Two men accused of committing crimes in the Santa Clarita Valley returned to court last week, receiving future dates to appear before a judge once again.
David Figueroa
A Pacoima man accused of killing his friend he met while both were in rehab together returned to court on Friday.
David Alonso Figueroa, 40, appeared in San Fernando Superior Court and was told to return Sept. 21 for a pretrial conference.
During a pretrial conference, the involved parties establish timelines for concluding all pretrial activities, such as setting a tentative trial date, encouraging the settlement of cases, counsel trying to agree on undisputed facts or points of law, and more.
On July 30, 2018, detectives with the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s Homicide Bureau began investigating the stabbing death of 29-year-old Brent Hariston, of Canyon Country.
Hariston and Figueroa, according to the late Homicide Detective John Corina, met in rehab.
The two men, according to Corina, were scheduled to meet up that morning and head to work together. An argument then is believed to have broken out between the two, and that’s when detectives believe Figueroa pulled out a knife and stabbed Hariston multiple times.
Jose Trejo
A former SCV stringer and breaking news reporter accused of making false emergency reports to first responders returned to court on Friday.
Jose Trejo, 19, was arrested earlier this year in connection to repeated anonymous calls reporting false emergencies to a number of government agencies.
A few days after his initial arrest, he was formally arraigned and entered a not guilty plea to eight separate misdemeanor counts of falsely reporting an emergency.
He is set to return to court once again on Oct. 21 for a pretrial hearing. A pretrial hearing involves the judge, prosecution and defense convening in order to present evidence, documents and/or any other relevant materials/matters before the trial begins.
According to investigators, the case against Trejo was opened when the Fire Department, as well as other first responder agencies, said they had repeatedly received calls from an untraceable backline that alleged everything from fires, to traffic collisions, to serious injuries.
