A West Hollywood man named Ryan Abelar was arrested and charged with attempted murder after allegedly stabbing a Ventura man after a New Year’s Eve party near Saticoy, CA.

The victim was identified as Jeff Hawley, 41, of Ventura, and is currently listed by Ventura County Medical Center as being in stable condition.

The pair apparently had a verbal altercation in the parking lot of a neighborhood sports bar named DJ’s that escalated into a fight.... [full story]

Actor Brad Garrett, star of Fox’s "Til Death” and co-star of “Everyone Loves Raymond,” hit and pushed a photographer in mid-November in West Hollywood, resulting in a Sheriff’s investigation into possible battery charges.

The County’s District Attorney, after looking into the charges and viewing videotape of the incident, declined to press charges against the actor, who has had several run-ins with paparazzi over the years.

The incident occurred after Mr. Garrett and his date left Dan Tana’s restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard. As a group of paparazzi shot him and his date, Mr. Garrett asked them to stop, and not gaining compliance, ran over to one cameraman and struck him in the head/face, hitting his camera... [full story]

National Lampoon’s CEO was arrested earlier this month and charged with securities fraud for his alleged role in scheme to boost the West Hollywood firm’s stock price.

Known for its comedy films (beginning with “Animal House”), the company lost $1.7 last year.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) named Daniel S. Laikin, 46, as a perpetrator of fraud in a criminal case filed by the Justice Department in Philadelphia charging that he sought to boost the firm’s stock from below $2 to $5 per share... [full story]

Rick Warren, the influential pastor of Orange County’s Saddleback Mega Church, supporter of Prop 8 and the preacher invited to give President-elect Obama’s inaugural invocation, made what appeared to be a “politically-correct” appearance in West Hollywood last week in an effort to salve protesters’ concerns about that invitation.

TMZ reported that Rev. Warren, whose invitation to give the inaugural invocation has raised howls of protest from within the gay community, visited WeHo’s Out Of The Closet thrift store to shop for used books, buying two of his own... [full story]

Surprising nearly everyone, California Attorney General Jerry Brown, the man heading the institution charged with defending Proposition 8 (the amendment to the constitution that striped marriage rights from gays), called for the proposition’s invalidation.

He said that he opposed the law’s implementation because allowing it would take away from "people…the right to marry, an aspect of liberty that the Supreme Court has concluded is guaranteed by the California Constitution."

The Attorney General’s office mandate is to defend the law of the land, and while he expressed his intention to do so, his pronouncement sent shockwaves through the coalition that helped pass the amendment ... [full story]

The Beverly Center Mall, which directly abuts West Hollywood, terminated a controversial pet store’s lease rather than have to contend with regular protests at the merchant’s front door, activists announced last week.

According to Best Friends Animal Society spokes person Elizabeth Orck, their Puppy-Store-Free-LA campaign brought a lawsuit against the upscale mall when it denied them permission to protest in front of the store.

The settlement contained only one codicil – the protests' target, Pet Love, a pet boutique that sold sick and decrepit puppy mill animals for thousands of dollars a piece, would leave the mall forever.... [full story]

West Hollywood has long been a place for doctors who do plastic surgery or provide beauty treatments, after all, the city stands at the center of the entertainment industry, and appearances count.

Last week, however, one WeHo doctor, Dr. David Cary Hansen, operating the Skinsation clinic on the Sunset Strip, was arrested and indicted on charges of prescribing and injecting fake Botox into patients between 2003 and 2004.

Federal prosecutors allege that Dr. Hansen injected his patients with an experimental form of the toxin used to immobilize facial muscles and reduce wrinkling, one that he obtained in clearly marked bottles designed for non-human use and research purposes only.... [full story]

West Hollywood’s most famous private detective, Anthony Pellicano, received a 15 year sentence for illegally wiretapping scores of victims in a star-studded crime spree.

His client list read as a Hollywood A-list, with Sylvester Stallone, Chris Rock and Keith Carradine among his clients; he was found guilty on 78 counts of computer and wire fraud and wiretapping.

The judge, U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer, called the self-proclaimed PI to the stars’ actions reprehensible as she handed down a sentence that exceeded the probation department’s request by three times.... [full story]