may

A pimp whose sex worker allegedly advertised on social media that she was willing to be anything from “arm candy” for a party to a “no strings attached girlfriend” has been charged with a slew of criminal charges in Kern County Superior Court.

The alleged pimp, Kevin Mays, was an assistant men’s basketball coach and former player at Cal State Bakersfield.

Mays faces 11 charges, including pimping, possession of automatic firearms and high-capacity magazines, and possession of methamphetamine and marijuana with intent to sell. An investigation by the Bakersfield Police Department also led to separate charges citing Mays for possession of more than 600 images of youth or child pornography and distribution of obscene matter involving someone younger than 18.

Mays, who was arrested in September 2025, is being held without bail. He has pleaded not guilty, and a preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 13 .

The case, first reported by Shwetha Surendran of ESPN, has upended the athletic department at CSU Bakersfield. Longtime basketball coach Rod Barnes and athletic director Kyle Condor have left their jobs, and Condor filed a lawsuit against the school alleging wrongful termination, according to court documents obtained by The Times.

CSU Bakersfield officials said the allegations against Mays did not involve a student. Nevertheless, the school formed a commission to examine the athletic program and recommend changes.

“When CSU Bakersfield received an anonymous report in August of 2025 that a member of our coaching staff was engaged in human trafficking, we took immediate action in notifying university police and the Bakersfield Police Department,” the school wrote in a statement. “Both agencies launched investigations that resulted in an arrest within days. Shortly after, the university terminated the coach.

“But the nature of the allegations devastated our campus community. We seized the opportunity to strengthen education and prevention efforts around human trafficking. To that end, we consulted with a local human trafficking expert and offered training and education focused on awareness and prevention for our campus community.”

Police said the alleged victim is 23. In the advertisement she posted last summer, she stated that she charged $300 for a half hour and $500 for 60 minutes. Authorities conducted a sting operation in September, arranging to meet her in a hotel room that Mays rented.

In an interview with police after the operation, she referred to Mays as her boyfriend and said he paid for her travel accommodations in Oregon, Washington and Nevada in addition to California.

Those locations were listed in an anonymous email to Barnes last fall titled “IMPORTANT MESSAGE 911 911.”

“HE IS TRAFFICKING A GIRL BY THE NAME OF [redacted],” the email read, according to police records. “HE HAS BEEN TRAFFICKING THIS GIRL SINCE MAY.”

Barnes turned over the email to university police, who attempted to contact the sender and received a subsequent email, according to ESPN. The tipster claimed to have known the alleged victim and Mays through previous travel for sex work. The person said Mays presented himself as a professional gambler and allegedly threatened to take away the tipster’s child if the person exposed his activities.

Mays, who was born in Queens, N.Y., attended high school at St. John’s Military Academy in Delafield, Wis., and played at Odessa Community College in Odessa, Texas, before transferring to CSU Bakersfield ahead of the 2014-2015 season.

“We are excited about signing Kevin as he fits our culture,” Barnes said of Mays at the time.

A year later, as a senior forward, Mays helped CSU Bakersfield to a 24-10 record and scored 14 points and grabbed eight rebounds in the Roadrunners’ first-round NCAA tournament loss to Oklahoma. He later returned to the school as a player-development coordinator.

In his application for the player-development position in 2019, Mays wrote that he was motivated by helping players improve on and off the court, according to school records obtained by ESPN.

“I gained lots of experience dealing with learning to lead young men and help them navigate the Division I experience in a successful manner,” Mays wrote. “CSUB helped me tremendously, and I look forward to giving back.”

Barnes was Mays’ coach, and he hired his former player last fall, paying him $3,000 a month. Now, Mays is in jail awaiting trial and Barnes is unemployed.

“The safety and well-being of our students and all CSU Bakersfield community members remain our highest priority,” the school said in its statement. “This work is sustained every day by the dedication of our faculty, staff and students. Their commitment to one another and to our shared values strengthens the culture of care and accountability we strive to build at CSUB.”

A 12-year-old boy died Thursday after collapsing during soccer practice following a hot day in San Bernardino.

Adriel Enriquez collapsed on the soccer field on Feb. 26, while practicing with the Platinum IE soccer club, said his uncle, Joshua Gutierrez in a social media post.

“What started as a normal afternoon doing what he loved turned into every parent’s worst nightmare,” Gutierrez wrote in a GoFundMe launched by the family to help cover funeral costs and expenses.

Paramedics were sent to the scene at about 8:40 p.m., said San Bernardino County Fire Department Capt. Eric Sherwin. Adriel was rushed to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

“Adriel had no medical issues that we were aware of, and his passing was unexpected and an absolute shock,” Gutierrez wrote on Facebook, alongside a video memorializing his nephew.

Adriel played for Platinum IE since May 2024. Coaches and teammates remembered him as someone who left a mark.

“He was the sweetest most gentle and shy soul with a quiet strength that touched everyone around him,” the club said in a social media post. “Forever our #23.”

The post was liked thousands of times with almost 200 people sharing their condolences in the comments.

Adriel died during a spell of unusually warm winter weather in Southern California. Temperatures peaked at 88 degrees the day he collapsed, according to the National Weather Service.

A cause of death has not yet been determined by the county coroner.

Now everyone can go to the cottage.

Shane Hollander’s (Hudson Williams) cottage, featured in the season finale of the HBO Max hit “Heated Rivalry,” will be available to rent starting March 3 at 9 a.m. Pacific, according to a statement by Airbnb. The Lake Muskoka listing can be booked for $248.10 CAD (about $180 U.S.) per night, an homage to Shane and Ilya’s (Connor Storrie) jersey numbers, 24 and 81.

The Barlochan cottage will host four early access bookings from May 8-10, May 16-18, May 22-24 and May 29-31, before opening for regular bookings, with the property listed exclusively on Airbnb.

“Every great story deserves the perfect setting. Airbnb is inviting guests to Barlochan cottage — which has captivated screens big and small this winter — allowing fans to book and experience the private haven in real life on the shores of Lake Muskoka,” Airbnb wrote.

In “Heated Rivalry,” Shane and Ilya escape to the cottage during their off-season for a private, romantic getaway as the couple hides its relationship from the public. Ilya agrees to attend after being inspired by a fellow hockey player, Scott (François Arnaud), who publicly came out after winning the hockey championship in Episode 5. As Scott kisses his partner on live television, Ilya calls Shane to tell him he’ll come to the cottage.

“That’s then part of the structure of giving 5 that big rom-com movie star ending to [Arnaud], so that I can have a quiet ending with Shane and Ilya,” series creator Jacob Tierney told Entertainment Weekly in December.

At the cottage, Shane and Ilya confess their love for one another, swim in the lake and watch the Lake Muskoka sunsets. According to the listing, the three-bedroom cottage features nearly 400 feet of private waterways, outdoor activities like kayaks and canoes and an exercise room.

Connor Storrie as Ilya Rozanov and Hudson Williams as Shane Hollander in the Season 1 finale of “Heated Rivalry.”

(Sabrina Lantos / HBO)

Airbnb also noted that “travelers have been eager to embark on their own private cottage getaway,” with a 40% increase in property searches in Muskoka since the finale aired in late December.

“Heated Rivalry” became a cultural phenomenon this winter despite the project’s small budget. The show, based on the “Game Changers” book series by Rachel Reid, was produced by Bell Media’s Crave in Canada. After the show was licensed by HBO Max, fans flocked to the series, with an average of 10.6 million viewers per episode in the U.S., according to Warner Bros. Discovery.

So while “Heated Rivalry” fans wait for the second season — set to premiere in spring 2027 — they’ll now be able to take their own trip to the cottage.

Pasadena Playhouse’s take on Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” may be the Tony Award-winning regional theater’s most lavish production to date.

The show, which opens Sunday, features a scrim that has been hand-painted with the notes of Mozart’s “Phantasie für eine Orgelwalze.” The entire process, done by a team of three, took eight days from start to finish. When the scrim is illuminated, the golden notes appear to be suspended like stars in the sky.

Mozart’s sister, Maria Anna “Nannerl,” handwrote many of the genius composer’s compositions, and Playhouse head painter Johnny LeBlanc said the group worked to create an exact replica of her strokes. That attention to detail at every level is emblematic of this elaborate show.

Director Darko Tresnjak (center) during “Amadeus” rehearsal at Pasadena Playhouse. Tresnjak is known for exploring the intellectual and emotional foibles of each character in a play.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

The play is as rich in talent as it is in design. It stars Broadway veteran and Tony winner Jefferson Mays as Salieri, Sam Clemmett as Mozart and Lauren Worsham as Constanze, and is directed by Darko Tresnjak, who won a Tony in 2014 for “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.”

The red-and-gold, Baroque and Rococo aesthetics of the show, including the forced perspective of scenic designer Alexander Dodge’s set, which makes a royal room seem to disappear into the distance, were meticulously constructed to reflect the twisted interiority of Salieri as he grapples with his seething hatred for the scatological young upstart as it crashes against his cascading awe of Mozart’s divine music.

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“The entire play really takes place in a mental space,” Tresnjak said during a recent rehearsal. “That location is Salieri’s increasingly addled brain and what happens within that brain strikes me as eminently contemporary.”

Mays called “Amadeus” a “memory play,” noting that “every aspect of this production is exploring that — it’s all filtered through the warped, distorted memories and imaginings of its unreliable narrator.”

The Pasadena Playhouse has one of the few remaining on-site scene shops in the industry, and its staff of designers, carpenters and painters created elaborate wall sconces and candle holders that become smaller and smaller as they move to the back of the stage, toward two tiny doors in the center. At one point in the show, actor Matthew Patrick Davis, who plays Emperor Joseph II, steps through the doors.

“Amadeus” director Tresnjak says the key to his lavish productions is a strong community of artists, rather than a big budget. “It’s all smoke and mirrors,” he said.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times )

Mays describes the moment as “delicious” because Davis is quite tall and thin — even more so in his 2-inch, 18th century heels — and when he unfurls his body into the room and proceeds down the stage, the audience realizes what a gigantic figure he is in Salieri’s mind.

“It’s all shot through with these ‘Alice in Wonderland’ moments of surrealism,” Mays said. “It feels like a fever dream.”

Music is key to Salieri’s world, and the sound design by Jane Shaw strives to access the otherworldly power of Mozart’s music through layered backing tracks. An electric keyboard programmed to sound like a fortepiano is also embedded in a handcrafted instrument, which actors with musical training can play.

A fortepiano is being built for “Amadeus” at Pasadena Playhouse. A small electronic keyboard will be embedded within so actors with musical training can actually play it.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

Tresnjak has a long history directing with L.A. Opera and its departing music director, James Conlon, worked with Clemmett on conducting. He also gave the actor a history lesson about what the art form would have been like in Mozart’s time. Jeffrey Bernstein, the founding artistic and executive director of the Pasadena Chorale, drilled the cast on their chorale passages.

The key to creating such a richly textured theatrical environment is not a bloated budget, said Tresnjak, it’s engaging a whole community of artists — onstage and backstage — and giving them free reign to set their creativity loose. Pasadena Playhouse, which is known for being a resourceful company, made that easy, he added.

The show is buoyed by its classic stagecraft, with flats, escape stairs and rolling platforms. There is no computer automation and anything that moves is moved manually, said associate artistic director Jenny Slattery, pointing out the theater’s antiquated hand winches that control a mobile throne.

“There is something magical that comes from a resonance between the subject matter and the aesthetic and the behind-the-scenes techniques,” said Slattery.

A sketch and fabric swatch for Venticelli’s costume in “Amadeus” at Pasadena Playhouse. The costume is the same red as the set walls, so the character will seem to fade in and out of Salieri’s consciousness.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

Linda Cho designed the costumes and L.A. Opera fabricated the extravagant 18th century garments, which Slattery said have become a “staff tourist attraction.” The fabric was sourced in New York and shipped to L.A.; the ribbons were made by hand. Mays said he got giddy and breathless when he first stepped into his costume.

L.A. Opera fabricated the costumes for “Amadeus” with fabric sourced from New York.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

“It makes all the difference when you know that your sleeves are cut in a bias and your arms have to do certain things,” he explained. “I find a costume, particularly the costumes of this late 18th century period, to be so informative about physicality and how you move.”

In rehearsal, Mays fully inhabits his role — and his costume — moving with a lithe formality as he strives to eavesdrop on Mozart and Constanze. His revulsion and deep attraction are on full display. The actor said it is not his intention to play Salieri as a mustache-twirling villain, but rather as human, recognizable and understandable.

Details on the sleeve of a jacket made by L.A. Opera.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

“We are all Salieri to varying degrees,” Mays said. “What interests me are everyman aspects of him. The banality of his evil and the way that evil actions seem to always rise out of fear and insecurity.”

The lighting design by Pablo Santiago helps manifest Salieri’s uncomfortable emotions onstage.

“Darko is someone who likes to work in more of the intellectual, emotional space rather than realism. So a lot of it is about using the set in a more abstract way,” said Santiago. “It’s about shapes and color and creating full stage pictures that are interesting.”

The story of Salieri and Amadeus, said Mays, is one of twisted love. Salieri gets up every morning and tries to destroy that which he loves most. Playing the troubled antihero is “not altogether pleasant,” Mays said, “because you’re marinating in this cesspool of thwarted ambitions and inadequacy, but then you’re surrounded by this beauty that is a constant reminder of your own failings.”

When the curtain finally rises, the cast and crew hope the stage will be its own thing of beauty — its ambition fully realized.

As a child, I spent nearly every weekend with my best friend shooting hoops and jumping fences throughout Hollywood.

It was always amusing seeing tourists — especially foreigners — line up around buildings and outside nightclubs and lounges that held no meaning to me, at the time.

These monuments I ignored as a youngster became the must-see places of my teenage years and early 20s.

It was at the Viper Room where a 20-year-old me was tossed out of line trying to crash the same venue where Pearl Jam had played.

I was first scandalized by the price of a drink for a date’s $10 cocktail at the Troubadour in West Hollywood (I think I was making $6.50 an hour at the time). But I had to visit one of Jim Morrison’s favorite haunts.

So I was delighted when The Times entertainment team compiled its list of 26 legendary music sites in L.A.

It was fun to see favorites, but more importantly, to read about new places and legends.

Hopefully, there’s a spot that intrigues you. Let’s take a look at a few selections.

Capitol Records (Hollywood)

The most famous tower in all of music was never overtly intended to look like a stack of LPs and a stylus needle.

“The building was not designed as a cartoon or a giggle. To have it trivialized with the stack-of-records myth is annoying and dismaying,” architect Louis Naidorf has said of his Capitol Records Building. “There’s not a thing on the building that doesn’t have a solid purpose to it.”

That was no obstacle for it becoming emblematic of both Los Angeles and the record business. It’s still home to one of the most renowned recording studios on Earth, and its silhouette remains a Hollywood icon and a symbol of Los Angeles on par with the Hollywood sign nearby.

(Ken Hively/Los Angeles Times)

Elliott Smith Wall (Silver Lake)

The beloved singer-songwriter Elliott Smith posed at the swooping mural outside Solutions speaker repair in Silver Lake for the cover of his LP “Figure 8” in 2000.

After he died by suicide in 2003, the wall became an unofficial memorial for Smith, where fans left touching notes, song lyrics and nips of liquors mentioned in his songs.

While the wall has been cut out in spots to make room for various restaurants — and it’s often covered in more flagrant tagging — it’s still a living connection to one of the city’s most cherished voices.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

Chaplin Studio (Hollywood)

John Mayer calls it “adult day care”: the historic recording studio behind the arched gates on La Brea Avenue where famous musicians have been keeping themselves — and one another — creatively occupied since the mid-1960s.

Known for decades as Henson Studios — and as A&M Studios before that — the 3-acre complex in the heart of Hollywood has played host to the creation of some of music’s most celebrated records, among them Carole King’s “Tapestry,” Joni Mitchell’s “Blue,” Guns N’ Roses’ “Use Your Illusion” and D’Angelo’s “Black Messiah.”

Charlie Chaplin, who was born in London, began building the lot in 1917 in a white-and-brown English Tudor style; he went on to direct some of his best-known films, including “Modern Times” and “The Great Dictator,” on the property.

The Lighthouse Cafe (Hermosa Beach)

The Lighthouse Cafe might seem familiar from its cameo in the Oscar-winning movie “La La Land,” but this jazz cafe was once instrumental in shaping the West Coast jazz scene.

The beachside spot first opened as a restaurant in 1934 and was changed into a bar by the 1940s. It first started to play jazz in 1949 when the owner let bassist Howard Rumsey host a recurring jam session. The jams quickly began to draw both a vivacious crowd of listeners and a core group of budding jazz musicians.

Over the years, musicians like Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis and Max Roach all made regular appearances at the Lighthouse. Today, the venue still hosts jazz brunches every Sunday and other musical gigs throughout the week.

For more, here is the entire list.

The week’s biggest stories

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

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(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Rony Armas)

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Get wrapped up in tantalizing stories about dating, relationships and marriage.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff reporter
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Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew J. Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

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