All this week Z107-7 News is taking a look back at the top news stories of 2015 in a special four-part series. Today in part 2, big stories of 2015 included the arrest and subsequent plea bargain of San Bernardino County’s Third District Supervisor’s field representative for bringing contraband into a jail facility. Mike Lipsitz, who was a reporter with Z107.7 prior to and following his job as James Ramos’s field rep, was arrested in February after he gave an inmate at Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center a bottle of Crazy Glue. The original charge of bringing illegal narcotics to the jail was dropped after nine months of investigation failed to connect Lipsitz with any drugs found there.
UPDATE: On October 20, 2017, Judge Ronald Christianson set aside/dismissed the conviction for bringing contraband into a jail facility.
After a local man said he found a bobcat trap on his private property, Joshua Tree residents—and others around the state—rallied to ban trapping of bobcats near protected areas. The Bobcat Protection Act created buffer zones around state and national parks where bobcat trapping is prohibited. The ban took effect one day before the trapping season opened in November.
