Cindyana Santangelo, actor and model who lived the ‘party rock star life' before getting sober, has died
The Los Angeles County Fire Department was called to a home on Westlake Boulevard in Malibu for a medical emergency around 7:15 p.m. Monday, the sheriff's department said in an alert. She was taken by paramedics to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. The cause of death is unknown; an autopsy is pending. Sheriff's homicide investigators are assisting deputies from the Los Hills Sheriff's Station with the continuing investigation, as is routine when the cause of death is unknown.
Born Cindy Lehrer in 1967 in Manhattan, per IMDb, she was raised in Los Angeles. She started out as a dancer, appearing in various music videos in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including Young MC's 'Bust a Move' video. She also delivered the Spanish-language introduction to the 'Juana's Adicción' tune 'Stop' in a Jane's Addiction video, leading frontman Perry Farrell to later describe her to Spin magazine as 'the Latin Marilyn Monroe.'
As Cindyana Lair, she appeared on 'Married ... With Children' as Jiggly Room dancer Sierra Madre.
She married Frank Santangelo in 2001 and was the mother of two boys. Her LinkedIn page lists her as the director and chief executive of Mermaids Cove Malibu, described as an all-women's luxury sober living facility. In what appear to be documentary or reality-show promos based on Mermaids Cove, Santangelo described herself while discussing why she chose to help others.
'I'm Cindyana. I'm a great mommy, a wife, a daughter, a friend, a CEO — and a recovering addict,' she says in one video, adding later, 'I had kind of the party rock star life, but I ended up as sort of, everybody knows, a low-bottom junkie.
'When I had the blessing to get clean and sober this time,' she says, 'I realized that there was a niche in this market of recovery for people like me. That someone like me could touch only a certain ilk of women, that they would believe it and hear it only from me.'
Santangelo spoke with The Times in 2008 when she was offering up what was then her home in Malibu Cove Colony as an August rental, asking $55,000 per month. Regis Philbin and his wife, Joy, were interested, she said at the time.
Santangelo's friends remembered her online Tuesday and Wednesday.
'My heart aches as I write this. I'm still in shock and disbelief. How can you be gone??? ... Malibu was your paradise, where your soul danced with the tides and your laughter blended with the sound of the waves,' Cynthia Banuelos wrote on Instagram in a post mourning Santangelo's passing. 'You had a heart as vast as the ocean, a spirit as free as the wind, and a love that ran deeper than the blue depths you adored. Frank and the Boys (Dante & Lucci), were your reason for living.'
'Swim free, my beautiful mermaid. Until we meet again,' she added.
'Head of the Class' actor Kimberly Russell chimed in on Banuelos' post, writing in comments, 'my beautiful Cindyana …. an angel in life …. this is shocking rest in peace …'
'No no no! This is impossible,' German actor Xenia Seeberg wrote in comments. 'We just spoke a few days ago and planned together for Thailand and Istanbul and how we would see each other again much more often…! I am in complete shock. What happened to my beautiful sister??? Much too early to rest in peace.'
'I am devastated of this horrific news,' Samantha Bennington, wife of the late Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington, said in comments. 'We were just about to celebrate her for her birthday!!!! This is a huge loss, not only for us as her family and friends, but for the entire community!!!! You will forever be in our hearts and we're here for you all Frank and the kids. We are here for you.'
Bennington also put up her own Instagram post where she thanked Santangelo, saying, 'you wrapped your arms around me and accepted me and loved on me as a friend the very first moment you met me I'll never forget you for welcoming me into your tribe ... heartbroken.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
2 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
How an LAPD internal affairs detective became known as ‘The Grim Reaper'
In a police department with a long tradition of colorful nicknames — from 'Jigsaw John' to 'Captain Hollywood' — LAPD Sgt. Joseph Lloyd stands out. 'The Grim Reaper.' At least that's what some on the force have taken to calling the veteran Internal Affairs detective, usually out of earshot. According to officers who have found themselves under investigation by Lloyd, he seems to relish the moniker and takes pleasure in ending careers, even if it means twisting facts and ignoring evidence. But Lloyd's backers maintain his dogged pursuit of the truth is why he has been entrusted with some of the department's most politically sensitive and potentially embarrassing cases. Lloyd, 52, declined to comment. But The Times spoke to more than half a dozen current or former police officials who either worked alongside him or fell under his scrutiny. During the near decade that he's been in Internal Affairs, Lloyd has investigated cops of all ranks. When a since-retired LAPD officer was suspected of running guns across the Mexican border, the department turned to Lloyd to bust him. In 2020, when it came out that members of the elite Metropolitan Division were falsely labeling civilians as gang members in a police database, Lloyd was tapped to help unravel the mess. And when a San Fernando Valley anti-gang squad was accused in 2023 of covering up shakedowns of motorists, in swooped the Reaper again. Recently he was assigned to a department task force looking into allegations of excessive force by police against activists who oppose the government's immigration crackdown. At the LAPD, as in most big-city police departments across the country, Internal Affairs investigators tend to be viewed with suspicion and contempt by their colleagues. They usually try to operate in relative anonymity. Not Lloyd. The 24-year LAPD veteran has inadvertently become the face of a pitched debate over the LAPD's long-maligned disciplinary system. The union that represents most officers has long complained that well-connected senior leaders get favorable treatment. Others counter that rank-and-file cops who commit misconduct are routinely let off the hook. A recent study commissioned by Chief Jim McDonnell found that perceived unfairness in internal investigations is a 'serious point of contention' among officers that has contributed to low morale. McDonnell has said he wants to speed up investigations and better screen complaints, but efforts by past chiefs and the City Council to overhaul the system have repeatedly stalled. Sarah Dunster, 40, was a sergeant working in the LAPD's Hollywood division in 2021 when she learned she was under investigation for allegedly mishandling a complaint against one of her officers, who was accused of groping a woman he arrested. Dunster said she remembers being interviewed by Lloyd, whose questions seemed designed to trip her up and catch her in a lie, rather than aimed at hearing her account of what happened, she said. Some of her responses never made it into Lloyd's report, she said. 'He wanted to fire me,' she said. Dunster was terminated over the incident, but she appealed and last week a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge granted a reprieve that allows her to potentially get her job back. Others who have worked with Lloyd say he is regarded as a savvy investigator who is unfairly being vilified for discipline decisions that are ultimately made by the chief of police. A supervisor who oversaw Lloyd at Internal Affairs — and requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media — described him as smart, meticulous and 'a bulldog.' 'Joe just goes where the facts lead him and he doesn't have an issue asking the hard questions,' the supervisor said. On more than one occasion, the supervisor added, Internal Affairs received complaints from senior department officials who thought that Lloyd didn't show them enough deference during interrogations. Other supporters point to his willingness to take on controversial cases to hold officers accountable, even while facing character attacks from his colleagues, their attorneys and the powerful Los Angeles Police Protective League. Officers have sniped about his burly build, tendency to smile during interviews and other eccentricities. He wears two watches — one on each wrist, a habit he has been heard saying he picked up moonlighting as a high school lacrosse referee. But he has also been criticized as rigid and uncompromising, seeming to fixate only on details that point to an officer's guilt. People he has grilled say that when he doesn't get the answer he's looking for, he has a Columbo-esque tendency to ask the same question in different ways in an attempt to elicit something incriminating. And instead of asking officers to clarify any discrepancies in their statements, Lloyd automatically assumes they are lying, some critics said. Mario Munoz, a former LAPD Internal Affairs lieutenant who opened a boutique firm that assists officers fighting employment and disciplinary cases, recently released a scathing 60-page report questioning what he called a series of troubling lapses in the LAPD's 2023 investigation of the Mission gang unit. The report name-drops Lloyd several times. The department accused several Mission officers of stealing brass knuckles and other items from motorists in the San Fernando Valley, and attempting to hide their actions from their supervisors by switching off their body-worn cameras. Munoz said he received calls from officers who said Lloyd had violated their due process rights, which potentially opens the city up to liability. Several have since lodged complaints against Lloyd with the department. He alleged Lloyd ultimately singled out several 'scapegoats to shield higher-level leadership from scrutiny.' Until he retired from the LAPD in 2014, Munoz worked as both an investigator and an auditor who reviewed landmark internal investigations into the beating of Black motorist Rodney King and the Rampart gang scandal in which officers were accused of robbing people and planting evidence, among other crimes. Munoz now echoes a complaint from current officers that Internal Affairs in general, and Lloyd in particular, operate to protect the department's image at all costs. 'He's the guy that they choose because he doesn't question management,' Munoz said of Lloyd. In the Mission case, Munoz pointed to inconsistent outcomes for two captains who oversaw the police division accused of wrongdoing: One was transferred and later promoted, while another is fighting for his job amid accusations that he failed to rein in his officers. Two other supervisors — Lt. Mark Garza and Sgt. Jorge 'George' Gonzalez — were accused by the department of creating a 'working environment that resulted in the creation of a police gang,' according to an internal LAPD report. Both Garza and Gonzalez have sued the city, alleging that even though they reported the wrongdoing as soon as they became aware of it, they were instead punished by the LAPD after the scandal became public. According to Munoz's report and interviews with department sources, Lloyd was almost single-handedly responsible for breaking the Mission case open. It began with a complaint in late December 2022 made by a motorist who said he was pulled over and searched without reason in a neighboring patrol area. Lloyd learned that the officers involved had a pattern of not documenting traffic stops — exploiting loopholes in the department's auditing system for dashboard and body cameras. The more Lloyd dug, the more instances he uncovered of these so-called 'ghost stops.' A few months later, undercover Internal Affairs detectives began tailing the two involved officers — something that Garza and Gonzalez both claimed they were kept in the dark about. As of last month, four officers involved had been fired and another four had pending disciplinary hearings where their jobs hung in the balance. Three others resigned before the department could take action. The alleged ringleader, Officer Alan Carrillo, faces charges of theft and 'altering, planting or concealing evidence.' Court records show he was recently offered pretrial diversion by L.A. County prosecutors, which could spare him jail but require him to stop working in law enforcement. Carrillo has pleaded not guilty to the charges. In an interview with The Times, Gonzalez — the sergeant who is facing termination — recalled a moment during a recorded interrogation that he found so troubling he contacted the police union director Jamie McBride, to express concern. McBride, he said, went to Lloyd's boss, then-deputy chief Michael Rimkunas, seeking Lloyd's removal from Internal Affairs. The move failed. Lloyd kept his job. Rimkunas confirmed the exchange with the police union leader in an interview with The Times. He said that while he couldn't discuss Lloyd specifically due to state personnel privacy laws, in general the department assigns higher-profile Internal Affairs cases to detectives with a proven track record. Gonzalez, though, can't shake the feeling that Lloyd crossed the line in trying to crack him during an interrogation. He said that at one point while Lloyd was asking questions, the detective casually flipped over his phone, which had been sitting on the table. On the back of the protective case, Gonzalez said, was a grim reaper sticker. 'And then as he turned it he looked at me as if to get a reaction from me,' Gonzalez said. 'It was definitely a way of trying to intimidate me for sure.'
CBS News
10 hours ago
- CBS News
Man dead after police-involved shootout in Batavia, Illinois, authorities say
A man was killed in a police-involved shootout Saturday afternoon after officers responded to an unspecified incident in Batavia, Illinois. The Kane County Major Crimes Task Force said, around 4 p.m., officers from the Batavia Police Department and Kane County Sheriff's office responded to an incident in the 1200 block of East Wilson Street in Batavia. A 28-year-old man fired shots at responding officers, who returned fire. The man who fired at police was killed, but the Kane County Major Crimes Task Force said investigators have not yet determined whether any of the shots fired by police struck the man or contributed to his death. Officials did not provide any further details on the incident that led up to the shooting. The Kane County Major Crimes Task Force was investigating the shootout, and will turn over its findings to the Kane County State's Attorney's office for a review.
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Yahoo
UTV belonging to man found dead near Bonneville Salt Flats found
BOX ELDER COUNTY, Utah (ABC4) — The Utility Terrain Vehicle (UTV) belonging to a man who was found dead near the Bonneville Salt Flats has been found, according to the Box Elder County Sheriff's Office. On July 12, Michael Steven Comstock, 62, of Sandy, was found dead in the Silver Island Mountains near Bonneville Salt Flats. This area is in far western Box Elder County, just north of the Tooele County line, not far from Wendover. Police said his death was a result of heat exposure coupled with a cardiac event. Over a month later, on Aug. 15, Comstock's UTV was found by hunters in a remote area west of the Silver Island Mountains, where it had gotten stuck, according to the sheriff's office. 'Please be aware of the deceptive nature of the lake bed. While it may appear dry and solid, the surface is often a thin crust of salt that can easily give way, causing vehicles to become hopelessly stuck in the underlying mud,' the sheriff's office said in a release. 'We extend our sincere gratitude to all members of the public who provided information that assisted in the search efforts.' The Box Elder County Sheriff's Office reminds everyone visiting the remote areas of the county to be prepared for the unexpected, carry ample supplies of water and food, and always inform a trusted contact of travel plans. Latest headlines: Behind the scenes of Trump's historic summit with Putin Texas Democrats poised to end standoff: 5 things to know What to know for the 2025 Hunting season Beehive Blitz – Week 1 Scoreboard Safety project on US-6 will close lanes in Spanish Fork Canyon until December Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
