SAN FRANCISCO An East Bay legal assistant has been charged with embezzling more than $150,000 in client funds from a small personal injury law firm that shuttered last year when its founder, attorney Brian Ching, was disbarred for failing to prevent the fraud.
Ana Reyes, of San Lorenzo, was arraigned last Thursday on multiple counts of mail fraud and tax evasion, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement. Prosecutors claim Reyes settled clients’ suits without their or Ching’s knowledge and then cashed the settlement checks, keeping the proceeds for herself over a five year period. Ching, who was disbarred last September following a series of client complaints about missing settlement checks, told State Bar prosecutors that he’d been unaware of Reyes’ activities.
