Jeffery Woods’ suspect Joshua Dirnu bail not reduced
by Dan Blackburn
Accused killer Joshua Dirnu will remain in jail as he awaits trial for the beating death of Hermosa Beach resident Jeffery Woods last year, a Superior Court judge decided Monday, refusing to lower the suspect’s $1 million bail. Dirnu also was denied a bid to move his case out of Los Angeles County.
Dirnu, 23, is charged with murder with special circumstances in the July 2021 death of Woods. A local business surveillance camera captured an altercation between Woods and a man later identified by investigators as Dirnu. The surveillance video shows Woods staggering away from the altercation scene. He was found three hours later by a passerby, and died at a local hospital.
In declining the bail reduction, Judge Alan B. Honeycutt cited Dirnu’s brief but increasingly violent criminal record.
Dirnu was arrested in Carlsbad for public intoxication in 2017, and for the same offense a second time a few months later in Santa Barbara County. In January 2018, he was arrested again in Carlsbad, and charged with public intoxication, possession of a forged identification, and purchasing alcohol in a bar while under age.
Three years later, Dirnu was involved in an encounter with California Highway Patrol officers, again in Carlsbad, resulting in multiple charges including battery on a law enforcement officer, battery on emergency personnel with injury, threats of violence, and resisting arrest. An additional charge of battery on a police officer with injury was filed by San Bernardino authorities because one of their personnel was involved in the scuffle.
Then, nine months later he was in Hermosa Beach when the assault on Woods occurred. ER