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Former OC Sheriff’s deputy accused of showing teens obscene video gets diversion program instead of jail

April 26, 2023

A former Orange County sheriff’s deputy accused of showing teens an obscene video at Trabuco Hills High School in Mission Viejo was granted a request Tuesday to have his case diverted to a court-ordered program that allows him to avoid any jail time and petition to have the charge dismissed.

Former Deputy Justin Ramirez was charged with distributing or exhibiting pornography to a minor, according to court records. Ramirez, who was a school resource officer at the time, resigned from his position.

The court-initiated misdemeanor diversion program allows for defendants to perform community service or take a course and then after completing it petition to have the case dismissed.

Ramirez is accused of showing pornography to a teenage girl on Sept. 2.

The alleged victim’s attorney, Michael Guisti, filed a claim, which is a necessary precursor to a lawsuit, with the county last month.

Ramirez was not assigned to Trabuco Hills High School, but was in his patrol vehicle in the school’s parking lot near the lunch tables when he was showing teens “pornography that depicted sexual and violent acts including one of the sexual participants being stabbed to death,” according to the claim.

Two other students asked the alleged victim and two other girls if they wanted to see some “bad videos a cop was showing in his car,” according to the claim.

The teen was “shocked and horrified at what she saw,” according to the claim.

When the girl, who was 14 at the time, got home she told her mother, who “was struck with fear, anger and extreme emotional distress,” according to the claim.

The mother called authorities and asked that the deputy not respond to the call, according to the claim. But Ramirez was sent on Sept. 5 with another deputy to respond to the complaint, according to the claim.

The woman “reported the incident to Ramirez and relayed to Ramirez all the details of her personal life, including the fact that she and (her daughter) lived alone in their home,” according to the claim.

“On Sept. 13, 2022, an Orange County sheriff’s captain and an assistant sheriff came to (the woman’s) home and told her that Ramirez was not only the deputy who came to her home, but he was also the same deputy who had shown the explicit pornography to (the teen) and the other minors,” according to the claim.

“Later that same day, Sheriff (Don) Barnes personally called (the mother) and apologized to her for what happened. Sheriff Barnes assured her that Ramirez was not on active duty.”

The mother was informed that Ramirez’s gun and badge had been taken from him, according to the claim.

The mother became more frightened when she learned Ramirez was a defendant in a federal lawsuit that was settled that alleged he was involved in a violent struggle with a suspect who died, according to the claim.

“This pervert is targeting minors and showing them pornography that is both sexual and violent in nature,” the victim’s mother said in a statement released by Guisti.

“I want him off the street,” she added. “He was in a position of trust so that he could protect people in Orange County. But he abused his power and authority in the worst possible way. No child should ever see what this sheriff’s deputy showed my daughter.”

According to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, the video showed a woman being stabbed to death and a video exhibiting “graphic drug use.”

Ramirez was a defendant in a federal wrongful death lawsuit stemming from the in-custody death of Chong Tok “Richard” Rha in La Mirada in 2019. A $1.5 million settlement with the man’s family was approved by the Orange County Board of Supervisors in October 2021.

Prosecutors cleared Ramirez and Deputy Laurie Schwartz of any criminal conduct in the arrest of Rha. The two were in a violent struggle with Rha as they tried to take him into custody on July 15, 2019.

An autopsy showed Rha had amphetamine, methamphetamine and marijuana in his system. The cause of death was considered accidental and “consistent with cardiac arrhythmia associated with a physical altercation,” according to a report from the District Attorney’s Office.

The doctor who performed the autopsy “concluded that Rha’s cause of death was acute exacerbation of chronic methamphetamine use, and noted as other conditions the struggle with law enforcement and the use of Taser, as well as eosinophilic pneumonia,” according to prosecutors.

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Orange County Register

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Former OC Sheriff’s deputy accused of showing teens obscene video gets diversion program instead of jail

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