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DA Todd Spitzer showed racial bias in OC burglary case against Chilean national, judge rules

April 21, 2026

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer’s campaign to close a tourism loophole that allows Chileans to enter the United States without background checks has landed him in hot water in the case of a Chilean national charged with felony burglary.

A judge last week ruled that a press release by Spitzer was racially biased against defendant Jorge Navarretecorvalan, who was described in defense papers as the “poster child” for the district attorney’s push to drop Chile from the ESTA visa waiver program.

Superior Court Judge Michael Cassidy found that the June 14, 2024, press release detailing Navarretecorvalan’s arrest was in violation of California’s Racial Justice Act and ordered the parties to return to court Tuesday, April 21, to determine a remedy.

In the release, Spitzer accused then-U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas of not taking action against Chile for failing to conduct criminal checks on Chilean nationals coming to the United States without visas through the electronic system for travel authorization (ESTA). The ESTA program waives visas for tourists staying up to 90 days at a time.

Three men allegedly involved in a Chilean burglary ring that targeted professional athletes pose with a collection of watches and a safe reportedly taken from the home of Milwaukee Bucks player Bobby Portis. (Courtesy of U.S. Attorney's Office, Middle District of Florida — Three men allegedly involved in a Chilean burglary ring that targeted professional athletes pose with a collection of watches and a safe reportedly taken from the home of Milwaukee Bucks player Bobby Portis. (Courtesy of U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Florida

Across the country, Chilean nationals have been accused of participating in “burglary tourism,” including seven alleged members of a South American theft crew charged by federal authorities last year with burglarizing the homes of professional athletes with the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers football teams as well as the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team.

Allegedly stolen by the group was more than $2 million in jewelry, cash and luxury items.

“Instead of holding Chile accountable and preventing a direct pipeline for organized crime to shuttle thieves into the United States, Secretary Mayorkas’ inaction is resulting in Americans continuing to be terrorized by criminals who are stalking them in their houses and waiting for the perfect moment to break their back sliders and steal their most prized possessions,” Spitzer said in the news release.

In 2022, 350,000 Chilean nationals entered the United States through the ESTA visa waiver program without background checks, said the release.

Spitzer’s news release announced charges against Chilean nationals Navarretecorvalan and Alejandro Tobarfuentes for allegedly stealing a safe, jewelry and designer bags from a San Juan Capistrano home and causing a wrong-way collision while fleeing police. Navarretecorvalan was the alleged driver. Both men had entered the country through the ESTA program and possessed forged identification cards identifying them as Venezuelans.

In another statement to the media, Spitzer warned that Chilean criminals were not coming to Orange County to visit Disneyland, but to burglarize.

Navarretecorvalan, 32, is awaiting trial and remains incarcerated, with bail set at $1 million. Tobarfuentes pleaded guilty to felony first-degree burglary and escaped for a short time from a state prison camp in Los Angeles before he was recaptured.

In California, the Racial Justice Act, enacted in 2020, prohibits bias toward a defendant based on race, ethnicity or national origin. It doesn’t matter the degree of bias, only that it was shown to exist. The law has a lower legal standard for proving bias, which is “by a preponderance of evidence.”

Spitzer said Monday that California lawmakers were trying to silence prosecutors from warning the public about the dangers of criminals entering the United States through a faulty tourist program and “robbing us blind.”

“This is not an Orange County problem; it’s a national security problem and everyone, including Homeland Security, knows it, and they refuse to shut down the program,” he said. “I’m not going to stop talking about it until Chile is removed from the program like every other county which has been removed for refusing to adhere to the ESTA visa waiver program rules.”

In a February 2025 letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and then Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Spitzer urged them to suspend Chile from the visa waiver program.

“The ESTA visa waiver program is directly responsible for importing thousands of transnational criminals from Chile into the United States, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and thousands of American citizens being unnecessarily victimized in their own homes — the very places where they should be safest,” he wrote.

Navarretecorvalan’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Rose Angulo, said the Racial Justice Act was important to keep bias out of the justice system.

“There are so many ways Mr. Spitzer could have addressed public safety concerns without resorting to ethnic bias,” Angulo said. “The court’s decision makes clear that inflammatory narratives rooted in stereotypes have no place in our legal system. It also sends a message that Mr. Spitzer does not get to violate the law while enforcing the law.”

In court documents, Angulo said that Spitzer highlighted Navarretecorvalan’s nationality in tirades against shortcomings in the visa waiver program. This despite the fact, Angulo said, that Navarretecorvalan’s status as a Chilean national had nothing to do with whether he was guilty of burglary.

Spitzer’s comments made it appear to the public and potential jurors that Chilean nationals are deceptive and that those who commit crime are worse than domestic criminals, Angulo said in court documents.

She stressed that there was no evidence that Navarretecorvalan had a criminal record in Chile or that he was tied to Chilean gangs. Yet his case was assigned to the DA’s gang prosecution unit.

Angulo added there was no evidence that Navarretecorvalan came to the United States with the intent to commit crimes or that he had any criminal sophistication. In court papers, she accused Spitzer of fearmongering.

The Navarretecorvalan case isn’t the first time that Spitzer has run afoul of the Racial Justice Act. In 2022, a judge ruled that Spitzer showed racial bias in comments he made in a closed-door meeting to decide whether to seek the death penalty against a Black defendant, Jamon Buggs, in a double murder case.

Spitzer asked about the race of Buggs’ former girlfriends and said he “knows many Black people who enhance their status by only dating ‘White women,’” according to internal DA memos. Both the victims were white. The defense said Buggs mistook one of the victims for an ex-girlfriend.

Spitzer decided not to pursue the death penalty and Buggs was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. No remedy was issued for the racial bias violation since Spitzer had already taken the death penalty off the table.

DA Todd Spitzer showed racial bias in OC burglary case against Chilean national, judge rules Orange County Register

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DA Todd Spitzer showed racial bias in OC burglary case against Chilean national, judge rules

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