The Preliminary Hearing for five of the six family members involved as defendants in this case has not yet been set.  One family member, Dominique Boudreaux, the wife of claims adjuster defendant, Hugo Ramirez, has accepted a plea deal from the District Attorney's office and has pleaded guilty to three felony counts of: 1. for Income Tax Evasion 2. for Claims Adjuster fraud, and 3. for Grand Theft.  She is scheduled for sentencing on May 10th 2011.

The other five family members of Sandra Orozco, Christian Ramirez, Hugo Ramirez, Javier Ramirez, and Maria Ochoa are waiting for their next court date of February 4th in order to set the date for their Preliminary Hearing.  Only Sandra Orozco, the wife of defendant, Christian Ramirez, is presently out on bail.  Christian, Hugo, and Javier Ramirez are still in custody and still have their bails set at 1.5 million dollars each.  Maria Ochoa's bail is still set at $321,000 and she also remains in custody.  Naturally, Dominique Boudreaux is still in custody awaiting her sentencing hearing.

The Ramirez family ran a ring of grand theft through the use of two transportation companies and a private investigations firm doing business with the Santa Ana workers' compensation claims department of Tristar Risk Management, the third-party-administrator that handles the County of Los Angeles account.  The excessive total billings from and payments to these three vendor companies totaled approximately 1.5 million dollars.  It is not known at this time exactly how much out of that total figure was for excessive taking.  Some of the billings and payments were for legitimate services. 

All six family members were arrested last September 2010 after a several months long investigation prompted by an audit.  Christian, Hugo, and Javier Ramirez worked in the workers' compensation claims department of Tristar in Santa Ana in the Los Angeles County unit.  Dominique Boudreaux, Sandra Orozco, and Maria Ochoa owned and operated the vendor companies.

lonce@adjustercom.com