SANTA ANA (CNS) - A teen girl and her mother have filed a claim with the county, a precursor to a lawsuit, stemming from allegations that a former Orange County sheriff's deputy showed an obscene video to youths at Trabuco Hills High School in Mission Viejo.
Former Deputy Justin Ramirez has been charged with distributing or exhibiting pornography to a minor, according to court records. Ramirez, who was a school resource officer at the time, resigned his position.
Ramirez is accused of showing pornography to the girl on Sept. 2.
The alleged victim's attorney, Michael Guisti, filed a claim with the county Tuesday.
Ramirez was not assigned to Trabuco Hills High, 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 along 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 August 2019. Orange County supervisors in October 2021 voted to approve a $1.5 million settlement with the man's family.
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 did 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.