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.”

Public health officials are urging people to be wary of flea-borne typhus after a recent outbreak of the illness.

The outbreak in late July was centered in the Pico-Union neighborhood of Los Angeles. The L.A. County Department of Public Health said five people were hospitalized; all recovered.

The outbreak comes as typhus cases continue to tick up in L.A. County.

Cases have been increasing fairly steadily for more than a decade, but they nearly doubled over the last three years. The Public Health Department logged a record 220 cases in 2025, and officials say this year is on track to exceed that.

Public health officials say the increase is likely because human-animal interactions are also increasing. That could be due to human population expansions into areas with more animals, available food sources for wildlife in populated areas or more people owning pets.

The bacteria that causes typhus is transmitted from animals to humans through fleas.

Typhus can’t be passed from one human to another, and public health experts say the illness is completely treatable, especially if it’s caught early.

Outbreaks and how to prevent them

Most of the time, typhus cases are spread out across L.A. County. But sometimes, there’s a localized spread over a short period of time that turns into an outbreak.

Public health officials respond to a few of them in L.A. County each year.

Generally, outbreaks are triggered by high concentrations of host animals.

“Wherever these animals may be present or wherever they may be congregating, in those areas we can see an increase in the number of human infections,” said Dr. Aiman Halai with the L.A. County Department of Public Health.

The most common hosts for typhus are rats, opossums and free-roaming cats. When people or pets come in contact with host animals, they can pick up the infected fleas and bring them into homes, spreading them to other people and animals in the process.

Halai says a variety of factors can attract animals and lead to an outbreak, including overflowing dumpsters, overgrown vegetation or a well-meaning neighbor feeding local critters.

You can help prevent outbreaks by securing trash in bins, making sure food isn’t left outside, and ensuring pets are on up-to-date flea control medication. Cutting back overgrown vegetation and blocking off crawl spaces can eliminate places where animals can shelter in and around homes.

Halai also says it’s important not to feed wildlife.

Should you be worried?

Although public health experts are wary of the typhus uptick in L.A. County, the 220 cases recorded in 2025 in L.A. County are not overly concerning.

"That’s a very  low rate at the population level,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of infectious diseases at USC’s Keck School of Medicine.

Typhus is an acute infection caused by bacteria known as Rickettsia typhi. Variations of the bacteria also cause other illnesses transmitted by fleas, ticks, lice and mites, including tick-borne Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

Doctors can test for typhus fairly easily, and it is treatable with antibiotics. Symptoms are similar to the flu, and can include fever, headaches, muscle aches and nausea. It can also cause rashes in some cases.

Most infections are mild, but they can cause hospitalization and, in rare cases, can be fatal.

Klausner said the concern is that testing for typhus is not always routine.

“The most important thing is that when patients come in to their doctor — and they have fever, they may have a rash, they may have headache, may have muscle or joint aches — that the doctor's thinking about potentially flea-borne infectious diseases because the treatment can be different,” Klausner said.

The best treatment for typhus is the antibiotic doxycycline. If a patient with typhus gets another type of antibiotic like penicillin or amoxicillin, the treatment may not be as successful.

According to Klausner, when presented with flu-like symptoms, it’s also a good idea for patients to tell their doctors if they’ve been around animals, spent time in an encampment or even just gone on a hike.

Topline:

Why it matters: The small amphibian is found in the grasslands of Southern California and the Central Valley. But habitat loss, urban sprawl and longer droughts have been threatening the species’ population in recent decades.

What the protections do: Now that the Western spadefoot is a candidate for permanent protections, any development project planned for Western spadefoot habitats will have to take the amphibians into account.

Some exceptions may apply: The commission did carve out exceptions for solar projects in the Central Valley. To take advantage of federal tax credit deadlines, some projects can continue to be built, as long as they protect breeding pools and curtail construction during the season when spadefoots are most active.

What conservationists say: Brendan Cummings, conservation director with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in Southern California the biggest threat to the Western spadefoot is not solar development: “It’s warehouses or data centers and road widenings and all manner of construction activities.”

What happens next: The California Department of Fish and Wildlife will conduct a year-long review to determine if the Western spadefoot should be permanently protected.

More than two dozen California Assembly Democrats and one state senator sent a letter Wednesday to legislative leaders asking them to delay fees under SB 54, the state’s landmark plastic reduction law, for two years — an eleventh-hour push as the Legislature hurtles toward the end of session.

The letter, addressed to Senate President Pro Tempore Monique Limón and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, was signed by 23 Assemblymembers and Sen. Melissa Hurtado. It asks lawmakers to pause fee assessment and collection this year and next, commit to a “reform package” next session, and increase legislative oversight of the program going forward.

The request lands amid a broader fight over how the plastics law is rolling out. Little by little California is demanding that the packages you pick up at your doorstep or at the store contain less plastic. A law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed four years ago aims to phase out 25% of non-recyclable, non-compostable plastic by 2032.

To get there, the state tasked a nonprofit, the Circular Action Alliance, with drafting a plan to meet the state goals. The group estimated the work would cost $17.2 billion over five years – and is asking for a three-year exemption from the source-reduction deadline.

But as the state moves to implement the law, questions are mounting over how the organization calculates the fees producers — and eventually consumers — will pay, and how much oversight the group actually faces.

Industry groups say the price tag for complying with the law could be tens of billions of dollars higher than California originally estimated. An industry-commissioned study found the law could cost consumers three times what the state projected — between $683 and $948 a year, rather than $190.

That means groceries, shampoo bottles and other consumer goods packed in plastic could cost a little more as the law takes effect.

The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, which oversees implementation, declined an interview but said in a written statement that the law puts consumers first and pushes producers to design packaging with recycling in mind.

“Californians are facing rising costs and pollution from increasingly complex packaging that wasn’t designed for the recycling systems local governments, ratepayers, and the state developed and funded over the past four decades,” said CalRecycle director Zoe Heller. “The law’s rollout is a dial, not a switch, giving producers flexibility to redesign packaging, invest in recycling systems, reduce single-use plastics, and make adjustments along the way,” she added.

Watching the watchers

The Circular Action Alliance published its fee schedule in June, spelling out what each producer owes into the system. The fees could add up to more than $10 million for some businesses, according to the Dairy Institute of California. The Dairy Institute is a trade association that represents milk processors and dairy product manufacturers.

But unlike a state agency, the Circular Action Alliance answers to almost no one, said Katie Davey, executive director of the Dairy Institute.

“[The alliance] does not have to go through an audit by the state auditor. They’re not subject to the (California open government law) Brown Act. They’re not subject to public records requests. The Legislature does not approve their budget and does not approve how many employees they need, or how many fees they can charge,” Davey said.

As a private nonprofit, Circular Action Alliance indeed is not subject to the Brown Act or public-records law — but records it submits to CalRecycle or other government entities may be.

CalRecycle must approve its fee schedule and implementation plan, and has the authority to audit the organization’s performance, said CalRecycle spokesperson Lance Klug, who added that the plastics law includes provisions to ensure the group’s budget and fees are appropriate.

The alliance’s role “is not to set California policy,” said its spokesperson, Larine Urbina. “Our role is to implement the framework established by SB 54 under CalRecycle’s oversight.”

Davey said the gap extends to enforcement. Businesses that fall short will face so-called malus fees, which fund bonuses for those that comply. But the Circular Action Alliance hasn’t said what those fees will be.

Shane Gusman, a lobbyist for the Teamsters, which represents hundreds of thousands of California workers, raised similar concerns. “They’re a wholly independent nonprofit organization that has no oversight. That’s part of the problem.” The union backed the plastics law hoping it would boost jobs; Guzman now says the fees could affect workers too.

Shortly after the alliance published its fee schedule, Davey and a coalition of industry leaders — including the California Restaurant Association, the California League of Food Producers, the American Forest and Paper Association and the Print Creative Alliance — commissioned a study disputing CalRecycle’s numbers.

It found CalRecycle’s 2025 estimate of $21 billion in implementation costs, or $190 a year per California household, rests on “idealized assumptions that fail to capture real-world costs and complications the regulations will create.”

The study puts the number somewhere between $35 and $58 billion, rising after the implementation period.

Klug of CalRecycle said the agency’s earlier reports were just estimates. “The actual costs will be determined by producer choices,” he said. “These costs, for example, will reflect the infrastructure needed to recycle materials that producers are choosing to use.”

Agriculture groups push back 

The biggest hurdle for producers is cutting plastic use 25% by 2032 — which state regulators say will require redesigning packaging and shifting toward reusable products, such as dishes at restaurants and paper-based packaging for produce.

Business groups say they support the state’s goals but call the timeline unworkable.

Food safety is one sticking point: alternatives like paper-based containers for berries are less breathable and spoil faster, while heavier glass or cardboard adds transportation costs, said Casey Creamer, president of the California Fresh Fruit Association.

“We just don’t want to force something out and not be able to deliver a fresh, healthy commodity, or create a situation that has more significant or adverse environmental concerns just because we look at plastics and packaging in a silo,” Creamer said.

Environmental groups oppose any pause.

“All of us pay for plastic pollution through higher garbage bills and clean-ups of polluted beaches and waterways, not to mention the damage to our environment and our health,”said Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for Californians Against Waste.

Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat representing coastal Los Angeles County who authored the law, said it’s time plastic producers are held accountable for the waste they produce.

“This 11th-hour Hail Mary is only trying to maintain status quo and avoid due responsibility, throwing years of good-faith negotiations, and affordability and sustainability improvements out the window,” he said in a statement about producers’ efforts to pause implementation of the law.

Businesses pass costs to consumers

Whether the plastics law is actually driving up grocery prices yet is hard to pin down. Creamer said businesses may already be factoring the organization’s planned fees into their prices.

Federal data show grocery prices dipped slightly in July from June, though prices have climbed year over year and that rate is accelerating, said Richard Volpe, a consumer-price expert at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Neither the USDA nor the Bureau of Labor Statistics has released August figures, and no data yet isolates the state plastics law’s effect from broader inflation.

Volpe said retailers, who run on thin margins, will eventually pass costs on to consumers — but probably not right away.

“It will not happen overnight,” he said. “And it will still be relatively small, mostly on the order of pennies on the dollar.”

Industry groups warn it will add up.

“If someone’s even on the cusp of food insecurity and they’re looking at $1,000 more a year, that’s pushing them over the food cliff,” said Nate Rose, a spokesperson for the California Grocers Association.

The Teamsters, which backed the plastics law hoping it would boost jobs, now worry the fees could affect workers too.

The law “has been morphed into something that is going to cost California consumers a substantial amount of money at a time when I don’t know if we need to spend thousands more on groceries,” said Gusman, the Teamsters lobbyist. “That also has an impact on the workforce.”