The captain of a dive boat that caught fire in the Santa Barbara Channel in 2019, resulting in the deaths of 34 people, was sentenced to four years in federal prison on May 2. The Conception, a dive boat based out of Santa Barbara, caught fire in the early morning of Sept. 2, 2019, killing
Two men heavily involved with Simi Valley-based Airborne Wireless Network were indicted April 25 for allegedly conspiring to defraud investors in a multi-year scheme involving the acquisition and sale of the company. Kalistratos “Kelly” Kabilafkas, 48, of Moorpark, and Jack Edward Daniels, 74, of Agoura Hills, were both charged with one count of conspiracy and one
An oil well in the Sespe Oil Field. (courtesy photo) Two federal agencies have turned down a decade-old proposal to drill and frack eight new wells in the Sespe Oil Field in Los Padres National Forest north of Fillmore. Jeff Kuyper, executive director of environmental group Los Padres ForestWatch, hailed the denial of the project,
A Santa Barbara County real estate broker who pleaded no contest to embezzlement was sentenced April 18 to five years probation and 30 days in jail. Adam Pirozzi, 42, was also ordered to pay a $1.06 million fine and $1.27 million in victim restitution. Pirozzi owned Santa Barbara Property Management, a company responsible for managing various apartment
Annual reporting by Visit Lompoc LLC shows hundreds of thousands of dollars in unaccounted-for funds, according to a Santa Barbara County Grand Jury report. Released March 22, the report says that over the first five years of the current agreement between Visit Lompoc and the City of Lompoc, the cumulative value of those under-reported funds