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The family of  Notorious B.I.G. expressed skepticism Friday after the Los Angeles Police Department unsealed the 15-year-old autopsy report on the slain rapper.

LAPD officials said they hoped the unsealing would generate new leads in the mystery.

 “Investigators decided to release the autopsy to stimulate new interest in the case and hopefully produce new leads,” said Lt. Andrew Neiman.

But on Friday night, an attorney for the family, which has long been at odds with the LAPD over the case, questioned why the information was being released now.

The autopsy had been kept private at the request of investigators. But on Friday, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office released the 23-page report, which provided details about the shooting.

DOCUMENT: Read full report on Notorious B.I.G.’s autopsy

Notorious B.I.G., whose real name was Christopher George Latore Wallace, died in March 1997 when he was shot four times in a drive-by attack on Wilshire Boulevard while sitting in the front passenger seat of a Chevrolet Suburban.

Although he was hit four times, only one of the shots was fatal, the autopsy said.

A real estate development company that regularly received funds from Los Angeles officials to build affordable housing projects has agreed to pay $165,000 to end an Ethics Commission investigation into allegations of campaign money laundering.

Investigators with the Ethics Commission concluded that Advanced Development and Investment Inc. and its affiliated construction company, Pacific Housing Diversified, made 33 contributions totaling $23,850 under assumed names between 1999 and 2009. Advanced Development executives used cash and checks from  company accounts to improperly reimburse employees who had made the contributions, the agency found.

Reimbursement was typically provided "the same day the employee made a contribution in his or her name," the Ethics Commission report states. The commission did not find wrongdoing by the politicians who received the donations, a group that included Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and a handful of candidates and council members.

Ethics officials said they launched their probe into Advanced Development in 2011 following reports in The Times on the company's campaign fundraising practices. The FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. attorney's office also have been looking into allegations that the company engaged in financial wrongdoing.

The Times found that Advanced Development and its retinue of subcontractors had steered more than $400,000 to the political campaigns of candidates up and down the state, many of them in Los Angeles. Some of those subcontractors told The Times that they had been warned by the firm's managers that they would lose out on future construction contracts if they failed to make the political donations.

The Ethics Commission is scheduled to approve the fine Thursday. The agreement was signed by David Pasternak, the court-appointed receiver who was assigned to oversee Advanced Development in 2010 in the wake of a nasty divorce between two top officials at the company. That year, Pasternak reported that the federal investigators had been notified of "potential fraud and criminal activity" at the company's taxpayer funded projects, including systemic padding of construction invoices.

Los Angeles has provided the company with roughly $29 million in subsidies to build multi-story apartments in Lincoln Heights, Chinatown and other neighborhoods near downtown. Despite receiving taxpayer assistance from L.A. and other cities, its projects have developed a series of maintenance problems, including exposed wiring, cracked stucco and leaky roofs, windows and pipes.

Ethics Commission officials said Advanced Development's current management has been cooperative -- and plans to dissolve the company next year. The firm will pay the fine without admitting to or denying the allegations, according to the agreement.

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35,000 rubber ducks in Santa, reindeer outfits seized at L.A. port

-- David Zahniser and Jessica Garrison

An Orange County gang member was sentenced Friday to 50 years to life for a shooting a man he mistook for someone else at a Santa Ana restaurant last year, prosecutors said

Ivan Sanchez, 23, was found guilty in September of one felony count of murder for the 2011 death of Esteban Navarrete outside the Mariscos La Ola restaurant, according to the Orange County district attorney's office.

On the night of Feb. 13, 2011, prosecutors said, Sanchez and two others -- Ricardo Guerra Rocha and Rocha's older sister, Maria Isabel Rocha -- got into an argument with another customer at the Santa Ana restaurant, fighting over which state in Mexico was better. The three left the restaurant, drove to get a firearm and returned, prosecutors said.

When they arrived, Navarrete, 35, was leaving and getting into a car with his wife and a friend. He did not know the three, and was not the person involved in the earlier argument.

Maria Rocha waited in her car as Ricardo Rocha and Sanchez approached Navarrete, prosecutors said. Navarrete got out of his car and attempted to explain that he, his wife and friend were not involved in the earlier argument.

But Sanchez shot Navarrete once in the head, prosecutors said. 

Sanchez was arrested days later during a traffic stop as he was being driven to Mexico to escape arrest, prosecutors said. The driver of that car, Manuel Toscano, 22, has been charged with one felony count of accessory after the fact, prosecutors said.

The recovery of a stolen Mercedes-Benz by Irvine police this week has led to the arrest of four people, including a man they believe was involved in multiple car thefts and burglaries in Irvine, police announced.

Officers saw a Mercedes-Benz with a paper license plate speeding on Lake Forest Drive about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday and followed it into a neighborhood where the driver and two passengers pulled into a residential driveway, turned off the headlights and ducked down, according to a release from the Irvine Police Department.

As officers approached, the driver, who police identified as Michael Harding, 34, started the engine and rapidly backed out of the driveway. Harding and two female passengers quickly abandoned the vehicle in another nearby driveway, the release stated.

Responding authorities arrested one of the passengers, Sarah Faas, 31, in a nearby backyard on suspicion of possessing drug paraphernalia. The other was found at a bus stop by an Orange County sheriff's deputy and detained but released without charges.

The Mercedes-Benz had been reported stolen from Panorama City in September, and when Irvine police searched it, they found more than a dozen California driver's licenses, 60 credit cards from about 20 different people, burglary tools and forged identification.

A detective also found a fake ID for Harding, whom he recognized as a suspect in a vehicle theft in September near Sand Canyon Avenue and the 405 Freeway, according to the release.

Police said they pegged Harding as a suspect after he used a credit card that was left in the stolen vehicle.

Officers arrested Harding about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday at a shopping center near where he allegedly stole the car. He was meeting James Deroze, 27, a parolee, who was also arrested on suspicion of possessing a fake ID, booked in Orange County Jail and held on $20,000 bail, police said.

The two lawyers leading the fight against the ban on gay marriage in California on Friday laid out their strategy as the case goes to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ted Olson and David Boies, two nationally prominent attorneys who launched the legal attack on Proposition 8, served notice that they would seek a broad ruling national in scope at a time when public opinion has turned in favor of gay marriage rights.

“We are going to address all the issues, focused on the fundamental constitutional right to marry of all citizens,” Olson said Friday.

“We ought to have marriage equality as a constitutional right everywhere,” Boies added.

They maintained they were not concerned that the decision to hear the case puts in jeopardy their court victory for California gays who wish to marry. If the justices had simply turned down the appeal, gay marriage would have once again been legal in the state.

The high court agreed to hear the case Friday.

California’s battle over gay marriage began nearly nine years ago when San Francisco allowed same sex unions just before Valentine’s Day, 2004, drawing thousands of couples to City Hall and making the state a flashpoint in the national debate.

Those marriages were invalidated. Then the California Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that same sex marriage was legal. But a few months later, California voters outlawed it by approving Proposition 8, which amended the Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

For gay marriage backers, the excitement of Prop. 8 going to the Supreme Court was tempered by nervousness about how the conservative majority would land on the issue. Had the court not taken the case, an earlier appeals court ruling invalidating Prop.8 would stand and marriages could have begun.

“I think any time our gay issues go to the U.S. Supreme Court we are all filled with anxiety because you never know,” said West Hollywood Councilman John Duran, who is gay. “Whatever decision they make, if it’s adverse, we have to live with it for a generation.”

MAP: How gay marriage has progressed in the U.S.

In a sign of hedging bets, some activists said they were now mulling a 2014 ballot measure to repeal Prop. 8 if the Supreme Court upholds it.

Gay marriage foes were decidedly more ebullient, saying they liked their chances in front of the high court.

“Arguing this case before the Supreme Court finally gives us a chance at a fair hearing, something that hasn’t been afforded to the people since we began this fight,” said Andy Pugno, general counsel for Protect Marriage.com.

--Jessica Garrison, Matt Stevens and Ashley Powers

Animal control officers in Kings County in the Central Valley are trying to determined who is responsible for 10 dead horses on land belonging to an Indian tribe, the Associated Press is reporting.

Three more horses were discovered close to death on land owned by the Tachi Yokut tribe, the AP reported.

Animal control officers had gone to the same parcel in September and notified the caretaker of a dying horse on the property. The caretaker shot the horse, the AP reported.

Calls to the tribe's headquarters at the Santa Rosa Rancheria were not immediately returned Friday, the news agency reported.

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 -- Sam Quinones

twitter.com/samquinones7

The Los Angeles Police Department took the unusual step Friday of unsealing the 15-year-old autopsy of rapper Notorious B.I.G., saying they hoped to generate new leads in the mystery.

The autopsy had been kept private at the request of investigators. But on Friday, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office released the 23-page report, which provided details about the shooting.

 “Investigators decided to release the autopsy to stimulate new interest in the case and hopefully produce new leads,” said Lt. Andrew Neiman.

DOCUMENT: Read full report on Notorious B.I.G.’s autopsy

Notorious B.I.G., whose real name was Christopher George Latore Wallace, died in March 1997 when when he was shot four times in a drive-by attack on Wilshire Boulevard while sitting in the front passenger seat of a Chevrolet Suburban.

Although he was hit four times, only one of the shots was fatal, the autopsy said.

That shot, according to Dr. Lisa Scheinin, entered his right hip before slicing through his colon, liver, heart and part of his lung before wedging in his left shoulder area.

Notorious B.I.G.: FBI investigation files

One shot hit Wallace's left forearm and traveled down to his wrist, while a another shot hit him in the back and exited his body through his left shoulder, the report said. Another shot hit his left thigh and traveled through to his inner thigh before glancing off his scrotum.

Examiners  could not determine the sequence of the shots.

The Brooklyn rapper, who was also known as Biggie Smalls, was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Doctors performed emergency surgery, but he died from his wounds.

Two medium-caliber lead bullets were recovered from his hospital gurney.

No drugs or alcohol were found in his system, according to a toxicology screen.

“They had no idea this happened,” said Perry Sanders Jr., a civil rights attorney who represents Wallace's mother and other relatives. “This is one of the highest profile murders in the world. This is about criminal justice.”

The shooting occurred outside the Petersen Automotive Museum in the Miracle Mile area as the rapper was leaving a music industry party. At the time of his death, Wallace was one of the biggest stars in rap music. Coroner's officials noted he arrived at Cedar's in full cardiac arrest and died a short time later.

His slaying shocked the hip-hop community, coming just months after the Las Vegas slaying of another marquee rapper, Los Angeles-based Tupac Shakur.

Once friends, the rappers became rivals whose respective camps regularly traded violent barbs in song lyrics and in interviews. Shakur's slaying also remains unsolved. Various theories have linked the two homicides.

The FBI opened its own probe after Wallace's family accused the LAPD of covering up how the rapper actually died. Los Angeles police officials last year said they exhaustively searched for answers in the case without an arrest.

The LAPD did not disclose any further details about the case Friday.

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-- Richard Winton

Follow Richard Winton (@LACrimes) on Twitter and Google+

Brooke Mueller, ex-wife of actor Charlie Sheen, was in an L.A. hospital Friday after allegedly overdosing on a drug, TMZ is reporting.

Mueller, who has 3-year-old twin boys with Sheen, has been in drug rehabilitation repeatedly over the years.

Mueller and Sheen married in 2008 and divorced in 2011. She is on one-year probation after pleading guilty  this year to possession of four grams of cocaine.

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 -- Sam Quinones

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Kent Taylor, the state administrator in charge of the financially troubled Inglewood School District, resigned from the position Friday after the Department of Education learned of a tentative agreement he made with the local teachers union without approval from the state.

Taylor’s resignation comes months after he was appointed by State Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson to lead the district — which was taken over by the state in September when Gov. Jerry Brown approved legislation granting $55 million in emergency loans to help the roughly 14,000-student district.

Torlakson has appointed La Tanya Kirk-Carter, the district’s assistant superintendent of business services, as interim state administrator for the district.

“This change is in the best interests of taxpayers, students and employees of the Inglewood Unified School District,” Torlakson said in a statement. “I’m confident that our work to address the district’s troubled finances will proceed without interruption.”

The resignation came after the education department learned of a proposed collective bargaining offer between the district and the Inglewood Teachers Assn.

Due to his position as state administrator, Taylor did not have the authority to enter  into a labor contract without prior approval by Torlakson or a designee or before the completion of a financial review and plan to bring the district back to solid fiscal health.

In a letter, the department informed the teachers union that the agreement was voided.

Taylor could not be reached for comment.

Peter Somberg, president of the Inglewood Teachers Assn., said that the agreements were negotiated in good faith and that union officials were under the impression that Taylor had the authority to enter into them. Prior to beginning the bargaining process, union officials asked Taylor several times if he did in fact have the authority to do so. He assured the union that he did, Somberg said.

When Taylor was appointed, Somberg added, there was no indication from the state and Torlakson that Taylor did not have that power.

“There was nothing ever mentioned that he didn’t have authority to negotiate with us,” Somberg said.

The community embraced Taylor, and his rapport with teachers and others in Inglewood was appreciated, he said.

“There was —  and hopefully there will continue to be —  a palpable atmosphere of hope among all the stakeholders in this community,” he said.  “To grow enrollment, grow opportunities  for all of us, all our kids.”

Prior to taking over at Inglewood, Taylor was the superintendent in southern Kern County and worked as a teacher, principal, administrator and school board member in several Southern California districts, mostly in the San Bernardino area.

Taylor grew up in Inglewood and graduated from Inglewood High in 1982.

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--Stephen Ceasar

Photo: Kent Taylor visits Inglewood High School. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times