The Brief

The email was urgent and alarming.

The message appeared to come from the L.A. Field Office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It said Patty Lui’s toy business in downtown L.A. was under federal investigation, and she had 24 hours to contact the agency — “whether individually or by legal representative on your behalf.”

Text of a fabricated email Zargarof used to convince his client to send $10,000 to defend against nonexistent investigation.

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State Bar of California court filings

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By the time Lui suspected something was wrong, she said she’d paid her attorney, Ronen Zargarof, tens of thousands of dollars. According to findings from the California State Bar, Zargarof charged Lui for a number of “fictitious services.”

Zargarof’s license is currently suspended, according to State Bar records. In October, more than three years after the email about the fake ICE investigation, the State Bar Court recommended Zargarof be disbarred. They found that Zargarof, who was already working for Lui on another matter, knew the purported ICE email was fake. There was no urgent ICE investigation.

Lui told LAist that when she ended up sending Zargarof about $90,000.

“I was really rushing it and I really believed in what he said,” Lui told LAist.

Zargarof did not cooperate with the State Bar’s investigation into his dealings with Lui, who ultimately complained to the bar, or contest the charges set forth in the accusation filed by the bar against him, court documents show. The California Supreme Court still has to rule on whether Zargarof will be disbarred.

Zargarof has not responded to LAist's requests for comment on this story. According to civil court filings, he also ignored multiple orders to provide discovery materials in his case.

The documents show that Zargarof’s defense lawyers argued in February 2021 that he was unable to attend a deposition because he was out of state with no estimated return date. The lawyers then filed to leave the case in April, shortly after Zargarof was ordered by the court to attend a deposition the following month. Zargarof did not attend the deposition, court records state, and the court ruled against him in a default judgement.

How to protect yourself

George Cardona, chief trial counsel of the State Bar of California, said people navigating immigration law are especially vulnerable to misconduct and misrepresentation.

The State Bar files charges against 100 to 200 attorneys each year, Cardona said. Those charges can lead to disciplinary actions like suspension, disbarment or fines.

“ Of the cases we file, a fair number involve misappropriations of funds or misrepresentations,” Cardona told LAist. “We have had other cases, particularly in immigration context, involving fabricated documents.”

As federal immigration cases have ramped up this year with the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation policies, there may be even more risk.

Cardona recommends anyone needing a lawyer to look into the attorney you plan to hire before trusting them to represent you in court.

A search of court records in late 2021, when Lui first hired Zargarof, could have turned up a judgment against him for more than $170,000. According to court filings, Zagarof was ordered to pay damages of $76,500 for breach of contract and $48,500 for “tort causes,” including battery, assault, domestic violence, negligence and infliction of emotional distress. The plaintiff is listed as a “Jane Doe.”

“The Court finds Defendant's conduct was willful, wanton, oppressive and malicious,” the order states.

When it comes to keeping yourself safe from fraud, Cardona said, the first thing you should do is search for a lawyer on the State Bar of California's webpage before deciding whether to hire them.

“ First, it can confirm that they're a lawyer, and second, it will show if they have any disciplinary history,” he said.

Cardona said people posing as lawyers is especially prevalent in immigration cases.

After checking whether a lawyer is licensed or has a history of disciplinary actions, he said you should look online for reviews or check with friends who may have an attorney they know first-hand.

The lawyer will be acting on your behalf, Cardona said, “ so it's important to have someone you can trust.”

A cautionary tale

Lui initially hired Zargarof to handle a separate, civil employment case in November 2021.

She told LAist that she never met Zargarof in person. November is a particularly busy time for her business making and selling teddy bears, Lui said, and for a few weeks it seemed Zargarof was on top of the case.

“ He was always telling me that he just came out from the court and this is what I need,” Lui said, “I need to pay and pay and pay.”

Zargarof began asking for more money to cover various fees, she said, pushing her to quickly send him money.

“ I’d have to rush to send him a wire,” Lui told LAist. “I was so nervous.”

According to the State Bar’s findings, some of Zargarof’s fees were for “fictitious services,” including $2,500 to have her daughter dismissed from the civil case against Lui, and $6,000 for proceedings before the “Labor Board of Los Angeles County.”

The State Bar noted in court documents that Lui’s daughter was never accused of any wrongdoing in the case, and that the “Labor Board of Los Angeles County” does not exist.

The bar described in court filings how Zargarof made up these scenarios to charge Lui fees for services he never provided.

Zargarof sent text messages to Lui, which were quoted in court filings and provided more information on the investigation.

“There were two search warrant[s] . . . for your computers and files. We are dismissing those today,” Zargarof messaged Lui.

Zargarof said that he knew an “immigration experts partner,” named Tracey Pierantoni, and directed Lui to pay $10,000 into Pierantoni’s bank account.

“They are going to charge a flat rate of 5 [thousand] per file = 10k so I think it will be cheaper for you to wire them before 130 today instead of putting it on card,” said one message included in court documents.

There was no ICE investigation, according to the court documents, and Tracey Pierantoni Zargarof is not a licensed attorney in the state of California.

Court documents allege that Pierantoni Zargarof is one of several family members Zargarof used to accept payments from Lui.

Pierantoni Zargarof denies any involvement in the payments, and told LAist she intends to file charges against Zargarof for identity fraud.

“I have nothing to do with his criminal activity," Pierantoni Zargarof said when asked for comment. She added that she hasn't seen him in two or three years and doesn't know where he is or how to reach him.

Details from the State Bar Complaint

While Lui was trying to keep up with her business and pay Zargarof’s fees, court records document that Zargarof ran up a $25,000 bill on Lui’s credit card to pay for a hotel stay at the Rosewood Miramar Beach in Santa Barbara.

Zargarof told Lui he was using the card to hire private investigators for her case, she told LAist. Once she learned that wasn’t true she went to her bank with a fraud claim.

She also made a complaint to the State Bar of California in August 2022, which led to disciplinary charges against Zargarof in April 2025.

Lui said her bank was able to return the money that was charged to her card, but she hasn't been able to recover tens of thousands of additional payments that the State Bar found were for "fictitious services.”

California’s district attorneys and the state attorney general will now have the ability to sue individual businesses that they believe are engaging in anticompetitive conduct.

But for some of its biggest proponents, it’s a hollow victory.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday signed Assembly Bill 1776, known as the Compete Act, bringing an end to one of the most hard-fought political battles of the year. Unions and consumer rights groups supported the bill, but the state’s influential Chamber of Commerce fiercely opposed it and won several concessions to water it down.

Assemblymember Cecilia-Aguiar Curry, a powerful Davis Democrat, introduced the bill to modernize the century-old Cartwright Act, which regulates only anticompetitive conduct by two or more businesses. Many progressive Democrats, concerned about corporate consolidation of business in industries such as healthcare, ticket sales and retail, signed on as co-authors.

Newsom signed the bill along with six other small business-friendly bills on the constitutional deadline for signing legislation.

“We’re taking on predatory practices that drive up costs and shut entrepreneurs out — making sure California’s economy works for everyone, not just the biggest and best-connected,” he wrote in a release announcing his approval.

However, his signing message on AB 1776 was more circumspect.

“While I align myself with a stated goal of targeting anti-competitive conduct that harms consumers, workers, and businesses alike, we must be careful not to set the bar too low — dragging legitimate, superior business practices and products into the ambit of anti-competitive behavior,” he wrote.

He added that he expects judges and prosecutors to interpret and apply the law “in ways that penalize clear wrongdoing, without creating needless uncertainty.”

Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, a former sponsor of the bill, wrote in a post on X that Newsom’s signing message made Hepner pessimistic that the law would be effective.

“I foresee politicized antitrust litigation budgets, partisan allegations of weaponized enforcement, novel legal defenses that find new basis in the legislative history of this bill, and public officials caving to the concentrated private power that antitrust laws are supposed to put in check,” he wrote.

The group had helped craft the legislation for years, but changed its position when Aguiar-Curry removed a “private right of action” provision that would have allowed any individual or business to sue a company they allege is harming them through anticompetitive tactics.

Other supporters included the California Federation of Labor Unions and TechEquity Action, a progressive advocacy group that lobbies for regulation of the tech industry.

Labor Federation President Lorena Gonzalez said in a statement that the new law “gets us one step closer to building a more affordable economy for working people.”

The bill grew out of a three-year review by the California Law Revision Commission, which the Legislature had asked to study changes to the 1907 Cartwright Act.

The private right of action was one of the biggest sticking points for CalChamber, which argued it would “expose businesses of all sizes to a wave of frivolous lawsuits.” The group launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign over the summer to push to weaken the proposed law. Tech companies such as Meta and Google also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby legislators on AB 1776 and other issues.

Although Aguiar-Curry said she was disappointed the private right of action was gutted in the last weeks of the legislative session, she pressed on, and lawmakers passed the bill in the last days.

“California now has stronger tools to protect our small businesses, workers, and consumers and to make sure our markets work for everyone,” she said in Wednesday’s release.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a bill intended to free up state funds for homeless housing that requires sobriety after vetoing a similar effort last year.

For years, California has followed “housing first” principles when it comes to homelessness, which means funding low-barrier programs that don’t require people to jump through extra hoops — such as getting sober — before they are allowed a place to live. But while that works for many people who aren’t ready to kick addictions, it leaves behind people who want to be sober and are struggling to stay that way, said Assemblymember Matt Haney, a Democrat from San Francisco. For them, the only option often is to live in housing surrounded by neighbors who use substances, he said.

Haney’s legislation, Assembly Bill 1556, clarifies that sober housing providers can qualify for state funds, as long as they follow certain rules.

“People working hard to stay sober deserve the choice to live in a home that supports their recovery,” Haney said in a news release. “I’m incredibly grateful to Governor Newsom for signing AB 1556 and for working with us to get this right. This law will finally give Californians in recovery access to safe, stable, drug-free housing while making sure that if someone relapses, they are supported and stay connected to housing and services.”

Under the new law, sober residences that get state funds must have a written policy dictating what to do if someone relapses. The housing provider must give them the option to move into low-barrier housing. If they decline, they can be evicted.

It’s Haney’s third attempt to get state money for sober housing. His first, AB 2479, died in 2024.

His second, AB 255, made it all the way to Newsom’s desk before the governor vetoed it for a surprising reason: According to the governor, Haney’s bill was unnecessary because recent guidelines from the state already allowed state funds to pay for sober housing.

That was a big surprise to Haney, who had never seen those guidelines before. When CalMatters asked the governor’s office for a copy, we received a link to a 20-page document that was dated July 2025, but wasn’t published online until the day after Newsom’s veto.

After reviewing those guidelines, Haney spent a year working more closely with the governor’s office on a new bill. It’s still important, Haney said, because the existing guidelines are unclear: Housing providers still believe state funds are off-limits for sober housing. The proof, he said, is that housing providers still aren’t using them to fund sober-living projects.

There are several differences between the new sober housing law and last year’s failed bill, cost chief among them. Last year’s bill would have set up a new system for the state’s housing department to regulate sober housing, costing millions of dollars in the first year, according to the Senate Appropriations Committee’s analysis. By contrast, the new sober housing law comes with an expected price tag of about $200,000 per year to fund one staff position, according to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Even so, some housing organizations opposed the new legislation, arguing it will divert scarce housing funds away from the low-barrier models that are proven to work.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

The rent, as we all know, is too damn high.

So is California’s poverty rate.

The two things are related.

That’s the not-so-surprising finding of a new analysis published by the Pew Charitable Trusts: If California’s rents dropped to the national average, the state would slash its poverty rate by 30%. The child poverty rate would decline by 36%.

The report is meant to highlight an important, if sometimes overlooked, aspect of poverty: It isn’t just about how much a person makes.

“Anti-poverty programs will be much more effective if we address people’s expenses, and rent is the number-one line item for most Americans,” said Pew researcher Alex Horowitz.

Case in point: CalFresh, the state’s food stamp program, saw an increase of $13.1 billion in benefits between 1989 and 2023. Over that same period, rising rents ate away 78% of that increase, according to the analysis.

California’s official poverty rate, which currently matches the national average of 10.7%, has always been a misleading stat. Using another official measure that takes into account each state’s housing costs, the percentage of Californians living in poverty rockets up to 17.8% — the second highest rate in the country after Louisiana.

That makes bringing down rents an especially effective anti-poverty program. If the state’s rents fell by 20%, child poverty would decline by roughly a quarter, the report found.

Twenty percent may seem impossibly ambitious in a state where rents often only seem to go in one direction (with some noteworthy exceptions), but that’s roughly how much typical rents declined in Austin and Minneapolis between 2021 and 2025. Pew researchers attribute that feat of affordability to local policy changes that have allowed for more housing construction.

Those policies — allowing for denser housing in cities, reducing parking requirements for new developments, encouraging the construction of ADUs — mirror many of the laws adopted at the state level in California. Those laws have yet to result in a major increasein new housing, but proponents are optimistic that a building boom is on the horizon.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.