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The mastermind leading seven people to submit more than 400 false California Employment Development Department claims, collecting millions for luxury vehicles and jewelry, carried out his plan while locked up in Tehachapi's California Correctional Institution by tracking everything on hard-copy ledgers, according to federal prosecutors.

Telvin Breaux, 31, pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of aggravated identity theft and a single count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud. The EDD could have distributed nearly $25 million of taxpayer's money if each of the 400 claims were approved, a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Eastern District said, but only $5.4 million was handed out of which some wasn't distributed to the defendants.

"Breaux collected the identities used for the fraudulent claims, managed the submission of the claims and controlled the distribution of the proceeds," according to his plea agreement.

Bakersfield defense attorney Alekxia Torres Stallings, representing Breaux, wrote in an email her office negotiated a reasonable disposition. But there still remains work to do — she plans to highlight his mitigating factors at the sentencing hearing.

Sentencing is scheduled for March 18.

Torres Stallings added Breaux's case was legally complex with thousands of pages detailing prosecutors' evidence.

Breaux and the co-defendants obtained personal identifying information for inmates, civilians and their own children, a news release said. It added the civilians were patients at hospitals, dentists' offices or happened to enter into a business where a co-defendant worked.

The personal information was used to submit fraudulent unemployment insurance claims online to the EDD and falsely stated that these applicants were unemployed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, prosecutors said.

Another local inmate, Daryol Richmond, 32, also took part in this scheme. The Kern Valley State Prison inmate was sentenced to at least five years in federal prison in December.

Breaux pulled everyone's strings by speaking with them on contraband cell phones, the news release claimed.

Co-defendants Fantasia Brown and Shanice White reportedly collected the money, per Breaux's instructions. White reportedly told him that she needed a cash counting machine because her hands hurt so much from counting money, the news release stated.

The money also went toward rent, a Mercedes and other vehicles, trips to Las Vegas and other places, high-end furniture and tuition, the news release stated.

Another co-defendant, Holly White, is accused of creating email addresses in the name of hospital patients for the fake claims. Holly received this information from Breaux, who got the identities from another co-defendant's friend who worked at a hospital.

Holly is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 16.

Cecelia Allen, 35, of Downey, Tonisha Brown, 30, of Los Angeles, and Fantesia Davis, 34, of Victorville have also been accused in this ring.

It’s official — special event applications for three holiday events downtown were approved by the Tehachapi City Council during its meeting Nov. 6.

Tehachapi’s Hometown Christmas, an event that debuted last year, will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 2.

Mya Acosta, community engagement specialist with the city, said the festival will kick off the holiday spirit in downtown Tehachapi and coordinates with other events to help keep residents and visitors in town for an entire day of Christmas activities. She said it will also provide an opportunity for children and families to purchase handcrafted gifts from local vendors. The event will be held in and around Centennial Plaza on Green Street.

Tehachapi’s Christmas Parade, sponsored by the Greater Tehachapi Chamber of Commerce, will begin at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 2, just as the Hometown Christmas event wraps up. The parade will run down F Street from Mulberry Street east to Hayes Street. The street will be closed that day from 4 to 7 p.m. The 4-H Club will assist the chamber by cleaning up after horses in the parade.

The final downtown event for Dec. 2 was also approved — lighting the community Christmas Tree next to the Tehachapi Depot Railroad Museum at 6:30 p.m. Tehachapi Boulevard from Curry Street east to Robinson Street will be closed during the event.

Patriotism will be celebrated in Tehachapi with a number of events this week.

The planned Veterans Day Parade was canceled due to lack of participation, the Tehachapi Valley Recreation and Park District reported on Thursday, but the traditional ceremony at Philip Marx Central Park on Saturday, Nov. 11, will still be held. Several other activities in and around Tehachapi will also see flags flying and people out to support not just veterans but also active military.

A special event at 2 p.m. on Veterans Day will honor Gilbert Mitchell, a Navy pilot from Tehachapi who went missing while flying a mission during the Vietnam War.

Local events and activities include:

• 14th Annual Veterans Day Assembly at Tehachapi High School, 801 Dennison Road, at 11 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 9. All veterans and active military are invited to join high school students in honoring local men and women who served — or are serving in the military. Guests are asked to wear uniforms if possible and assemble in front of the school between 10 and 11 a.m. They will then be escorted to the gym for the assembly.

• On Nov. 9, a slice of United States Marine Corps Birthday Cake will be offered free to all Marines past and present at Red House BBQ, 426 E. Tehachapi Blvd.

• Free Veterans Day dinner for veterans and first responders at Tehachapi Mountain VFW Post, 221 W. Tehachapi Blvd. Guinness stew with mashed spuds and a red, white and blue dessert will be served.

• R.E.D. Friday event (Remember Everyone Deployed) begins at 4 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 10, at the Tehachapi Mountain VFW Post, 221 W. Tehachapi Blvd. The event is sponsored by the Post, 5150 Dieselz and Four Seasons Blue Star Mothers of Greater Tehachapi. Vendor booths with SWAG items for purchase open at 4 p.m. The opening ceremony will take place at 5 p.m., followed by the cornhole tournament. At 9:11 p.m. there will be closing words. The event also includes a 50-50 fundraiser and drawings for baskets with all proceeds going to Wreaths Across America. Food will be available from Claudis’a Catering starting at 6 p.m.

• A free traditional military breakfast will be offered to all veterans from 7 to 11 a.m. on Nov. 11 at Red House BBQ. Owner Mano Lujan said the free breakfast has been provided by the restaurant for the last 12 years. This year, traditional SOS will be served along with scrambled eggs and orange juice. “Sorry, Air Force, no Crab Cake Eggs Benedict,” Lujan joked. Non-veterans can have the breakfast for $5. Lujan said the proceeds will be donated to the Four Seasons Blue Star Mothers of Greater Tehachapi.

• The traditional ceremony honoring veterans begins at 11 a.m. at Central Park. Participating organizations include Dieselz 5150 (crazy proud patriotic), Tehachapi Mountain VFW Post 5948, Four Seasons Blue Stars Mothers of Greater Tehachapi, American Legion Post 221, American Legion Auxiliary Unit 221, American Legion Riders Chapter 221 of Tehachapi, Sons of the American Legion and California Hot Dogs for Heroes.

• Veterans Resource Fair, after the ceremony and continuing until 2 p.m. at the park. Military-related booths, kids bootcamp obstacle course and grenade toss with official dog tab for kids who participate. Free donuts from Carlos Donuts for veterans at the Wreaths Across America booth. Hot dogs from California Hot Dogs for Heroes will be available for purchase and free to veterans and active military (while supplies last).

• The Bear Valley Springs Veterans Association will hold an event at 2 p.m. on Nov. 11 at the Veterans Memorial at Cub Lake.

• At 2 p.m. on Nov. 11, Tehachapi American Legion Post 221 will dedicate a bench in honor of Gilbert Mitchell, a Tehachapi man who was classified as MIA on March 6, 1968, when the Navy A6A Intruder fighter-bomber on which he served as navigator-bomber went down in the Haiphong Harbor area of North Vietnam. He was 26 years old. The bench will be located at 125 E. F St. in front of the American Legion building.

• From noon to 2 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 12, Grace Fellowship of Tehachapi invites all local veterans and their families to a free barbecue. The event will be held at the church building, 326 E. Tehachapi Blvd.

Once again, the iconic cement plant at Monolith has been reported sold. The plant is located east of the city of Tehachapi.

In a brief news release Thursday, Martin Marietta Materials Inc., owner since 2021, said it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell the cement plant for $317 million in cash.

The new owner will be a Peruvian firm, UNACEM Corp. SAA. According to the news release, the transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2023, subject to regulatory approvals and “other customary closing considerations.”

UNACEM would become the sixth owner of the plant since its construction by the city of Los Angeles more than 115 years ago. The city built the plant to provide concrete for an aqueduct to carry water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles.

About a year ago, Martin Marietta announced the sale of the plant to CalPortland, a company that operates a cement plant west of Mojave and only about 15 miles southeast of the Tehachapi plant.

That deal, including the plant and related distribution terminals, was for $350 million in cash. CalPortland Co., headquartered in Jurupa, is a subsidiary of Taiheiyo Cement, a Japanese firm.

In late April, the Federal Trade Commission put a halt to that deal.

Because the sale to CalPortland would have reduced the number of cement suppliers in Southern California from five to four, a spokesperson for the FTC said it was “presumptively illegal.”

Martin Marietta reportedly purchased the plant and other assets of Lehigh Hanson Inc.’s West Region business for $2.3 billion in cash. The sale required regulatory approval and was finalized on Oct. 1, 2021.

Lehigh and its affiliated companies are part of HeidelbergCement Group, one of the largest building materials manufacturers in the world. Lehigh purchased the plant in 1995.

Very soon after closing its transaction with Lehigh, Martin Marietta sold off some of the assets in that deal, including a cement plant in Redding that CalPortland bought in a transaction separate from the attempted acquisition of the Tehachapi plant.

In financials released by Martin Marietta on July 27, it noted that cement gross profit increased 84% to an all-time quarterly record of $93.3 million. However, the Tehachapi plant operation was apparently not included in those financials.

“During the second quarter, the company completed the divestiture of our Stockton, California cement import terminal and terminated the agreement with CalPortland Company regarding the sale of the Tehachapi, California cement plant in light of being unable to timely obtain the necessary approval by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission,” the report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission stated.

“The Company is actively exploring the potential sale of Tehachapi to other interested parties. The Tehachapi cement business is classified within assets held for sale on the Company’s consolidated balance sheet and the associated financial results continue to be reported as discontinued operations on the consolidated statement of earnings,” the report noted.

What is not clear is whether the deal in progress will include thousands of acres of land adjacent to the plant or considerable water rights in the Tehachapi Basin.

Most of the water rights were acquired during the adjudication of the basin by Kern County Superior Court in the early 1970s. The adjudication was the result of a lawsuit filed by the Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District, formed in 1965.

According to an annual report filed with the court by the water district earlier this year, a legal entity known as Lehigh Southwest Cement Co. owned 1,744 acre-feet of base water rights in the Tehachapi Basin, which amounts to nearly 22% of water rights. Kern County Assessor’s Office records show property transfers in late 2021 from Lehigh Southwest Cement Co. to Lehigh Cement West Inc.

Martin Marietta has not previously responded to requests for information about the water rights.

Adjudication of the Tehachapi Basin granted water rights to property owners based upon prior use. In the amended judgment (March 1971), Monolith Portland Cement Co. was granted 1,487 acre-feet of water rights. Another entity — named trustees of the S.H. Cowell Foundation — was granted 340 acre-feet and later transferred those rights to Monolith. The rights appear to have carried down through the years and different owners of the cement company, although 75 acre-feet was transferred to Zond and a total of 8 acre-feet to White Oak Knolls and West Tehachapi Mutual Water Co. Some water rights have been leased in some years.

According to its website, the S.H. Cowell Foundation was established in 1956 through a bequest from Samuel Henry Cowell (1861-1955). His father, Henry Cowell, migrated from Massachusetts to California during the gold rush and made a sizable fortune in the building materials, drayage and storage industries. S.H. Cowell continued and expanded the family business to include a significant real estate portfolio throughout Northern California—more than 80,000 acres of land in all.

The elder Cowell’s interests included mining lime for cement production and the foundation’s Tehachapi water rights were apparently related to his ownership of land in the area at one time.

About 56 years after it opened, Facility D at the California Correctional Institution is slated to close by the end of the month.

Also known to many as CCI’s “medium facility,” the Level II facility is the second of five facilities at the state prison in the Cummings Valley to close since September 2021 as part of the state’s adjustment to lower prison populations.

Alia Cruz, a spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said Friday that the department is continuing with the plan it announced last December to close one prison, cease operating a leased facility as a state prison and deactivate some facilities within six prisons.

“The deactivations were included in Governor Gavin Newsom’s 2022-23 budget with an eye toward fiscal responsibility,” Cruz said, noting that the deactivation of CCI’s Facility D is among planned deactivations. “This facility is on track to complete closing activities by June 30,” she said.

In addition to closing Chuckawalla Valley State Prison — one of two state prisons in Blythe — by March 2025, the state intends not to renew its lease of the California City Correctional Facility when it ends in March 2024. And in addition to Facility D at CCI, partial deactivations are planned for the Folsom Women’s Facility, Facility C at Pelican Bay State Prison, the West Facility at the California Men’s Colony, Facility A at the California Rehabilitation Center and Facility D at the California Institution for Men.

Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy was closed in September 2021. The California Correctional Center — one of two prisons at Susanville — was set to close in April 2021, but the closure was held up by litigation. Closure planning was reinitiated with complete closure by the end of this month, according to the CDCR website.

CCI had a total incarcerated population of 1,743 people on June 7, Cruz said. Broken down by facility, the population was: CCI Central Service, 5; Facility A, 427; Facility B, 469; Facility C, 600; and Facility D, 242. Facilities A, B and C are higher security facilities built in the mid-1980s and are not currently planned for deactivation.

In January 2019 — the earliest date for which population figures are available online — CDCR’s institutions held 113,861 inmates, with an additional 3,369 inmates housed at conservation camps — for a total of 117,236.

As of June 7, the population at institutions was 94,206, with 1,694 inmates housed at camps — for a total of 95,720.

In January 2019, the total incarcerated population at CCI was 4,059 — compared to 1,743 on June 7. The population was likely even higher when the state’s prison population peaked in 2006, with about 165,000 people incarcerated.

The California Department of Finance reports that CCI was authorized 1,496.5 positions in the current state budget — an increase from 1,352 the prior year. The exact number of positions for the new fiscal year will be determined sometime after the Legislature and governor come to terms on a new budget.

Prisons employ a range of professions, but the largest number of jobs are custody classifications — ranging from correctional officer to warden.

Cruz said that as of June 5, there were 934.5 authorized custody positions at CCI and 795 were filled. The current number of vacancies will help offset disruption to staff when the deactivation of Facility D is complete.

Data she provided shows that as of June 5, there were 120 correctional officer vacancies, 13.6 correctional sergeant vacancies and four correctional lieutenant vacancies. Other vacant custody positions included one associate warden position and one correctional captain position.

There were no vacancies in the correctional counselor series, with all 31 positions of various levels filled by staff.

Cruz said the department is working diligently to limit the impact of facility closures on staff. She said efforts include connecting impacted staff with an available position elsewhere in the institution, providing options to transfer both within and outside of impacted counties and identification of employees for redirection to neighboring prisons where there are existing vacancies.

Facility D was part of a $9 million expansion project at the prison located about 10 miles east of the city of Tehachapi in the mid-1960s. The groundbreaking for the project — which included some work to improve the original minimum custody facility — was on Feb. 26, 1965. A strike by a labor union slowed construction. The facility opened in 1967.

According to an article published by The Bakersfield Californian in August 1965, the new facility was planned for about 640 inmates between the ages of 20 and 30. With renovations at the adjacent minimum security facility, the total population of the two facilities was expected to be about 1,490.

The oldest part of CCI was built in the 1930s to house female prisoners and rehabilitated to house males following the 1952 earthquake. It closed in 2021.

Constructed with open dormitory living units set in a guarded perimeter, when it was built, Facility D’s program provided community living treatment with educational facilities, including academic instruction and vocational training.

Claudia Elliott is a freelance journalist and former editor of the Tehachapi News. She lives in Tehachapi and can be reached by email: claudia@claudiaelliott.net.

It’s official — special event applications for three holiday events downtown were approved by the Tehachapi City Council during its meeting Nov. 6.

Tehachapi’s Hometown Christmas, an event that debuted last year, will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 2.

Mya Acosta, community engagement specialist with the city, said the festival will kick off the holiday spirit in downtown Tehachapi and coordinates with other events to help keep residents and visitors in town for an entire day of Christmas activities. She said it will also provide an opportunity for children and families to purchase handcrafted gifts from local vendors. The event will be held in and around Centennial Plaza on Green Street.

Tehachapi’s Christmas Parade, sponsored by the Greater Tehachapi Chamber of Commerce, will begin at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 2, just as the Hometown Christmas event wraps up. The parade will run down F Street from Mulberry Street east to Hayes Street. The street will be closed that day from 4 to 7 p.m. The 4-H Club will assist the chamber by cleaning up after horses in the parade.

The final downtown event for Dec. 2 was also approved — lighting the community Christmas Tree next to the Tehachapi Depot Railroad Museum at 6:30 p.m. Tehachapi Boulevard from Curry Street east to Robinson Street will be closed during the event.

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --

To celebrate National Engineering Week, the United States Air Force Test Pilot School based at Edwards Air Force Base went to Tehachapi, California to fly mountain gliders as part of their Space Test Course. This course involved using the gliders to simulate space shuttle approaches in the mountains while using real time flight test engineering skills to complete the glider flights.

"We are up at the Skylark North Gilder School in Tehachapi," Jessica Peterson, Technical Director, 412th Operations Group explained. We are doing an event for the Space Test Course which is one of the schools at Test Pilot School. This is an event where the students get to make a test plan, learn about a system, create some test cards, figure out the safety risks and then they can go out and fly this event on the gliders."

These student flight test engineers plan, schedule and execute flight test mission requirements by developing test plans and flight test cards as part of the Space Test Course. The mission of the Space Test Course is to produce adaptive, critical-thinking test professionals to conduct full-spectrum test and evaluation of space-domain systems. The curriculum is designed to provide students with tailored education covering test planning, test execution, analysis and reporting.

"With these gliders, we will be simulating a space shuttle approach," Peterson said. "The gliders actually come in really steep. The students have to collect data and after they get the data, they have to analyze it and write a report. So, this event is one of the first events that the Space Test Course students do for planning, executing and performing test."

The USAF Test Pilot School (TPS) chose Tehachapi and Skylark North Glider School as the location for the Space Test Course because the mountains of Tehachapi provide the perfect upward lift for the course to keep the gliders afloat.

"Space test is tricky," 1st Lt. Adam Ward, Student, USAF Test Pilot School explained. "You don't get many tries to do it in actual operations. So, that is one of the challenges that is being overcome by this Space Test Course. That's why programs like this are so important because we are training a bunch of individuals who are going to be true test professionals and we are going to mitigate the risk with testing space assets."

The instructors of the course also believe this is a cost effective way to get the students in the air who have never flown before.

"It's a bit of a novelty," Rusty Lowry, Instructor, USAF Test Pilot School explained. "What it does is that it adds a time element. So now you have to collect data. You're not sitting at a desk all day getting this information. You are actually sitting in front of the aircraft, trading altitude for airspeed all the way down. You have the clock ticking while you are trying to calculate air speed, pressure, wind direction, temperatures for the most proficient flight."

Lowry also says gliding is the perfect way to get a student to learn the basics of flight test.

"You have to coordinate all of your turns properly. There is no computer to do it for you. There is no engineer designed in the system. It gets you back to basics and you can apply those same skills to flying almost anything and be a little better," Lowry explained.

"Its better than a paper exercise or a simulator on the computer," Peterson said. "It is a real thing they are experiencing where the plan really matters."

TPS is currently accepting applications for individuals to attend the Space Test Course. This is an approximately 12-month hands-on program to educate personnel in space domain test and evaluation as part of the USSF effort to increase the trained cadre of T&E professionals. For more information, visit the USAF Test Pilot School website.