Crime

The Gilroy Police Department recently made arrests for a variety of crimes, including sex crimes against a minor, burglary, possession of a controlled substance for sale and inflicting bodily injury on a child. All arrests were recorded in the GPD blotter between Oct. 29 and Nov. 6. All suspects remain innocent until proven guilty, and an appearance in the arrest log does not signify guilt for the listed crime/s.

A press release from the Gilroy Police Department Thursday confirmed that both runaway juveniles—including 15-year-old Inoa Ulukou—have been located and were returned home safely.

Gilroy police discovered more than 550 marijuana plants inside a 5,000-square-foot warehouse on Monterey Street last week—valued at roughly $1 million, according to police.

A Gilroy man was struck by a vehicle while he was walking across U.S. 101 in south San Jose Oct. 26, according to police.

An Oct. 7 collision in Gilroy turned fatal after the driver of a motorcycle that smashed into another vehicle succumbed to his injuries last week, according to a press release from the Gilroy Police Department issued Thursday.

A barn east of Gilroy containing hundreds of wooden pallets caught fire early Wednesday morning, causing a section of road to be closed as firefighters batted back the flames. The fire, at a ranch on the 2700 block of Ferguson Road, was reported at approximately 4:30 a.m.

Authorities added another victim to the criminal complaint against Paradise Valley Elementary School teacher John Loyd, 52 of Hollister, and a judge denied the suspected child molester’s request to reduce bail at an Oct. 20 hearing. Loyd remains in custody at Santa Clara County Jail with no bail, on charges that he sexually assaulted three female victims. At least one of the children was a student at Paradise Valley who was assaulted by Loyd in his fifth-grade classroom, according to authorities.Investigators have declined to release any further information about the other two victims.Loyd pleaded not guilty to a total of five charges at the Oct. 20 hearing at South County Courthouse, where Superior Court Judge Alfonso Fernandez heard and denied his request to reduce bail. With the latest charge added to the list of allegations against Loyd Oct. 20, he now faces five counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. Each charge carries a penalty of 15 years to life in prison. Loyd was arrested by Morgan Hill police Oct. 2, after a student at Paradise Valley reported to another staff member that the teacher made inappropriate contact with her. The ongoing investigation has found that Loyd made similar contact with two other students, according to authorities. Loyd has been a teacher at MHUSD since 2000. He has taught at Paradise Valley Elementary School since 2008.The Morgan Hill Unified School District placed Loyd on administrative leave immediately after his arrest, according to MHUSD staff. As of his first court appearance Oct. 7, that leave has been unpaid. Loyd’s next hearing is scheduled for Nov. 13 to set a preliminary hearing date.

A federal investigation resulted in the arrest and conviction of a Morgan Hill man who supplied highly pure methamphetamine to western Arkansas drug dealers, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. A total of three suspects were sentenced Oct. 17 on a variety of convictions on drug trafficking and related charges, according to Conner Eldridge, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas. Javier Lopez-Canseco, 22 of Morgan Hill, was sentenced to 108 months in prison and three years supervised release for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s office. Also sentenced were two Arkansas residents—Luis Garcia-Duenas, 33 of Springdale, to 151 months in prison for distribution of methamphetamine; and Victor Herrera-Perez, 31 of Fayetteville, to 46 months in prison for distribution of methamphetamine. U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks presided over the sentencing hearing in federal court in Fayetteville, Ark.All three suspects pleaded guilty to the charges Feb. 18, according to authorities. The arrests followed several months of undercover investigation by federal agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration. “With the investigation, arrest, and now sentencing of these three individuals, another drug trafficking organization has been put out of business in the Western District of Arkansas,” Eldridge said. “Other crimes, sometimes violent, often accompany this type of illegal activity, and prosecuting those involved remains a top priority of this office.”Federal agents arranged a series of “monitored controlled purchases” of methamphetamine from Herrera-Perez and Garcia-Duenas over the summer of 2013, according to the press release. Through this repeated contact with the drug dealers, agents were eventually connected to Lopez-Canseco, who they suspected was the source of supply for the drugs they had been purchasing. On Sept. 19, 2013, agents arranged a purchase of a “large quantity” of methamphetamine from Garcia-Duenas, the press release said. The two parties agreed the dealer would be paid $20,000 in cash at a future date. Several conversations followed over the next few days regarding the drug debt, which led to telephone contact with Lopez-Canseco, authorities said. Lopez-Canseco told the undercover buyer that the $20,000 debt should be paid directly to him. The suspect agreed to a meeting at a business in Springdale, Ark., describing the vehicle he would be in, the press release said. When Lopez-Canseco arrived to the meeting, agents contacted him and took possession of his cell phone, which investigators determined was the same device he used to set up the meeting, authorities said. The suspected substance was sent to the crime lab, where it registered as 551 grams of 98.7-percent pure methamphetamine, according to the press release.