BeaconMediaNews.com
18 | APRIL 25, 2013 - MAY 1, 2013
Rep. Schiff: senate failure to pass background checks amendment is ‘appalling defeat for common sense and gun safety’ Wednesday, after the Senate failed to pass a bipartisan agreement on background checks reached by Senators Joe Manchin (DWV) and Pat Toomey (RPA) by a vote of 54-46, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a former federal prosecutor and outspoken advocate for gun safety legislation, issued the following statement: “What happened this afternoon in the Senate is an appalling defeat for common
sense and gun safety. The victims of Newtown, of Aurora and other gun violence tragedies deserve a vote on a comprehensive gun safety package – including universal background checks, a ban on assault weapons and extended ammunition magazines and the expanded access to mental health treatment. More than half the Senate, along with 90 percent of the American people, support a compromise to expand back-
ground checks to unregulated gun shows and websites that sell millions of weapons, but a minority who feared a negative score from the NRA blocked the bill’s progress. “While it may have failed today, Senate leaders must not give up the fight for universal background checks and other vital gun safety measures – gun violence victims and their families deserve a better vote and result than this.”
San Gabriel company’s former owner commits Medicare fraud A former owner of a medical equipment supply company in San Gabriel pleaded guilty Monday to conspiring with others to defraud Medicare and now faces a decade in prison. Tigran Aklyan, 37, pleaded guilty of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a quarter
million dollar fine when he is sentenced in August. As president of Las Tunas Medical Equipment Inc., he provided wheelchairs and other equipment not necessary to Medicare beneficiaries and also submitted false claims to Medicare. Aklyan also paid the owners and operators of fraudulent medical clinics to
provide him with prescriptions and supporting medical documents for the power wheelchairs and equipment that he billed to Medicare. Aklyan submitted about $910,377 in fraudulent claims to Medicare for power wheelchairs and related services. Medicare paid Las Tunas Medical Equipment approximately $653,461 .
Life Remembered Alan Stevenson Wood Alan Stevenson Wood, the fourth generation of a prominent pioneering family who helped settle Sierra Madre in the 1880s, died at his home in Sierra Madre on Thursday, April 18, 2013. He was 90. Wood was a World War II veteran, an accomplished artist and longtime official at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada. Wood was the great-grandson of Ammi Doubleday Hawks, an influential investor who followed his mother and his sister, Frances, to Sierra Madre in 1881. Hawks purchased 20 acres of land on the east side of Baldwin Avenue, where he established a ranch and fruit packing operations. In 1887, Hawks built an office building on his property at 26 North Baldwin Ave., which his sister later ran as the Tourist Hotel. Wood was particularly proud of his home and his heritage. He spent his entire life in Sierra Madre except for during his service in World War II. A Navy lieutenant, he played a role in the momentous 1945 battle for Iwo Jima. While his LST was beached under Japan’s Mount Suribachi, Wood was approached by a Marine seeking a U.S. flag to raise atop the mountain. Wood handed the Marine the flag, which ended up being used for the iconic photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal. Wood, who was the communications officer of the Navy ship LST-779, had months earlier recovered the flag from a duffel bag stashed at a salvage depot at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. “I was glad to find it because we were out of large flags,” Wood would later recall to a reporter. “Little did I know how famous it would one day become.”
Wood was born May 3, 1922, at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena. His father was an engineer and a violinist. His mother was a trained pianist and dramatic soprano. The family sang for years in the Pasadena Chorus. Wood graduated high school in Pasadena around 1940 and enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley.
After the start of World War II, Wood continued his studies at Berkeley, joined the ROTC and became a Navy officer. He graduated and served in the Pacific theater in the war’s final years. His ship was beached on Iwo Jima during the fiercest period of the assault. There, Wood witnessed the epic battle as the Americans prevailed against Japanese forces to seize the island. “There was a feeling of death in the air that was overpowering,” Wood wrote in a letter to a friend later that year (1945). “Suribachi was a few thousand yards down the beach on our left, and the front line, marked by some entrenched tanks was only a few thousand yards down the beach. Occasionally you could hear the spatter of small-arms fire, all too often a big Japanese mortar would explode with a shattering burst, and with terrible finality, right on the beach in the
midst of all the men, supplies and machines.” After the war, Wood returned to Sierra Madre. He wanted to become a musician but instead attended the Art Center in Pasadena and became an accomplished watercolor painter. Wood married Elizabeth Trimble in 1947 and they had a son. He joined JPL in 1950. He worked at JPL for more than 40 years, first as a technical artist and then in the Public Affairs Office. He illustrated reports and helped coordinate news coverage of JPL’s historic spacecraft missions, including the Mariner, Viking, Voyager and Galileo programs and early tests in the development of the space shuttle. Throughout his life, Wood enjoyed painting, classical music, opera, art house movies, camping, hiking and golf. He loved nature and drew inspiration from California’s vistas and valleys, with Yosemite National Park being his favorite. He was a member of the Yosemite Fund and a benefactor to a variety of charitable organizations. He was preceded in death by his parents, a brother and his wife. He is survived by his brother, the Reverend Roger H. Wood of Sierra Madre, his son Steve (Georgia) Wood of Solana Beach, Calif., grandchildren Casey, Connor, and Cameron, and niece Alison Wood of San Francisco. A memorial service is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday, April 27 at Sierra Madre Episcopal Church of the Ascension. Burial will follow at Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery. Douglass & Zook Mortuary is handling arrangements.
13th Annual Thorny Rose award announced The 13th Order of the Thorny Rose has spoken. This year’s recipient is Pasadena Star News editor Frank Girardot. The honor is bestowed annually by a secret panel of judges to a local personality who has generated significant controversy in the
greater Pasadena community. Girardot has used the newspaper as a platform to take aim at iconic personalities and institutions, like Paul McCartney ( which we took personal offense to – even if he thought he was being funny – it wasn’t)
The prickly honor, bestowed once a year on a Pasadena citizen, or group of citizens, and has been euphemistically called the city’s “biggest pain-in-the-ass award.” Onward to Doo Dah April 27.