Features

News in brief from the San Francisco Bay area

By The Associated Press
Sunday October 07, 2001

OAKLAND — Two former vault manager for Loomis, Fargo & Co. pleaded innocent Friday in U.S. District Court to charges they stole $12.7 million. 

Bryan D. Rosenquist, 39, and Michelle E. Serrao, 41, both of Vacaville, were indicted Thursday on federal charges of embezzlement and conspiracy to embezzle during the time they worked at a company vault facility in Richmond. 

The FBI said Rosenquist worked as the vault manager and Serrao worked as the vault cash manager supervisor. 

Prosecutors say that from September of last year to this August they took $12.7 million from Bank of America. Only $2 million of the missing money has been accounted for, according to prosecutors. 

The FBI said they also discovered a joint checking account opened at the Federal Credit Union in Vacaville on Dec. 1998. According to bank records obtained by the FBI, more than $2.3 million was deposited into the account between January 2000 and September this year. 

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SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Giants have installed 24 defibrillators to treat sudden cardiac arrest at Pacific Bell Park. 

Defibrillators provide an electrical charge to the heart, which stops pumping blood during cardiac arrest. If they are used within four to six minutes of the onset of cardiac arrest, they are 75 percent successful, said Abbie Yant, director of the park’s health services. 

The defibrillators were provided by Philips Medical Systems and paid for by the Giants Community Fund, said Mario Alioto, the team’s vice president for corporate marketing. 

No one has suffered sudden cardiac arrest at Pac Bell since it opened last season, Yant said. 

Catholic Healthcare West has trained 100 Giants employees, ushers and event staff in how to use the defibrillators, which are spread out in dugouts, locker rooms and throughout the 40,000-seat stadium. Anytime a device is used, it will automatically call the ballpark’s 911 system to summon authorities to the scene. 

The Giants’ program is modeled after one established in Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway international airports, which have achieved a 68 percent survival rate for sudden cardiac arrest. 

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SACRAMENTO — Governor Gray Davis signed a bill Thursday that could save plans to build a $300 million dollar cruise ship terminal in San Francisco. 

The bill exempts the terminal from some waterfront development restrictions, and allows approval of offices, shops and restaurants that would otherwise be prohibited. 

Officials with the Port of San Francisco and the San Francisco Cruise Terminal had said development would have been stalled without such provisions. 

State Lands Commission and Bay Conservation and Development Commission regulate waterfront development. The agencies had questioned the legality of building such a terminal. 

The terminal is planned for Piers 30 and 32. 

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MARTINEZ — PacifiCare Health Systems announced Tuesday it will drop more than 10,000 seniors in Contra Costa County from their Medicare HMOs by the end of the year. 

Along with more than half its Contra Costa membership, PacificCare will also drop 3,500 enrollees in Alameda and Solano counties. 

Blue Cross also sent out notices to about 150 people in the three counties that it was dropping their memberships. 

The dwindling number of choices available in the East Bay to Medicare recipients mirrors a national trend brought on, insurers say, by a climate of rising medical costs and declining federal reimbursements. 

Nationwide, 58 Medicare health plans will drop or cut services in January, affecting roughly 560,000 people. 

Last year, about 934,000 people were dropped from their Medicare health plans, according to the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 

The Medicare health plans have been increasingly popular with seniors because unlike the traditional Medicare insurance plan, HMOs often include prescription drug coverage and other benefits to members. 

Seniors can enroll in the few remaining plans, but face rising co-payments and reduced benefit packages.