Man accused of stealing $325K from famed Laguna eatery pleads not guilty

A 46-year-old man on Monday pleaded not guilty to embezzling about $325,000 from The Cliff Restaurant in Laguna Beach.

Ernesto Jose Frias Ybarra was charged on May 13, 2025, with seven counts of grand theft embezzlement and seven counts of money laundering, all felonies, with sentencing enhancements for aggravated white collar crime between $100,000 to $500,000.

Ybarra denied the charges and bail was set at $325,000 Monday, according to court records.

He was accused of money laundering and embezzlement from December 2023 through June of 2024, according to the criminal complaint.

Ybarra is next due in court on July 28 for a pretrial hearing in the Harbor Justice Center in Newport Beach.

Ybarra was arrested in March of last year on suspicion of embezzling more than $300,000 from the Mojave Desert Land Trust in Joshua Tree, where he worked as chief finance administrator, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

Detectives in that case determined the Desert Hot Springs resident fraudulently deposited land trust checks into his own accounts at various banks, which he had opened under fictitious business names, Palm Springs news outlet KESQ-TV reported in March 2025.

Ybarra then made several transactions with the money, including written checks and online transfers to other accounts in attempt to conceal the source of the money and carry on the fraudulent activity, according to the report.