WASHINGTON – El Paso Corp. illegally manipulated California's natural gas market during the height of the state's energy crisis and should be penalized, a regulatory judge ruled yesterday. Judge Curtis Wagner Jr. issued a finding that El Paso subsidiaries "withheld extremely large amounts of capacity that could have flowed to its California delivery points" from November 2000 to March 2001. Wagner, the chief judge for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said El Paso's actions resulted in soaring prices while California was reeling from an energy crisis and rolling blackouts. It was the first ruling by a federal regulatory official that...