Month: September 2026

COACHELLA, Calif. (KESQ) — A group of Coachella Valley farmworkers received settlement payments Friday after coming forward with allegations of unpaid wages and difficult working conditions.

The workers gathered at the TODEC Legal Center in Coachella, where they shared their experiences and received payments through the California Labor Commissioner’s Office.

One farmworker, who asked to remain anonymous, described her experience working at a Coachella Valley farm as stressful and traumatic.

The worker says she eventually left the job but was still owed money for her final day of work.

She and other workers turned to TODEC for help.

“When you empower a worker, a community member they get that power and strength to come forward when there are injustices,” said TODEC Executive Director Luz Gallegos.

TODEC then worked with the California Labor Commissioner’s Office to help the workers recover the money they were owed.

California Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower says the case is significant because her office used California’s crop lien law — a tool that can help secure unpaid wages for agricultural workers.

“When an employer fails to pay a worker who harvested or transported crops, there’s a lien that attached to those crops. That lien maintains until they are paid,” she said.

García-Brower says unpaid wages can be a widespread problem.

“It’s a rampant problem particularly in immigrant communities, particularly in the Coachella Valley where you don’t have a strong presence.”

The settlement event was held as Labor Day weekend began. Gallegos says the timing was meant to bring greater awareness to farmworkers’ rights and remind workers that they should not be taken advantage of regardless of their immigration status.

The worker says she is still dealing with fear from what she experienced, but is grateful to finally receive payment for the work she was owed.

Stay with News Channel 3 for more.

MURRIETA (CNS) – A 48-year-old man accused of gunning down an acquaintance and burying his remains just south of Interstate 10 in Cabazon pleaded not guilty today to first-degree murder and other charges.

Jesse Bruce Kennedy of Cabazon was arrested last month following a Riverside County Sheriff’s Department investigation into the death of Cristian Valenzuela Nieto, who was previously reported missing.

Along with murder, Kennedy is charged with a special-circumstance allegation of lying in wait and sentence-enhancing gun and great bodily injury allegations.

The defendant was arraigned Friday before Superior Court Judge Theresa Canepa, who scheduled a felony settlement conference for Dec. 1 at the Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta.

Kennedy is being held in lieu of $1 million bail at the nearby Byrd Detention Center.

According to sheriff’s Sgt. Carlos Mendoza, detectives working a suspicious-circumstance investigation initiated after Nieto vanished developed leads on Aug. 22 indicating his body was located near a residence in the area of Poplar Street and William Avenue, less than a quarter-mile from eastbound lanes of I-10.

Further investigation led to recovery of the remains. It was unclear exactly where the victim was fatally shot, though court documents indicated he perished on Aug. 11. Mendoza did not specify a possible motive.

He said Kennedy was immediately identified as the alleged perpetrator and taken into custody without incident in a parking lot near the location where detectives found the remains.

Court records indicated that Kennedy has no documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County. However, he has a traffic-related conviction from the summer of 2021.

PALM DESERT (CNS) – The Palm Desert City Council will consider adopting a proposed resolution calling for Southern California Edison to conduct less planned outages during the summer months, slated for next week at City Hall.

The resolution, titled “A Resolution of the City Council of the City of Palm Desert, California, Requesting Southern California Edison (SCE) to Minimize Planned Outages During High Temperatures Summer Months,” focuses on asking the electric utility company to perform their planned outages outside of June, July, August and early September, if feasible, to provide residents relief amid triple-digit heat.

The item comes after a maintenance outage initially scheduled for July 28, in which residents voiced their concerns about temporarily living without power for several hours during high-heat temperatures. The outage would have affected 878 customers, but SCE opted to reschedule the outage to Aug. 9.

City staff learned during an outreach that some nearby businesses were unaware their electrical services were affected by the scheduled outages, and other businesses reported renting portable generators adding costs to their operations, according to a city staff report.

City official said the city understands the routine planned maintenance is necessary to maintain the safety and reliability of the electrical grid. “The intent of the proposed resolution is not to interfere with SCE’s responsibility to maintain the electrical system,” the staff report reads.

Additionally, the resolution also requests that SCE officials coordinate and communicate with the city and affected customers, so nearby residents and businesses can adequately prepare.

Thursday’s meeting will be held at 4 p.m. at 73-510 Fred Waring Drive.

INDIO, Calif. (KESQ) The Palm Desert woman charged with killing her husband with a flag pole pleaded not guilty Wednesday morning at the Larson Justice Center in Indio, after deputies brought her to court under an extraction order.

65-year-old Vicky Kim had refused to leave jail for her arraignment Monday and did not appear Tuesday. Before that, the hearing had been pushed back for nearly two weeks because the court said she had not been medically cleared. Her arraignment was first set for Sept. 10.

Kim is represented by the Riverside County Public Defender’s Office. Deputy Public Defender Erica Pollard entered the not guilty plea on her behalf and denied all allegations.

Bail was set at $10 million on Sept. 10, the day charges were filed, on a declaration submitted by prosecutors and signed by a judge. The judge Wednesday left that amount in place and said the defense can argue bail at Kim’s next hearing. Prosecutors had said they were seeking to have Kim held without bail.

The judge ordered Kim to appear in Department 3N on Oct. 5 at 8:30 a.m. for a felony settlement conference and bail hearing. “If you refuse to come to court, I’m ordering the jail to forcibly remove you from your cell so you will attend your court proceedings,” the judge told her. A preliminary hearing is set for Oct. 7 and is expected to last about 90 minutes.

The murder complaint alleges Kim used a flag pole as a deadly weapon and personally inflicted great bodily injury, and notes she faces a potential life sentence. Under California law, second-degree murder carries 15 years to life and first-degree murder 25 years to life, the deadly weapon allegation adds one year.

Prosecutors have not alleged special circumstances, so Kim is not eligible for the death penalty or life without parole.

What the sheriff’s affidavit says

A Riverside County Sheriff’s Department bail-setting affidavit states investigators processed the victim’s remains and located multiple injuries consistent with blunt force trauma covering the body, face and head, according to the declaration.

A social worker briefed investigators that there were several financial fraud investigations referred to Adult Protective Services, the affidavit says. That stemmed from a bank informing the county that Kim was attempting to force the decedent to transfer large sums of money out of his account, the affidavit alleges. Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase branches reported incidents of potential financial elder abuse involving Kim withdrawing money from the decedent’s bank account, according to the sheriff’s statement.

The length of time the couple were married was not disclosed.

Six arrests in a year

Deputies arrested Kim six times between September 2025 and January 2026, according to court records obtained by News Channel 3. Prosecutors filed five domestic violence cases against her during that stretch, totaling 10 counts: two of battery, three of corporal injury on a spouse, four of violating a protective order and one of elder abuse. All were misdemeanors except one corporal injury count filed in January as a felony.

The victim is identified in the filings only as John Doe. The district attorney’s office has said the cases involved Kim’s husband.

In the January case, a sheriff’s deputy wrote in a sworn statement that deputies found Kim’s husband with a visible injury to his nose. He said Kim slapped him in the face during an argument about finances and infidelity allegations, and that a restraining order required her to stay 100 yards away from him, the statement says. Kim told the deputy she hit him on the nose three times after an argument over finances, and said she had posted bail after the previous incident and planned to post bail again.

Court records show the felony count was amended to a misdemeanor the day after it was filed. The records do not show when Kim was released from custody or when the protective orders ended.

Prosecutors’ objections

In an email to News Channel 3 on Sept. 10, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office said it charged Kim with a felony in January, obtained criminal protective orders and intended to “aggressively prosecute” her. “Despite our office’s clear objections, a judge resolved all of the defendant’s cases as misdemeanors, released her from custody, and terminated all protective orders that prosecutors worked hard to obtain,” the office wrote.

Deputy District Attorney Karen Salas, who is prosecuting the murder case, said Sept. 11 the earlier cases involved “domestic violence charges, elder abuse charges, and violation of a protective order,” and that the pattern began in September 2025.

“That is part of the reason why we requested protective orders, part of the reason why we objected to the resolution of the felony as a misdemeanor, because of the concern for this individual’s safety in the future,” she said.

Salas would not name the judge and said she could not comment on the court’s decision or discuss the facts of the earlier cases, because they could be evidence at trial.

“It’s certainly a very tragic turn of events that somebody who has previously been a victim in the criminal justice system is now where we are,” she said.

A neighbor’s account

Kelly McDaniel moved into The Enclave, the gated condo community on Gateway Drive, on Aug. 1. She said that about a week before the killing, she and her roommate saw an older man fall and stopped to help.

“He was so feeble, I had to use all my weight to get him up,” McDaniel said. “He could barely walk. My hand was covered in blood.”

McDaniel said the man told her his name was Rich. As they walked him home, she said, a woman approached and took him from them without asking if he was OK or thanking them. McDaniel said the woman was Kim.

The murder complaint identifies the victim only as R. Kaufman. The sheriff’s office has not released his full name or age, saying next of kin had not been notified and the investigation is ongoing.

Kim also has an arrest outside California. Hawaii police records show she was arrested in July 2007 for a bomb threat at the airport in Kona. Police said she repeatedly claimed there was a bomb on a plane. The flight was emptied and every passenger and bag was screened again. Kim, then 46, was charged with first-degree terroristic threatening, a felony, and released the next day on $1,000 bail. How that case ended is not known.

Deputies were called to the 35000 block of Gateway Drive at 9:47 a.m. Sept. 4. They found a person with injuries from a physical assault who died at the scene. Kim was there and was arrested without incident, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office. Crime scene tape blocked off part of the gated community for much of the day, and the sheriff’s office announced the arrest the next day.

Kim remains in custody at the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside.

Anyone with information is asked to call Central Homicide Unit Investigator Chua at (951) 955-1700 or Palm Desert Sheriff’s Station Investigator Mitroff at (760) 836-1600.