Samuel Holquin, who is also known as Samuel Holguin, was sentenced to three months in prison and three months supervised release. A court order signed by Senior U.S. District Judge Edward Chen says that Holquin has until April 8 to report to the Bureau of Prisons and start his sentence.

Holquin was charged in late 2022 with witness retaliation against Joseph Hardisty, a former member of the Richmond Hells Angels who testified for the government after several members allegedly assaulted him after he announced he was leaving the club.

Holquin allegedly texted menacing things to Hardisty and told another person, “I might as well drive out there and get all three of them (expletive) pieces of (expletive),” apparently referring to Hardisty and two other witnesses. Of his conversation with Hardisty, he allegedly wrote in a text message, “I had to let (Hardisty) know that I found him and know everything about him and his family,” according to a prosecution sentencing memo.

Defense attorneys representing Holquin said in court filings that he has learned his lesson. They also pushed back against prosecutors labeling Holquin a Hells Angels “associate,” writing that he was friends with a few members but not affiliated with the motorcycle club in any way.

“Mr. Holguin has learned a lesson from this conviction – the only time in his life he has been convicted of a crime. The lesson is that his focus must be on his family and on complying with the law,” his lawyers wrote. “During the pendency of this case, Mr. Holguin has demonstrated how thoroughly he has learned that lesson, performing flawlessly on supervision while serving as an in-home caretaker for his ailing father and grandmother.”

Hardisty’s testimony has resulted in four murder convictions over the death of a Hells Angels member named Joel Silva, and probably contributed to several others accepting plea deals.

Hardisty, a former friend of Silva, testified that the Hells Angels plotted to murder Silva due to his increasingly erratic behavior, culminating with him allegedly threatening a high-ranking club member during a motorcycle rally in New England. Silva was shot in the back of his head in the Hells Angels’ Fresno clubhouse and cremated illegally at a nearby funeral home, according to Hardisty’s testimony.

Chen also ordered Holquin to perform 40 hours of community service, stay away from Hardisty and not wear Hells Angels garb or associate with club members.

“There’s a high likelihood that people will be stranded if they try to drive up here from the Bay Area,” said Craig Shoemaker, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento, on Thursday afternoon. “It’s too late to even try. It’s a very dangerous, life-threatening situation that will be developing.”

At local stores in Lake Tahoe, people bought tire chains, snow blowers, shovels, flashlights, candles, battery-powered lanterns and telescoping roof rakes for pulling down accumulated snow on homes.

“Today most of the locals are saying, “There is something big going on,” and yesterday they were saying, “Are we really going to get 10 feet of snow?” said Brittney McClain, manager of Ace Hardware in South Lake Tahoe.

The National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for the Northern and Central Sierra continuing through 10 a.m. Saturday, the first such warning since Feb. 27 last year.

Meanwhile, the Sierra Avalanche Center in Truckee issued a backcountry avalanche watch in effect from 7 a.m. Friday to 5 p.m. Sunday for the Central Sierra, including the Lake Tahoe area, warning of “extremely dangerous” avalanche conditions.

Because of high winds and declining visibility, ski resorts were expected to close or severely limit operations this weekend.

Sierra-at-Tahoe closed Thursday and announced it also would be shuttered on Friday “to preserve the safety of our guests and employees.” Heavenly closed Thursday afternoon, and other resorts, such as Kirkwood and Palisades, had only a few chair lifts running Thursday, with most closed due to high winds.

Last winter, a series of massive atmospheric river storms dumped dozens of feet of snow on the Sierra Nevada, ending a three-year drought. The Sierra snowpack, which provides about 30% of California’s water supply, was at its deepest level in 40 years. Reservoirs around the state filled, and ski resorts stayed open well into the spring.

As a result, Tahoe locals, even newly arrived residents, have a lot of recent practice on how to prepare for blizzard conditions, McClain said. In some neighborhoods, people plan to dig out fire hydrants to stop them from being buried too deep in snow. In other areas, residents were tossing salt pellets on their roofs or plugging in electric roof cables to prevent huge amounts of snow and ice from building up.

Last March, the roof collapsed at the Raley’s supermarket in South Lake Tahoe under the weight of snow and ice.

“When you have too much snow on your roof, your doors and windows don’t open correctly. Eventually you can start having beams break down, and the roofs can collapse,” McClain said. “We had a huge mass of ice, 15 feet long and about 2 feet around, that formed on the roof of our house last winter. It was in front of our windows. If it had fallen, it could have broken through.”

On Thursday afternoon, Tricia Popky, a Carmel Valley nurse who has a cabin near Donner Lake, was in central Truckee buying winter gloves, firewood and kindling and a new firewood rack for the cabin. “I’m just going to be hunkering down,” Popky said. “I’m going to cook some soup. I’m so excited because I got my wood-burning stove working.”

The latest storm, a powerful cold front that is carrying an unusual amount of moisture, originated over the Bering Sea between Alaska and Russia.

The National Weather Service said it will only bring 1 or 2 inches of rain to most Bay Area communities. But the storm is forecast to dump 5 to 10 feet of snow in the Sierra above 5,000 feet and 1 to 4 feet of snow at about 3,000 feet. In some high-elevation spots, 12 feet is possible by Sunday.

“If what we’re seeing from the models ends up happening, this is a truly remarkable storm system,” said Andrew Schwartz, lead scientist at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab near Donner Summit. “It’s one that we very rarely have had before. It could set a highest snowfall on a single day for us.”

Since modern records began in 1970, the most snow the snow lab, which sits at about 6,900 feet, has ever received in one day was 53 inches, on Feb. 3, 1989.

An early inkling of the meteorological mayhem came Thursday morning when Interstate 80, the main highway over the Sierra, was closed eastbound for more than three hours after a big rig overturned near Donner Lake interchange, blocking both lanes of traffic, just as the snow was beginning to fall. The driver suffered minor injuries.

“It was pretty nasty for a while,” said John O’Connell, a Caltrans spokesman. “He was going too fast.”

Cars sat for miles all morning in stopped traffic or attempted to navigate backroads to get around it.

San Jose truck driver Erik Lopez, making a run from Stockton to Reno, was putting chains on his 18-wheeler near Kingvale on I-80 Thursday amid increasingly heavy snowfall after getting stuck in the lengthy jam. At the top of his mind was making sure he would return home to his family.

“There’s no fear in my heart,” said Lopez, 34. “But there’s safety in my heart.”

Farther east, Truckee resident Brent Martin was pulling into his garage after a sketchy trip from Sacramento in his pickup truck, traveling via backroads because of the I-80 crash. He planned to keep off highways until the storm has passed but was not expecting snow-related problems at home.

The blizzard would be “nothing compared to last year,” he predicted. “I’d shovel four feet off my deck twice a day last year.”

Martin urged non-residents to stay away this weekend.

“Tell everyone not to come up — all the Teslas and the Priuses, stay down in the Bay Area,” said Martin, 32. “That’s what causes a lot of the problems. Teslas are the new minivans — we hate ’em up here.”

The disruption Thursday wasn’t just limited to Tahoe and Donner Summit. Yosemite National Park officials said the park would be closed Friday and will not open until at least Sunday afternoon.

While a headache for motorists and first responders, the storm was a godsend to water managers. On Thursday, the statewide Sierra snowpack was 80% of its historical average, up from 28% on Jan. 1 after a wet February.

“When all is said and done, it is likely the Sierra snowpack will be significantly above average just about everywhere in as little as a week,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA.

“This storm will certainly bolster the Sierra snow pack, but it is going to cause a lot of disruption.”

Police said they arrested the man on suspicion of robbery, grand theft from a person and arson. He remained in custody in the county jail in Martinez early Thursday in lieu of $115,000 bail.

The gathering of protesters and counter-protesters happened Jan. 6; protestors opposed to the Israel attack on Gaza took over the intersection of San Pablo Avenue and Carlson Boulevard, while pro-Israeli protestors gathered on a nearby sidewalk. Police released photos of the suspect with his face covered and said they received help from the public in identifying him.

The first rain from a powerful winter storm moved into the Bay Area on Thursday morning.

A blizzard warning is in effect for the northern and central Sierra Nevada from 4 a.m. Thursday until 10 a.m. Sunday, with high winds and 3 to 8 feet of snow expected in the Tahoe area. Travel is not advised.

Updates on road closures and chain controls can be found on CalTrans’ website or mobile app or by calling (800) 427-7623.

Kenyetta Chapman, of Brentwood, was fatally shot at around 8:30 a.m. Jan. 21, inside a parked car on the 2400 block of East 24th Street in Oakland. A 19-year-old woman was also hospitalized with at least one gunshot wound, but survived, police said.

Chapman’s funeral was held in February at a Richmond church. His eulogy describes him as an ambitious family man known for his “sweetness, intelligence, caring nature, and striking handsomeness,” who worked two jobs to support his family, including two sons.

Police and Crime Stoppers of Oakland are offering up to $10,000 in reward money for information leading to the arrest of the killer. Anyone with information may call police at 510-238-3821 or 510-238-7950 or Crime Stoppers at 510-777-8572.

A gunshot detection alert sent Oakland police officers to the 4200 block of Bancroft Avenue in East Oakland just after 2 a.m. Police said they didn’t find anybody at the scene but that there was evidence of a shooting.

Later, they found out that somebody had driven the victim to Highland Hospital. He died there.

Police said he had two residences, one in Oakland and one in Stockton.

The homicide is the 12th of the year in Oakland and the first since Feb. 16. Through February last year, there had been 19 homicides.

Police do not have a motive nor did they identify any suspect. No arrest has been made.

Police and Crime Stoppers of Oakland are offering up to $10,000 for information leading to an arrest. To contact police, call 510-238-3821 or 510-238-7950. To reach Crime Stoppers, contact 510-777-8572.

The storm is expected to bring at least 1½ inches of rain to much of the Bay Area, and perhaps totals in excess of 2 inches in the North Bay and coastal ranges, according to the National Weather Service. The full onslaught for the first showers to reach the region was expected Thursday afternoon or evening.

“We’ve got the cold front knocking on the North Bay’s door,” meteorologist Dalton Behringer said Thursday afternoon. “It’s gonna come on in and then cover the whole region.”

Some rain fell early Thursday, but barely any of it was measurable by noon. Up to one-tenth of an inch fell in Marin County and areas of the Peninsula saw about five-hundredths of an inch.

But more was coming.

“After (the main band) goes through (Thursday), we will have scattered showers into Friday,” Behringer said. ” Then on Friday, we’re going to get another heavier push.”

Weather forecasters also expect at least 5 to 12 feet of snow to fall above 5,000 feet. Authorities urged anyone not already in the mountains not to go and said roads and highways are likely to be shut down.

A blizzard warning issued Tuesday for the Northern and Central Sierra Nevada went into effect at 4 a.m. Thursday and was set to last until 10 a.m. Sunday. The warning affects Lassen and Shasta counties, as well as Lake Tahoe to Tuolumne and Mono counties near Yosemite National Park.

PG&E in a statement said it was pre-staging crews and materials to tackle power outages that the storm may bring and that they are prepared to use helicopters, snowcats and vehicles with four-wheel drive to gain access to areas that need repair. Still, they said customers in remote areas “should prepare for extended outages given the unique circumstances of this storm.”

Early Thursday, widespread power outages affected the west San Jose and Campbell areas from south of Interstate 280  in the Meridian area over to south of I-280 at Bascom and south. Power also went out at one business corner of Hamilton Avenue and Bascom Avenue.

Power outages in Woodside, Redwood City and Campbell also had up to 500 customers in the dark in each of those stories, according to the utility.

The storms have been generated by a large low-pressure system that’s descending from the Gulf of Alaska and bringing cold air with it. Low temperatures are expected to dip daily until they go into the 30s in most places in the East Bay by Saturday night into Sunday morning.

Temperatures are expected to bottom out in the low 40s in San Jose.

The storm also is expected to bring wind gusts that could get as high as 40 mph. A high-surf advisory also is likely, according to the weather service.

Almost 6,000 Black workers from Tesla Inc.’s East Bay factory can sue the car maker collectively over claims that it failed to protect them from racism under a tentative ruling by a California judge.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Noël Wise said Wednesday the workers should be allowed to proceed with class-action status because Tesla’s alleged “pattern or practice” of failing to take reasonable steps to prevent discrimination was a common issue for all the Black workers at the Fremont plant.

The judge gave Tesla until Thursday to contest her ruling and scheduled a hearing for Friday for the parties to argue their positions.

Tesla initially responded to Vaughn’s suit with a blog post titled “Hotbed of Misinformation,” denying wrongdoing and saying the company had fired three people after probing alleged incidents.

Tesla representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday’s ruling.

The case is Vaughn v. Tesla, Inc., RG17882082, California Superior Court, Alameda County.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

1 WATCH : The ‘Dune’ we deserve

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2 PLAY: Magic mustard season

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Brix Factory Brewing has been in a stealth-opening phase this past week and will hold a grand opening this weekend (March 1-3) at 2431 Peralta St. in Oakland. Patrons will get to sample the strange but tasty brews of ex-Drake’s brewmaster John Gillooly, whose “Rube Goldberg mind” has elevated him into an “industry treasure and delight,” according to his frequent collaborators at Hen House Brewing. Also involved in the operation is Gillooly’s wife, Natasha, daughter Kira, Drake’s former brewery engineer Michael Boals and industry vet Eric Ortega.

Brix takes its name from the Brix measurement scale used in brewing, though the moniker also adequately reflects the rough, brick-and-concrete landscape of much of West Oakland, where unique businesses continue to pop up. The cult favorite June’s Pizza has obtained a beverage license for a spot next to the brewery, which right now only serves snacks. And Brix is a few blocks away from Ghost Town Brewing, a big-time medal winner at the Great American Beer Festival.

Lemon Theory
“A lower ABV Blonde ale featuring bright hop flavors reminiscent of an orange/lemon Creamsicle, held together with pleasantly toasty malt flavors driven by malted wheat from Admiral malts. Citric finish.”

Pop Art
“Pop Art is a hybrid ale with elements of fruited seltzer and blonde ale. The blackberry aromatics blend with the fruity ester profile generated by our house ale yeast.”

The Eye of Tasman
“Crisp pilsner hopped at all stages with resinous Superdelic hops bursting with dank Sativa, bright tropical fruits and aromatic calamansi zest.”

Details: Open 2 to 8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, noon to 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday (closed Tuesday-Wednesday) at 2431 Peralta St., Oakland; brixfactorybrewing.com.