Prescription Drugs

As part of the national prescription drug take-back day, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach police collected more than 300 pounds of unwanted drugs, officials said Monday. On Saturday, 35 people turned over 129 pounds of prescription drugs to the Costa Mesa Police Department as part of the Drug Enforcement Administration's sixth national prescription drug take back day, according to a news release from the city. Newport Beach collected 225 pounds - or nine boxes - of medicine in the campaign, according to spokeswoman Kathy Lowe.

A man arrested on suspicion of violating a restraining order implicated his wife in a series of burglaries in Costa Mesa, leading to her arrest, police said. On Sunday residents in the 2100 block of Santa Ana Avenue spotted a woman going in and out of a home and stashing property in bushes nearby, according to police. When residents confronted the woman, she said she was a victim of domestic violence and fled, police said. Police had arrested Timothy Kosi, 45, on Saturday on suspicion of violating a restraining order issued after a domestic disturbance with his wife.

NEWPORT BEACH - A 14-year-old cheerleader clung to life with the faintest pulse after a man accused of drunk driving plowed into the car she was riding in over Memorial Day weekend, a witness testified Thursday in the Harbor Justice Center. A passerby checked on an unconscious Ashton Sweet after the crash but felt no pulse, said Irvine police Officer Tim McDonald. Sweet's body was limp in the woman's arms. McDonald assisted and laid Sweet onto the curb. He said he felt a faint pulse and shallow breathing before paramedics arrived and attended to her. Days later, Sweet died in a hospital after her family chose to take her off life support and donate her organs.

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POLICE FILES COSTA MESA Bristol Street: Petty theft was reported in the 3300 block at 3:10 p.m. Sunday. College Avenue and Village Way: Vandalism was reported at 5:43 p.m. Sunday. Hickory Place: A vehicle burglary was reported in the 2800 block at 4:24 p.m. Sunday. Pomona Avenue: Drinking in public was reported in the 1900 block at 7:05 p.m. Sunday. Scott Place: Vandalism was reported in the 700 block at 4:50 p.m. Sunday.

The trial for a woman accused of killing a Newport Beach elementary school teacher in a car accident will likely start next week, attorneys said Monday. Attorneys for both sides will appear in court Monday ready to go to trial, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Mestman. They will most likely be put on call for most of the week, waiting for a courtroom to begin their case because of the backlog of cases in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana. Prosecutors say Irvine resident Janene Johns, 53, hit and killed Eastbluff Elementary School teacher Candace Tift with her car while under the influence of prescription drugs in August 2006.

A man found inside Nicolas Cage’s home wearing nothing but one of the actor’s jackets pleaded guilty to felony stalking Thursday, authorities said. Robert Dennis Furo, 45, of San Pedro received credit for time served and will be in a 30-day lockdown at a hospital before entering into a sober-living rehabilitation home in Tustin for up to five months as part of his plea deal, according to Furo’s attorney, Jack Kayajanian. Furo will also be placed on three years’ formal probation as part of the plea.

Candace Tift will be missed. She will be missed most deeply by her family, including her husband, Wade, and her 15-month-old son, Owen. She will be missed by her friends. She will be missed by her fellow teachers at Eastbluff Elementary School and other workers at Eastbluff Elementary. And she will be missed by her students, who will be returning to a suddenly and sadly changed classroom in just more than a week. Tift was riding her bike Wednesday evening along West Coast Highway, not far from her Costa Mesa home, when she was hit by a car driven by a woman who is suspected of being under the influence of prescription drugs.

Friends and family will gather Thursday to remember a Costa Mesa teacher who was hit while riding her bicycle on a Newport Beach sidewalk Aug. 23. She died of her injuries the next day. Candace Tift's funeral will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at Sts. Simon and Jude Catholic Church, 20444 Magnolia St., Huntington Beach. "We just thought … she began there and we want to say goodbye to her there," Tift's mother Mary Logan said. Tift was born in Huntington Beach and baptized at Sts. Simon and Jude.

A Riverside woman was convicted Tuesday of fatally hitting a bicyclist in Newport Beach with her car and fleeing the scene while under the influence of prescription drugs. Patricia Ann Izquieta, 38, pleaded guilty at the Central Justice Center in Santa Anta to charges of felony hit and run causing death, vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated without gross negligence and misdemeanor driving without a license with an enhancement for causing great bodily injury in the case dating to December 2009, according to court records.