CALIFORNIA—On July 20, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced that former Los Angeles attorney Sergio Valdovinos Ramirez, 36, of Manhattan Beach, pleaded guilty to one felony count of possessing insufficient funds and three felony counts of grand theft by embezzlement after he took more than $300,000 from clients.
Ramirez pleaded guilty to a special allegation that he committed a crime resulting in more than $100,000 in losses. As part of his plea agreement, he must pay $310,000 in restitution and $50,000 before sentencing.
He began practicing law in 2017. Between 2019 and 2023, Ramirez received settlement funds intended for six of his clients, Salvador Mora, Robert Torres, Jolynn Vega, Osvaldo Buenrostro Hernandez, Jesus Morales Bucio, and Lisa Mendez, but did not give them the money. He wrote checks to his clients, but he did not have enough money in his bank account to cover them because he used the money he was paid by his clients for gambling-related services.
According to the opinion of the State Bar Court of California, which issued its opinion on Ramirez’s disbarment on June 28, 2024, he had been hired by Salvador Mora to oversee a workers’ compensation appeal regarding Mora’s previous employer, which was Marriott. Mora’s wife signed an agreement keeping the defendant on retainer on October 20, 2020. In total, they paid him $11,800 over the next few months and terminated their contract in December of that year, but Ramirez did not refund the money.
Lisa Mendez hired Ramirez on November 5, 2019, to represent her after she was involved in a traffic collision that occurred on August 19, 2019, involving an Uber vehicle and injured herself and damaged the vehicle, which belonged to her mother.
Ramirez was hired in June 2019 by Bucio to be legal counsel in an employment discrimination case against his previous employer, BTX Global. Hernandez hired the defendant to act as legal counsel in an appeal against a deportation order.
Ramirez’s disbarment was recommended by the State Bar Court of California after it determined that he committed 19 ethical violations and lied to his clients, claiming that his actions were due to being treated for terminal cancer at City of Hope by a doctor named Stephen Chang, an oncologist who does not exist. The California State Supreme Court approved the disbarment on September 18, 2024.
His sentencing hearing is scheduled for September 21 in Department 123 of the Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Downtown Los Angeles. He will serve a two-year sentence in a California state prison.
