Monday, July 9, 2012
Page 1
Former L.A. Attorney Appointed to Board of Parole Hearings
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Gov. Jerry Brown Friday named an Encino resident and deputy commissioner at the Board of Parole Hearings as a member of the board.
Ali Zarrinnam, 37, has served as deputy commissioner since 2009. He served as a panel attorney at the California Parole Advocacy Project from 2004 to 2009, as partner at the mid-Wilshire Law Offices of Zarrinnam and Chakur from 2003 to 2007, after having worked at Finnegan and Diba, also in Mid-Wilshire, from 2002 to 2003.
Zarrinnam earned a law degree from Southwestern Law School and an undergraduate degree from UC Santa Barbara. He was admitted to the State Bar in 2003.
The Glendale-based deputy commissioner presided last year at the parole hearing for Giovanni Ramirez, a suspect in the beating of San Francisco Giants fan Brian Stow at Dodger Stadium on Opening Day 2011. Zarrinam found that Ramirez violated parole by having access to a firearm, which police discovered while executing a search warrant in connection with the Stow beating, and ordered him back to prison for 10 months.
Police later determined that Ramirez was not involved in the beating, with which two other men have been charged. Ramirez was released from prison in March.
Zarrinnam’s appointment to the board requires Senate confirmation and the compensation is $111,845. Zarrinnam is a Democrat.
In other news, the governor named Lupe Garcia and Hugo Morales to the California State University Board of Trustees.
Garcia, 43, of Alameda, has served in multiple positions at Gap Inc. since 1999, including associate general counsel, senior corporate counsel and corporate counsel. She served as an associate at Lafayette and Kumagai LLP, a litigation defense firm in San Francisco, from 1995 to 1999.
She earned an undergraduate degree from Occidental College and a law degree from the University of San Francisco, and was admitted to the State Bar in 1995.
Garcia is registered decline-to-state.
Morales, 63, of Fresno, has been executive director at Radio Bilingüe Inc., a national community radio service, since founding it in 1980.
He served as an adjunct lecturer of the La Raza Studies Program at California State University, Fresno from 1976 to 1979.
Morales received the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 1999 and the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1994. He holds undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard University.
Morales is a Democrat.
Appointment to the CSU board requires Senate confirmation and the compensation is $100 per diem.
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