Lawyer Charged With Pocketing Clients’ Money
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SANTA ANA — A lawyer in Santa Ana faces charges that he embezzled more than $100,000 in workers’ compensation checks meant for his clients, authorities said Thursday.
Carlos Mario Hernandez, 46, is expected to be arraigned today on charges that he forged clients’ signatures on the payments and then held onto the money, Deputy Dist. Atty. Patti Nichols said. Hernandez mishandled funds belonging to five clients beginning in December, 1993, Nichols said.
Authorities began investigating after a client contacted his insurance company to complain when he did not receive his payment. The payment had been issued months earlier, Nichols said.
She said Hernandez eventually did pay his clients a substantial portion of the money meant for them, but that the delay constituted embezzlement.
Hernandez, a Laguna Hills resident who also has a law office in Anaheim, faces additional charges that he wrote bad checks to his landlord and clients, Nichols said.
Hernandez was booked into Orange County Jail on Wednesday after a search of his Santa Ana office by investigators from the Orange County district attorney’s office, Nichols said. His bail was set at $250,000.
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