US drops charges against lawyer after informant seduces her

SANTA ANA -- A federal judge dismissed without prejudice on Monday charges against a suspended Garden Grove attorney of conspiracy to deal in firearms and sell methamphetamines, after her attorney presented claims that she committed the crimes under manipulation by an undercover, paid, federal informant.

Los Angeles attorney Victor Sherman argued on behalf of his client, Melinda C. Romines, that the informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives coerced her into criminality with misinformation and romantic overtures, according to a defense statement of the case.

In dismissing the charges, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney noted that the statute of limitations had run out on three of the four charges, with the fourth deadline approaching rapidly.

"I do think it's in the interest of justice that it's dismissed without prejudice, realizing the practical reality," Carney said. "You've made a representation to me that the government has no intent of having a dismissal within a few days to try to beat the statute of limitations on the fourth count."

Romines had been through a lot in her life - spousal abuse and the struggle to care for her children as a single mother - and against those odds she put herself through law school and became a lawyer, Sherman said in an interview.

She was admitted to practice in May 2015, was the subject of disciplinary charges by the State Bar in November 2020 and June 2021, and in between active periods, was suspended in February and July 2022, and in April and November 2023.

Everything she worked for began to unravel five years ago when she met a man who introduced himself as "Dino Titus De La Rossi," according to a defense motion to dismiss filed in 2021. The man wined and dined her and talked about buying a home with her, the motion stated. What Romines didn't know was that he was a confidential informant for the ATF. USA v. Romines et al., 2:20-cr-00069-CJC (C.D. Cal., filed Feb. 4 2020).

"This case was entirely manufactured by the Government's Informant who chose to arbitrarily target Romines based apparently on his attraction to a photograph," the motion to dismiss by the defense read. "From that point forward, Dino set off on two paths. First, to thoroughly seduce Romines, and, second, to use his influence over her to entrap her in a crime."

Despite her having no criminal history, she said the man persuaded her to sell methamphetamine and a pistol, a rifle, an unregistered silencer, and a high-capacity magazine - and then he reported her to the ATF, according to a defense statement of the case filed on Nov. 1.

"Romines alleges she was not predisposed to commit these crimes before being persuaded to do so by the confidential informant, who used various means of manipulation, including exploitation of a romantic relationship, plays on sympathy, repeated badgering and threatening pressure to convince her she had no other choice but to do what he directed," the filing read.

After she was indicted, she lost her children and her job, and her law license was suspended, according to Sherman.

Sherman said he soon discovered that there were hundreds of pages of texts between Romines and the ATF informant, described in court papers as "T.M." or "Dino De La Rossi". When he told prosecutors in the Orange County division of the U.S. attorney's office, they fired the ATF informant, but they refused to drop the case against Romines.

According to a court document, the ATF agent handling the informant recommended in 2021 that he be "deactivated" because he "engaged in inappropriate and unauthorized text messages with a target."

Despite knowing about this behavior, federal prosecutors have refused to tell other lawyers who had cases in which the ATF informant was involved, according to Sherman.

"Defendant Romines does not deny that she possessed firearms as alleged in the indictment and that on October 23, 2018, and November 7, 2018, she delivered to the undercover law enforcement officer a total of approximately 220 grams of methamphetamine. Defendant Romines does contend, however, that these events were the result of conduct of the confidential informant, who was paid by the government, who induced her to commit the crimes charged as a result of various lies and falsehoods," Sherman wrote in a motion filed last week.

On Oct. 30, the informant was arrested. Charges against him are sealed. The following day, in a flurry of filings, the government maintained that despite the informant's bad acts, Romines was not duped.

"The United States contends that defendant Romines was not induced, manipulated, or entrapped by the confidential informant, and instead, that defendant Romines committed the acts alleged in the indictment for her own benefit and for money," a statement of the case by the prosecutors on Oct. 31 read.

Sherman said that on Friday, after he spelled out the situation to Mack Jenkins, the Los Angeles-based head of the criminal division of the U.S. attorney's office, prosecutors agreed to drop the charges. Neither Jenkins nor a representative of the office could be reached for comment.

On Monday, prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the case against Romines. At a hearing a few hours later, Sherman asked Carney for a court order compelling the government to investigate other cases the informant testified that he had been attached to.

"We have no idea if any of those other cases had been tainted, the government has done nothing to look into any of these other cases, they refuse to give me the names of those cases, and they have refused to notify the defense attorneys in those cases about the conduct of the [informant]," Sherman said.

In response, Carney said he believed that an investigation would ensue as a matter of policy and that he would not "micromanage" the government's obligation to investigate.

"I am not passing the buck on that, but there are a lot of things in life and the justice system that I strongly disagree with, but I know my place," he said. "I don't feel doing anything more than ruling on a motion that's before me is the appropriate vehicle."