Teenagers

COSTA MESA — A group of Costa Mesa teenagers are due back in court for a pretrial hearing next week on charges they were part of a gang that attacked and robbed a pedestrian in a Westside neighborhood. Juan Gonzalez, 18, Ricardo Perez, 19, Jesse Sanabria, 19, and Irvin Perez, 18, are among 10 men accused of attacking a man Sept. 4 in the 600 block of Plumer Street, kicking and punching him and then stealing his wallet. The four are charged with assault with a deadly weapon and enhancements for allegedly being part of a local street gang.

A Costa Mesa transient was sentenced to eight years in prison Friday for threatening a group of teenagers with a knife in December while hurling racial epithets at them outside a pharmacy. Ronald Allen Bramlett, 65, pleaded guilty to felony counts of aggravated assault and criminal threats enhanced with a hate crime and deadly weapons accusations. He took a court-offered plea agreement to eight years in prison. Bramlett could have been sentenced to more than 18 years with convictions for a bank robbery in Oregon and a local petty theft from 2001 on his record.

A teenage Iraqi king made a pit stop in Newport Beach where he dined at the Balboa Bay Club and swam in Newport Harbor, during a whirlwind American tour in 1952. King Faisal II Al Hashimi of Iraq was only 17 when he embarked on a cross-country tour of the United States, arriving in New York aboard the Queen Mary in August 1952, according to historical news accounts. On his cross-country trip, the young king would meet President Harry Truman, baseball great Jackie Robinson and several Hollywood stars.

A Costa Mesa gang member was sentenced to 16 years in prison Friday after pleading guilty to fatally stabbing a teenager in 2008. Scott Santana, 25, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter as part of a plea deal. He had time tacked on for enhancements of being a gang member and using a knife during the crime. Santana fatally stabbed 17-year-old Javier Paz Jan. 26, 2008, outside the El Metate Market, 817 W. 19th St. Police said the two were involved in a fight outside the market when Santana stabbed the teenager.

A Costa Mesa transient has been charged with a hate crime and is being held on $1-million bail after allegedly calling a black teenager racial slurs outside a local CVS Pharmacy and threatening him with a knife. Ronald Allen Bramlett, 65, a white transient who lists his address as Share Our Selves in Costa Mesa, was charged with felony aggravated assault, criminal threats and an enhancement of an alleged hate crime for a confrontation police said he had with teenagers Tuesday. According to prosecutors, Bramlett told teenagers hanging out outside the pharmacy that he was part of a well-known white supremacist gang.

Rachel Pupiromrat is 17. Before coming across Boys Hope Girls Hope of Southern California, she had moved 20 times and attended a dozen schools. The teen had struggled at school. But the Costa Mesa- based non- profit has transformed her life. Now, she’s been accepted to De Paul University, in Chicago. “I’ve lived here all of my life, and I want something different and a fresh start,” Rachel said. “I want to meet new people, who haven’t grown up where I have grown up.” Boys Hope Girls Hope of Southern California is a place where children can get an education and a chance at hope for better possibilities in life.

Local teens and parents on Wednesday were given a sobering look at issues involving teenage driving, cyberbullying and drug abuse. Dozens of families attended the free evening at Corona del Mar High School, which featured a series of guest speakers and information booths from local organizations. Attendees heard from parents of two young people who died prematurely; one from an accidental drug overdose, and the other from a car collision caused by a distracted teen driver.

A jury found Willia Hunt innocent in the December 1969 stabbing death of husband Willis Hunt, even after the woman’s daughter testified that her mother had been in a murderous rage before grabbing a butcher knife in the couple’s Corona del Mar kitchen that night. “Stop. I don’t want to fight you,” Willia Hunt’s 13-year-old daughter from a previous marriage testified her stepfather Willis Hunt had pleaded that night, before her mother stabbed him twice in the chest with a butcher knife.