Jose Lopez Jr., Racketeering, California 2023

SANTA ANA, California - A former clerk of the Orange County Superior Court was sentenced to 135 months in federal prison for orchestrating a scheme in which he was paid approximately $420,000 dollars in bribes to 'fix' criminal cases and traffic offenses on terms favorable to hundreds of defendants without the knowledge of prosecutors or judges.

Jose Lopez Jr., 36, of Anaheim, was sentenced this morning after pleading guilty in March to one count of conspiring to violate the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

Lopez admitted that he was at the center of a scheme in which bribes as high as $8,000 were paid to co-conspirators to fraudulently resolve cases for hundreds of defendants. The co-conspirators were middlemen who recruited individuals with pending cases to pay money that was given to Lopez to resolve their cases without the authorization of the court.

According to court documents, Lopez improperly resolved approximately 1,034 cases, including 69 misdemeanor driving under the influence cases, 160 other misdemeanor cases and 805 traffic-related infraction cases.

Over the course of more than five years, Lopez 'resolved' cases by entering information into the court's computers to make it appear that a defendant had pleaded guilty, paid required fees or had performed community service. In some cases, Lopez fraudulently created records that made it appear drunk driving charges had been dismissed or defendants had served mandatory jail time.

The conspiracy ended in the spring of 2015 when the Orange County Superior Court learned about the misconduct and took steps to reopen the cases that Lopez tampered with.

Lopez used the money he received as part of the scheme to pay for, among other things, international vacations, trips to Las Vegas and the opening of a restaurant in Garden Grove.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/former-clerk-orange-county-superior-court-sentenced-over-11-years-federal-prison