Kayla Missman
[follow id=”kaymissman”]
The final day of the four of the five Cal Poly football players’ preliminary hearing ended with Judge Donald Umhofer deciding there was enough evidence to hold a trial in the case.
Arraignment is set for Feb. 9 at 8:30 a.m.
Cortland Fort, Jake Brito, Kristaan Ivory and Dominique Love were present, but Cameron Akins was not.
Along with the arraignment date, Umhofer issued several other decisions.
Umhofer said there was sufficient evidence that there was a conspiracy — a discussion and agreement that the five would go to the fraternity house and commit the robbery. Fort, Brito, Ivory and Love were intended as “muscle” for Akins, he said.
All were held to answer on count one, conspiracy to commit robbery, conspiracy to commit burglary and conspiracy to commit grand theft.
Brito and Ivory will only be held for the first count, since defense of withdrawal was sufficiently shown, meaning that there was no evidence that the two supported or contributed to the crimes. Umhofer also said there was insufficient evidence to prove that Brito and Ivory aided and abetted the crimes.
Fort, Love and Akins were held to answer on counts two through nine — series of attempted residential robberies, attempted residential burglaries, and false imprisonment — with arming enhancements.
Fort knew the plan and served as the “getaway driver,” according to the judge. Umhofer said if Fort did withdraw from the plan, he didn’t tell anyone; therefore, he is liable for the target crimes.
The judge said Love was in on the entire plan and is liable for all crimes that happened. Akins, the only charged defendant, was held to answer on counts 10, 11 and 12, a series of resisting an executive officer.
Umhofer also denied the request to reduce the charges to misdemeanors.
I am begging, on my hands and knees, for some actual journalism. This is the worst, most pitiful excuse for a newspaper I have seen in my entire life.
Hi there,
It seems like you have some strong opinions about our news organization. We’re always looking for feedback, so if you’d like to talk about ways we can improve, I’d love to talk outside of the comments section of our website. Send me an email at editor@mustangnews.net. I’m happy to talk.
Best,
Jacob
Editor-in-chief
Mustang News
Mustang News would more likely be confused with a roll of toilet paper than a “news organization.”
You aren’t looking for feedback really, you’re just looking for pageviews and attention for spreading your organization’s agenda. Journalism is a downright dirty profession that profits on tainting and defaming people. Of course this is NOT applicable to all news organizations, but the MN, especially in the past 2 years, have really gone downhill. You guys can say all you want but there clear are biases in your articles, especially against greek organizations, and it is clear with the number of anti-greek articles there are vs articles that shed a positive light on these same organizations.
I dont think you guys fully understand the damage you can cause by publishing an organizations name or you guys simply dont care or have over the years, justified it as “journalism”. When you guys publish someone’s name, organization, or other details along those lines in relation to an accusation of a crime, you write in a manner that places that person or organization in a negative light. Its understandable that you need to report the “news” (this really isn’t the news though, there are much MORE important things going on in our community and in the world that people should know about, but that’s a different discussion) but why disclose so much sensitive information when nothing has been proven yet? People are not guilty until proven innocent in this country, but to me and MANY others, it seems like you guys believe otherwise. I know of some members of the greek organization that were accused of wrongdoing last year that you guys covered in the MN, but were never found to be guilty of anything. No damage done right? Wrong. If you google their names, they will forever be tied to whatever crime you guys decided to tie them up with, and that is enough to scare away potential employers and such, all because you guys want pageviews and attention towards your news program.
Poor journalism isn’t something new in our world today, but it is sickening to see that at my own school, it is practiced as well. So many people are blinded by the garbage that is televised on FOX, MSNBC, CNN, ETC and I was hoping our generation would move towards a better goal of informing people with REAL news, and not dirty journalism.
I advise you guys to reevaluate your direction that you want to take your news organization, and put yourselves in the shoes of the people you are writing about.
Well said. This organization, its writers, and its editor, Jacob, are sick, perverted gossip queens.
“People are not guilty until proven innocent in this country, but to me and MANY others, it seems like you guys believe otherwise.”
Why thank you.
As I said, we definitely like feedback from our readers, so I appreciate you taking the time to provide it here.
If you’d like, send me a letter to the editor at editor@mustangnews.net. You seem to have a lot to say, and a letter to the editor is a great platform to get your opinions across outside of the anonymous comments section of our website.
I’d love to hear what other “MORE important things” you’d like to see covered by Mustang News.
Best,
Jacob
here is a list off the top of my head:
1. how the ever growing population in SLO is affecting the community (lots of different avenues you can write about).
2. world issues that matter which affect us in the short term and long term (we are all adults, these topics actually matter to us and we should actively be aware)
3. current events (no article on MLK? with all the complaining race issues at cal poly, i thought id at least see this)
4. the effect on how not paying college athletes can propagate crime (great to write about especially under the circumstances of our football team)
5. how cal poly is one of the few schools in the nation that runs their own dining program to strictly profit off their students (not entirely sure if this is true, but I’ve heard from multiple people that it is, and I can certainly believe it based off of the quality of the food, the price, and the experiences ive heard from people who have worked for campus dining)
6. how cheating is widespread and how our educational system is broken (there is really no denying this one)
7. positive things greek life does. have interviews with fraternity and sorority members discussing the benefits or negatives being apart of greek organizations. Did you know PIKE donated thousands of dollars last year towards breast cancer awareness? or that Phi Sigma Kappa sponsors special olympians? or that Alpha Phi donates thousands towards cardiac issues? how about lambda chi alpha, who donates all their philanthropic proceeds to the north american food drive? I’m sure you guys have heard of at least some of these events, but why not commend your fellow students for improving the lives of the needy? These organizations help out so many people each year, yet you guys primarily focus on the negatives, on the select few that make mistakes. Just based on social media (yik yak, fade, etc), you can tell there’s a large presence of non-greek members who carry an irrational hate for members of these organizations. in my opinion, these types of people are the worst (racism is pretty much irrational hate, ya know?), and you guys are part of the reason that fuels their hate (by focusing primarily on negatives, skewing public opinion, way to go!!)
i literally came up with these ideas in less than 5 minutes. is it that hard for you guys to do so as well? im not saying that you should write about these topics, but please reevaluate the areas that you’ve received the most backlash, and improve upon that.
The MN is in a great position to influence, and unfortunately you guys have a lot of power with that. This school has 20,000 students that you appeal to, and I’m sure many of the residents of SLO have read some of the articles as well. Please do all cal poly students a favor, and do yourself a favor (career wise if you plan to go into journalism) and start writing about stuff that matters.
I can imagine a rat, or another small rodent, typing vigorously to produce this written sack with a Jewish journalism professor drooling unforgivingly over it.