An Orange County judge held that prosecutors presented enough evidence to try Iftekhar Murtaza, Charles Murphy and Wehoan Vitaliy Krasnoperov in the slayings of Karishma Dhanak, 20, and Jayprakash Dhanak, 56, and the attempted slaying of Leela Jayprakash Dhanak on May 21, 2007.

Judge Craig L. Griffin found in late January that there was enough evidence to send the trio to trial for the attack that left Mr. Murtaza’s former girlfriend’s father and sister strangled, bludgeoned and stabbed with their bodies burned in a park, her mother slashed across the throat with a knife, beaten severely and left for dead on a neighbor’s lawn and the family’s home burned - over religious/romantic differences... [full story]

The 9040 Sunset/Doheny Hotel project, being developed by Malibu-based Weintraub Financial Services, gained approval last week – sort of.

Seconding the Planning Commission’s August, 2009, 6-1 recommendation, the West Hollywood’s city council gave the (tentative) go ahead on an eleven (11) story building containing 268,805 gross square feet of mixed uses; including 148 hotel rooms, 20 condominium units, and approximately 37,940 square feet of retail, restaurant, conference rooms and spas.

The project requires an amendment to the Sunset Specific Plan to allow the hotel component along Sunset Boulevard to rise to a height of 128 feet.... [full story]

A jury found West Hollywood resident David Jassy, a rapper and record producer from Sweden, guilty Monday of second-degree murder in the death of John Osnes, a 55-year-old jazz pianist, in Hollywood.

Mr. Jassy stood accused of attacking Mr. Osnes, a popular local pianist and pedestrian rights activist, punching him in the head, kicking him in the face and then driving over his mortally wounded body.

Commentators at the time likened the affair to an incident straight from the previous year’s Oscar winner, “Crash,” a film about racial tensions and random life changing happenstances.... [full story]

West Hollywood’s political establishment took a blow to its foundation last week when a former planning commissioner called for the ouster of two of WeHo’s longest serving council members in the next municipal election in 2011.

John D’Amico, who left the Planning Commissioner after five years’ service, returned to the city’s political stage by declaring his opposition to Mayor Abbe Land and Mayor Pro Tem John Heilman during public comments at the last city council meeting.

“Council members John Heilman and Abbe Land, you two have done your best to turn West Hollywood into yesterday’s news, radically suburbanizing our city, while showing no leadership and having little to no vision for the future… One or both of you needs to lose your seat in March 2011.”... [full story]

Even though the applicants delayed their scheduled hearing on Feb 1 about the proposed Tall Wall at 8899 Beverly Boulevard because they had not gone through the CEQA process, West Hollywood will still grapple with the larger issues underlying their stated intent to reap revenue from outdoor advertising at their next council meeting.

The city stands seemingly at loggerheads with itself over the issue; on one hand policymakers would like to replicate – and dip their tax collection cups into - the revenue stream that buildings lining the Sunset Strip enjoy without payment of any kind.... [full story]

LASD Homicide detectives identified the two dead women found last week as a mother and daughter illegally sharing a Section 8 one-bedroom senior housing unit.

The mother, 85 year old Byoung Kim, had died of natural causes “in excess of a week” before her body’s discovery on Friday morning, Jan. 22.

The daughter, identified as Bok Ki Mo, age 52, committed suicide by hanging sometime Thursday, the day before the building manager called in a 911 report.... [full story]

Sheriff’s deputies found two dead women in the 1100 block of Fuller Ave. Friday, one an apparent suicide and the other death termed “suspicious.”

Their West Hollywood apartment smelled of gas, according to the report, something a maintenance worker called in to the station, said the watch commander.... [full story]

Worth magazine has selected Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute as one of the United States’ top 25 hospitals for cardiac bypass surgery.

The list, compiled for the magazine by healthcare research firm Castle Connolly, appears in the December/January issue.

Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute is one of only three hospitals on the West Coast included on the list. ... [full story]