Sonoma County DA balks at bid to overturn DUI conviction of man who had fake lawyer

A former Santa Rosa man’s absence is a key detriment to an argument put forth by the Sonoma County Public Defender’s Office, which asks a judge to overturn the man’s 2014 DUI conviction because he was represented by an unlicensed attorney, prosecutors say.

Norberto Ramirez Perez’s whereabouts are unknown and he cannot explain whether he understood his attorney’s status, the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office wrote in response to a Public Defender’s Office petition to overturn the conviction.

“At this point the petition merely presents an abstract claim from the Public Defender that the defendant may have been unknowingly represented by a fake lawyer many years ago,” the prosecution contends in its response, which was filed in Sonoma County Superior Court on Friday.

The Public Defender’s Office announced late last year that it believes the conviction should be nullified. Opposing attorneys are scheduled to present arguments in Sonoma County Superior Court on March 7.

Prosecutors are objecting to the request, contending Ramirez Perez received “a full trial” and there is no question about the validity of the evidence against him, which was presented to a jury.

Vishad Dewan, the public defender handling the case, countered that a “full trial” doesn’t mean Ramirez Perez had a fair trial.

“We’re not asking one thing or another is done; we just want fairness,” Dewan said. “I’m OK with the DA’s Office saying ‘Let’s go back to square one and we’re going to go after him and try to convict him.’”

Ramirez Perez was arrested after a crash that occurred at about 3:30 a.m. April 15, 2013 on Highway 12 at Merced Avenue, according to the California Highway Patrol. He and his passenger were injured and the latter was hospitalized for several weeks.

He was represented by Miranda Devlin, who identified herself as a real lawyer named Stephanie Martin, the Public Defender’s Office said last year. She was present for 22 court appearances in the case, which took place between 2013 and 2014.

She also represented other clients across the Bay Area under the guise of other real lawyers, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, but that all came to an end in November 2019 when a Marin County judge became suspicious of her identity.

In July 2021, Devlin was convicted in U.S. Federal Court on fraud charges involving Paycheck Protection Program loans. She was sentenced in November of that year to 18 months in prison.

Ramirez Perez is the only Sonoma County defendant linked to Devlin’s activity.

He served three years of a five-year sentence before being deported in 2017.

In its response to the Public Defender’s motion, the District Attorney’s Office argues the Public Defender’s Office “raises no actual complaints about Ms. Devlin’s performance during her representation of the defendant” and made no effort to find him.

Dewan disputed that and added, “It’s really hard to do that when we don’t have contact information for him.”

You can reach Staff Writer Colin Atagi at colin.atagi@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @colin_atagi.