It appears that as a result of a reader posting a complaint on this site, Attorney Lauren E. Womack learned that she was a victim of identity theft.
As she says in her letter, “In 2011, I was a victim of identity theft in which my name was fraudulently used, without my permission or authorization, to solicit clients for mortgage loan modifications. Monitoring my name on the internet, I came across your website and the above post, which helped me to first become aware of the situation. Upon realizing that people were being victimized as a result of the identity theft committed against me, I immediately filed a police report, a copy which I have attached for your reference.”
In the police report filed on February 7, 2012, Womack identifies the suspect as Ofilio Gutierrez and the report says Womack ended a business relationship with Gutierrez on July 29, 2011 but that the “suspect continued to write checks using the victims DBA account.”
Womack has sent a cease and desist request to have the consumer complaint removed from this website. Unfortunately the police report attached only claims the suspect wrote fraudulent checks and not that business was conducted in her name without her knowledge.
On February 22, 2012, a commenter, identifying themselves as Attorney Womack, posted the following comment on the consumer complaint post:
Attorney Womack
Submitted on 2012/02/22 at 10:37 pmThis is attorney Lauren Womack. My office stopped taking on foreclosure defense clients at the end of July 2011. Since that time, I have attempted to remain accessible to clients and have worked through a third party to finalize clients’ pending modifications. My DIRECT contact information has been, and currently is, listed on the California Bar Association’s website. If you are interested in speaking directly with me I encourage you to call me or email me at your discretion. I remain open to discussing clients’ matters and addressing their concerns. I have never been, nor am I currently, in the business of “scamming” anyone. If you believe that you have not received the services that you retained me for, feel free to contact me to discuss the matter so that we might reach some degree of understanding.
At that time, two weeks after the filing of the police report, Womack did not made mention that she was the victim of identity theft. However the comment does say “My office stopped taking on foreclosure defense clients at the end of July 2011.” The consumer complaint in question says the issue occurred on June 30, 2011.
As more become available, I’ll let you know. Certainly a perplexing conundrum.
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Hi Steve,
This is Chance E. Gordon, currently the most villified distressed homeowner attorney in America. I know Lauren Womack because she used to work for me as an associate attorney. I introduced her to Ofilo Gutierrez whom I also used to work with when he provided customer service and legal support on my litigation files. In essence, I brought the two together so that Lauren, a relatively new yet extremely bright attorney could have a turnkey customer service and legal support team that could help her build her practice.
Unfortunately for Mr. Gutierrez, he faced the same problem with Ms. Womack that I did. Mainly, she wanted to be paid as an attorney without performing any work in exchange. Mr. Gutierrez and his legal support team were left dealing with angry clients whom could not get their calls returned by Ms. Womack and had to deal with the threats and fallout that naturally flow from an attorney abandoning her clients. When Mr. Gutierrez asked Ms. Womack to fulfill her fiduciary obligation, her response was to call in a favor to personal friend that worked in the Real Estate Fraud Division of the L.A. County District Attorney’s office.
The D.A.’s office than began a campaign of scorched earth harassment that was nothing short of misconduct against Mr. Gutierrez. They told him that they wanted to “look at my files”. My response was to formally invite the D.A.’s office to come audit my files at their leisure. They never took me up on this offer.
There are too many attorneys whom want to blame their own neglect on non-attorneys whom they chose to work with in their practices. When the proverbial Sh** hits the fan they hope to escape accountabiliy by blaming their non-attorney associates. This conduct represents everything that is wrong with the legal profession. I know personally that Mr. Gutierrez is honest almost to a fault, and that Ms. Womack, unfortunately, is not..(this was proved when she would turn in her 200 hour a month billing statements to me, even though she would only be in the office at most six hours a day). Shame on her for doing this to my good friend and colleague Ofilio Gutierrez. Shame on the District Attorney’s office more for enabling her to use them as a tool to abuse their power. They are obviously just as corrupt as the State Bar of California and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Thank you for your feedback.