In all her career in law, Sarah McCracken has never seen anything as the email she received on June 25.
McCracken, lawyer for the rights of tenants in Ravenscroft TobesCurrently represents a Latin American family pursuing a owner and a real estate agent for illegal expulsion after being expelled from their home in Baldwin Park last year.
A few weeks after having been served, in the middle of a series of ice raids targeting mainly Latin American communities in the County of Los Angeles, Rod Fehlman, the lawyer who seemed to represent the agent at the time, sent the McCracken team a series of email contesting the trial and exhorting them to abandon the case.
It ended the correspondence with this: “It is also interesting to note that your customers are likely to be recovered by ice and expelled before the trial thanks to all the right work that the Trump administration has done with regard to immigration to California.”
“It’s racist,” said McCracken. “Not only is it contrary to ethics and probably illegal, but it is just a really wild thing to say – especially since my customers are American citizens.”
The commentary arrived while the ice increases the tensions between the owners and the Latinos tenants. According to California Atty. General Rob Bonta, Ice was Press certain owners To report the immigration status of their tenants.
The Bonta office released a consumer alert on Tuesday reminding owners that “it is illegal in California to discriminate the tenants or to harass or to retaliate against a tenant by revealing their immigration status to the police”.
Fehlman did not respond to requests for comments, and the customers that he did not seem represented: the real estate agent David Benavides and the majesty of brokerage One Properties, Inc. Fehlman in the case is not clear; Following the requests for comments from the Times, Benavids and the brokerage responded to the complaint of McCracken using another law firm.
But according to McCracken, Fehlman is the personal lawyer of the accused and will probably still participate in the trial in an advisory role.
Expelled
From 2018 to 2024, Yicenia Morales rented a two-room condo at Baldwin Park, which she shared with her husband, three children and her grandson. According to his unjustified expulsion trial tabled in May, the house had a series of problems: defective electricity, leaks in the bathroom, bad ventilation and broken radiator, air conditioning unit and a garage door.
“There was a lot to repair, but we accepted it because we were just happy to find a place to live,” said Morales.
The real problems started in 2024, when its owner, Celia Ruiz, began to ask the family to leave because they wanted to sell the property, which is not a valid reason for expulsion under Californian law or Baldwin Park Just cause exupance ordinancesaid the costume.
According to the trial, Ruiz then changed her story, alleging that she wanted to settle in the house herself, which would be a valid reason for expulsion. According to the costume, Ruiz and his real estate agent, David Benavids of Majesty One Properties, has constantly urged moral and his family to leave.
In September, the pressure rose. Ruiz wrote a handwritten note saying that she needed the house, and Benavids began to call them almost every day, said the costume.
In November, assuming that Ruiz was to return, Morales left. But instead of moving in it, Ruiz put the property on the market in January and sold it by March.
“I really thought she needed the house for herself,” said Morales. “I’m just tired that people enjoy others.”
Lawyer tactics
According to your interpretation of the California business and professions code, Fehlman’s comment could be illegal, said McCracken. Section 6103.7 Said that lawyers can be suspended, struck off or disciplined if they “declare an alleged immigration status or threaten to report an alleged immigration status of a witness or a party to civil or administrative action”.
In addition, the California status bar Prohibited lawyers from threatening to present criminal, administrative or disciplinary charges to obtain an advantage in a civil dispute.
You might say that Fehlman’s email is not a threat. He never said that he would call Ice himself, affirming only that Morales and his family “should be picked up by ice and expelled”.
Morals and all his family are all American citizens. But she said that she felt racially profiled because of her family name.
“It’s not just for him to take advantage of it,” she said. “I was born here. I have a birth certificate. I pay taxes. “
Just to be safe, Morales sent his birth certificates to the McCracken team. Even if she is a citizen, if Fehlman brings her to the ice, she still does not feel safe.
Federal agents have American citizens arrested During his recent raids through the, and A 2018 survey By the Times, noted that the ice has stopped nearly 1,500 American citizens since 2012, holding a few years at a time.
“I was already depressed by expulsion. Now I’m injured, embarrassed and nervous too. Will he really call the ice on us? ” Said morals.
McCracken said that Fehlman’s message is a sub-product of the current anti-immigrant political environment. Fehlman sent the email on June 25, the end of a discordant month that saw the agency Stop 2,031 people In seven counties in southern California, 68% had no criminal conviction.
“People seem embarrassing to flout the law because they see people at the top do so,” she said. “It is completely unacceptable behavior.”
An ironic touch, she added, is that Fehlman’s own customer at the time was also Latin.
“I do not know if Benavids knew that his lawyer made comments racily profiling, but I do not think he would like to work with someone like that,” said McCracken.
The case is still at its beginnings. Benavids and Majesty One Properties responded to the complaint on July 17, and the McCracken team has not yet officially served the owner Ruiz because they could not locate it.
In the wake of the comment on the ice, communication between McCracken and Fehlman stopped. McCracken decided that Fehlman’s diatribe and a possible threat did not justify an answer, and Fehlman has said nothing else in the meantime. His team always decides how they want to proceed as a result of the comment, which could justify legal action.
She called for this a dangerous attempt to cool her client’s speech and a failed attempt to intimidate him in the abolition of the case. But he went too far.
“We are at a time when lawyers must maintain the rule of law,” she said. “Especially in a period like this.”
