenders’ efforts to

talk to victim families about

a plea deal “completely inap-

propriate.”

Such discussions are the

purview of the prosecutor’s

office, said Kimberly Edds,

spokeswoman for Dist. Atty.

Todd Spitzer.

She said Spitzer’s office is

still in the process of meet-

ing with family members of

murder victims “to discuss

how to proceed.” Some of

those meetings are planned

over the next few weeks,

Edds said.

Phyllis Henneman,

whose 1976 attack is consid-

ered the first documented

rape in the East Area Rapist

crime series, said she would

be satisfied with a guilty plea

and life sentence — if victims

who had questions about

their attacks could get an-

swers. “I am not so sure

there is anything I would ask

for myself,” she said. “He

would probably not be truth-

ful anyway.”

She said she hoped that

DeAngelo would end up

dealing with the dangers of

life in the general prison

population “and not housed

away in solitary confine-

ment.”

Suspect’s lawyers

float guilty plea

Defendant in Golden

State Killer case

would confess if death

penalty is not sought.

By Paige St. John

A team of scuba-diving
biologists on Wednesday re-
leased nearly 200 baby giant
sea bass into the murky
depths of Santa Monica Bay
where the tiny, critically en-
dangered fish could grow to
be a quarter ton or more in
size.
The captive-bred infants
quickly adapted to their new
home, a submarine canyon
about 30 feet beneath the
waves, where the currents
are rich in nutrients and tiny
shrimp, a favorite food of the
bass.
The 4-inch infants —
adorned with orange, blue
and gray patches — can
reach 560 pounds, 7 feet in
length and live to be 75 years
old.
They are also as imper-
iled as black rhinos. Giant
sea bass were among the
most overfished species in
the 1930s. Today, fewer than
500 breeding adults cruise
Central and Southern Cali-
fornia’s coastal waters, ac-
cording to a recent genetic
study.
“Total success!” Michael
C. Couffer, a biologist and
underwater photographer
involved in the reintroduc-
tion effort, said with a smile
immediately after he rose to
the surface.
“They were behaving as
though they had been raised
in the wild instead of in cap-
tivity,” he said. “Some were
chasing each other around.
Others seemed to be getting
ready to start looking for
food.”
Among those expect-
antly observing the effort
from the deck of a nearby
boat was Crislyn McKerron,
operations director of the
Cabrillo Marine Aquarium.
“We’re incredibly proud,”
she said.
The unprecedented re-
lease of so many giant sea
bass was the brainchild of
Larry Allen, a professor of bi-
ology at Cal State University
Northridge, who hopes they
usher in a new generation of
ancient mariners drifting
between coastal kelp forests
and deep blue waters hun-
dreds of miles offshore.
Their very existence
came by way of a biological
surprise in Allen’s labora-
tory.
In May, an adult male and
two adult female giant sea
bass that were under study
spawned an unintended
bounty of thousands of eggs.
Larvae hatched from those
eggs went on to become sev-
eral hundred pampered ba-
bies in carefully monitored
tanks at the Cabrillo Marine
Aquarium in San Pedro.
Roughly 200 of the brood
were later shared with the
Aquarium of the Pacific in
Long Beach.
In captivity, they feasted
on a daily cocktail of squid,
sardines, mackerel and
clams — followed by dessert:
shrimp.
“Shrimp is always served
last because it’s like ice
cream to baby giant sea
bass,” said Andres Carrillo

of the Cabrillo Marine

Aquarium.

“They’re like little kids: If

you offer giant sea bass

shrimp first, they won’t eat

anything else.”

In collaboration with the

California Department of

Fish and Wildlife, Cal State

Northridge and Cal State

Long Beach, 180 baby giant

sea bass reared at the San

Pedro facility were released

roughly 100 yards from the

beach on Wednesday. An ad-

ditional 175 from the Long

Beach aquarium are ex-

pected to be released next

week.

Their parents, each

weighing about 200 pounds,

were tagged and then re-

leased into the ocean in Oc-

tober.

Aquarium officials asked

that the exact locations not

be made public to improve

the fish’s odds of survival.

But with luck and

stealth, the baby giants “will

grow quickly,” said Nicole

Leier, senior aquarist in

charge of exhibits at the

Aquarium of the Pacific,

who was among a dozen

staffers who assisted the ef-

fort Wednesday. “In 10 years,

they’ll be up to about 100

pounds. In 15 years, they’ll

reach maturity.”

In 2016, the Aquarium of

the Pacific became the first

public facility of its kind to

spawn and raise a giant sea

bass from larva to juvenile,

providing a vital look at the

early life of the species.

In the 1930s, full-grown gi-

ant sea bass caught by deep-

sea charters attracted large

crowds at local docks.

Calls for giant sea bass

conservation grew in the

1990s, after hook-and-line

fishery, divers armed with

crossbows and commercial

gill-netters had nearly wiped

out them out.

The species is catego-

rized as critically endan-

gered by the International

Union for Conservation and

Nature.

Scientists say they need

more and better data to re-

cover the species, individu-

als of which carry unique

spot patterns that can be

read like a barcode.

In recent years, scuba

divers from UC Santa Bar-

bara and the Aquarium of

the Pacific have been photo-

graphing giant sea bass near

Santa Catalina Island’s city

of Avalon.

The photos are archived

in a Spotting Giant Sea Bass

identification website that

makes matches using pat-

tern-recognition algorithms

first developed by astro-

physicists to spot patterns

in star constellations.

Scientists say the bright

colors of the juveniles blend

in well with the undersea

background, providing cam-

ouflage from predators large

enough to consume them.

The color pattern will

change as the fish age.

Climate change, however,

remains a serious challenge

to giant sea bass and all

other marine species.

Marine heat waves have

doubled in frequency since

1982, and recent reports

showed that global ocean

temperatures in 2019 were

the warmest on record.

“There aren’t many ju-

veniles of this endangered

species in the sea anymore,”

Carrillo said, “so they’re fac-

ing an ocean of trouble on

the road to adulthood.”

DIVER DARRYL DELESKEreleases hordes of baby giant sea bass onto the bottom along the southern shore
of Santa Monica Bay. The captive-bred, 4-inch infants can eventually reach 560 pounds and 7 feet in length.

Michael C. Couffer

Giant sea bass babies get

a fresh start at the bottom

Nearly 200 of the endangered fish released off Santa Monica

By Louis Sahagun

BIOLOGISTS PREPARE to release the baby giant sea bass about 30 feet down,

where the murky currents are rich in nutrients and shrimp, a sea bass favorite.

Allen J. SchabenLos Angeles Times

AN ADULT giant sea bass at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. In cap-

tivity, the baby fish ate a cocktail of squid, sardines, mackerel, clams and shrimp.

Allen J. SchabenLos Angeles Times