Clients

Each year, Glendale's GAR Services works with Glendale Noon Kiwanis to prepare for the club's Oct. 15 Duck Splash in which participants sponsor ducks in the event and proceeds are donated to local charities that serve children and youth. To assist Glendale Noon Kiwanis prepare for the Duck Splash, adults with disabilities who are employed by Glendale's GAR Services remove tags fitted on the ducks. This year, clients at GAR Services removed tags from thousands of ducks in a single work day. Founded in 1954, GAR Services was first established to serve children with developmental disabilities by a Glendale couple named Phyllis and Jerry Campbell who had a child with Down's syndrome.

Several clients of Kinde Durkee, a prominent campaign treasurer  who was arrested Friday  on a federal fraud charge, have reported that they were contacted by the FBI or U.S. attorney's office about the criminal investigation. Durkee was arrested from the office of her business, Durkee & Associates, in Burbank on one charge of mail fraud and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Los Angeles. She had served as campaign treasurers on hundreds of political campaigns over the years, working for federal, state and local candidates.

While most businesses have seen their profits suffer from the downward economy, some Glendale fortunetellers have noticed a boost in their clientele. Psychic Doreen Lee, 28, has seen a 20% to 25% increase in the number of people who go to her seeking advice and details about their future. But she is unclear whether the boost is linked to the economy or people wanting advice for the new year. “More people have been coming in and asking about whether it is a good time to buy a house,” Lee said.

If you were going to see a doctor and you needed significant help ? for example, if he were to make an important diagnosis with respect to your health, or if he were to perform surgery on you ? wouldn?t you want to know if he had malpractice insurance? I sure would. Yet apparently my brethren attorneys are split on this issue as it applies to lawyers. This has been kicked around since 2005, when the State Bar of California began to debate the issue of whether attorneys who do not have malpractice insurance should be required to tell their clients.

About once a week, from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Jilbert Amirian, 38, heads over to the old Police Department garage on Isabel Street, straps on a pair of green rain boots and hoses down dirty police vehicles. “[I] love washing,” the Glendale resident said. Amirian is one of about 10 clients from the Glendale Assn. of the Retarded who scrub down the dirtiest vehicles at the Police Department. He and other fellow washers often fight over the opportunity to spray the car tires, job coach Diann Perttula said.

Carmen Pennica is developmentally disabled, but with help from the Glendale Assn. for the Retarded, he's been a working man most of his life. Pennica, who wears a shirt and tie, is one of 70 men and women who show up at the association center daily or part-time to do assembly jobs like packaging, mailings and newspaper recycling. For Pennica, who has been a client of the association since its 1954 inception, the nature of the work suits his skills. "I like to work with my hands," he said.

GLENDALE — A Glendale man was arrested Monday on suspicion of defrauding the IRS of more than $2 million by using the personal information of his social service clients to file bogus tax returns, officials said. Trang Van Dinh, 62, who had worked for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services, was arrested Monday at Los Angeles International Airport after returning from a trip to Vietnam, according to the U.S. district attorney's office. Prosecutors charged him with 22 counts of making false claims and identity theft after investigators discovered that he had stolen the Social Security numbers of 176 low-income clients to file tax returns, said Assistant U.S. Atty.

Janine Marnien GLENDALE -- The Verdugo Mental Health Center is holding its second annual Mental Health Fair Saturday at its main facility. The center holds the fair to allow its clients to network and to give them a chance at self-expression, staff member Lisa Raggio said. "We want our clients to feel empowered, and to be able to explore their own creative side," said Raggio, who works in development and philanthropy at the center. Clients of the center wrote and act in a theater piece that will be performed at the fair.

"Finding a creative way to thank past clients is always difficult," said Chuck Lamm, a real estate professional from Dilbeck Realtors GMAC Real Estate's La Crescenta office. But each year Chuck greets his clients at the openings of blockbuster movies or plays. Yes, each year Chuck plans four annual client appreciation parties. "When the planning begins, I try to find a special showing of a movie or play," he said. "I find something that will be extra special to my clients and their families."

Mark Geragos, a Glendale attorney who has represented Michael Jackson and numerous other high-profile clients, has penned a book with fellow criminal defense attorney Pat Harris that delves into the faults of the criminal justice system and gives an inside look at the headline-grabbing cases he's argued in court. Geragos - who is scheduled to discuss his book, "MISTRIAL: An Inside Look at How the Criminal Justice System Works…and Sometimes Doesn't" at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Glendale Central Library - said defendants are too often assumed guilty in the modern justice system.

A 49-year-old caregiver is facing theft charges for allegedly defrauding her 90-year-old client of more than $150,000. The caregiver, Ma Marquez, is charged with one felony count of theft from an elder by a caretaker and grand theft of personal property for stealing more than $150,000 from the client, Gloria Burke, between June 3, 2011, and April 20, according to a Los Angeles County Superior Court criminal complaint. A court hearing on Tuesday for Marquez, who already pleaded not guilty to the charges, was moved to Jan. 23. Marquez's attorney, Nathan Hoffman, said his client had power of attorney to care for Burke.

Elaine Popkin took off her shoes and poured herself a cup of hot coffee -- milky brown from all the cream -- after claiming a cot at Glendale's winter shelter earlier this week. “Let's put it this way -- it's home. For me, this is home,” said the 61-year-old dressed in a purple, fuzzy sweater pulled over her greasy hair. Popkin has spent winter after winter at the National Guard Armory on Colorado Boulevard and has seen the shelter change over the years. It once had 150 beds, but there were times when 200 people would seek refuge, some sleeping on the floor.

Call it a match made in Glendale. Ice Energy has moved into a new 25,000-square-foot facility in Glendale, a city whose utility has become one of the Colorado-based company's largest clients for systems that store energy for air conditioners overnight, when electricity is in less demand and cheaper. The facility, located in Glendale's industrial San Fernando Road corridor, is also centrally located to the firm's other top clients. “Glendale is kind of like the center of the map for us here in California,” said Mike Hopkins, executive vice president of Ice Energy.

A mental health agency that services clients throughout the Southland has experienced a deluge of clients in Glendale since opening here last summer, far outpacing its 10 other locations in Los Angeles and Orange counties. “We realized there was a need, because there is not a comparable agency providing mental health facilities for children and adults, but we had no idea how pent up the need was,” said Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services President Kita Curry. Since opening in May 2011, the nonprofit has seen about 50% more people in Glendale than Didi Hirsch's next largest site in Inglewood.

The grand experiment going on at the Glendale National Guard Armory this winter is a noble one: surround homeless clients with a plethora of services and accountability measures in an effort to get them transitioned into more permanent housing by the time spring rolls around. The idea - even if it means serving fewer homeless clients over the winter season - is that the case management will have a much more long-term effect on the region and on the lives of those who seek shelter.

It came down to the wire, but Daylight Adult Day Health Care Center in Glendale will remain open and continue serving hundreds of low-income clients after its network reached a settlement with the state over Medi-Cal payments. Without the settlement - reached after advocates for the disabled and elderly filed a court motion this summer seeking to prevent planned funding cuts - Daylight and other centers that are part of the state's Adult Day Health Care program would have closed on Dec. 1 because they would no longer have been eligible for Medi-Cal benefits.

In court for a pre-trial hearing Friday, attorneys for the man accused of creating an aircraft safety hazard at the Bob Hope Airport by feeding a large flock of pigeons called his arrest an overblown media frenzy stoked by authorities. Attorneys for Charles Douglas, owner of Precise Roofing Co. on Hollywood Way, requested more time in Los Angeles County Superior Court to review transcripts they said they only received this week and to discuss the matter with the Burbank city attorney's office.

Each year, Glendale's GAR Services works with Glendale Noon Kiwanis to prepare for the club's Oct. 15 Duck Splash in which participants sponsor ducks in the event and proceeds are donated to local charities that serve children and youth. To assist Glendale Noon Kiwanis prepare for the Duck Splash, adults with disabilities who are employed by Glendale's GAR Services remove tags fitted on the ducks. This year, clients at GAR Services removed tags from thousands of ducks in a single work day. Founded in 1954, GAR Services was first established to serve children with developmental disabilities by a Glendale couple named Phyllis and Jerry Campbell who had a child with Down's syndrome.

Kinde Durkee, the campaign treasurer for many prominent California Democrats whose arrest last week on a federal fraud charge rocked the political world, was slated to be released Friday on $200,000 bond. U.S. Magistrate Judge Jay C. Gandhi ordered Durkee released on the condition that she relinquish her signing authority on all bank accounts belonging to her business, Durkee & Associates, and on the accounts of its clients. She also is barred from accessing business records or emails and from having contact with employees of the firm -- other than her husband, sisters, niece and nephew -- and she may not discuss business activities with the relatives who work there.