San Pasqual tribal gaming official charged with embezzlement

By: SCOTT MARSHALL - Staff Writer
Defense attorney says she hopes case will be dismissed this week | Sunday, February 17, 2008 10:51 PM PST ∞

VISTA ---- A San Pasqual tribal gaming commissioner is scheduled to return to Superior Court this week for a hearing at which her attorney said she hopes prosecutors will dismiss criminal charges of embezzlement and grand theft.

Victoria Diaz Ramos, 55, has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which stem from allegations that she used her tribal credit card for more than $7,500 in personal expenses such as airplane tickets, gas and restaurants in 2003 and 2004.

Ramos is one of two people who were charged late last year in separate cases with the same crimes based on similar allegations. However, at the request of the district attorney's office, the case against Catalina Vigil Campos, 41, was dismissed at a hearing Jan. 3, court records showed.

Ramos' attorney, Deputy Public Defender Sloan Ostbye, said the case against Campos, who was represented by a different attorney from the public defender's office, was dismissed after Campos showed that she had paid the tribe back for her personal expenses. Ostbye said she expects the case against Ramos to be dismissed as well after she shows that she has reimbursed the tribe.

"All of the money has been paid back," Ostbye said.

Deputy District Attorney Fanny Yu, the prosecutor assigned to Ramos' case, and Deputy District Attorney Summer Stephan, the supervisor of the district attorney's North County office in Vista, could not be reached for comment.

Allen Lawson, chairman of the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians, and John Roberts, executive director of the San Pasqual Tribal Gaming Commission, also could not be reached for comment.

The California Nations Indian Gaming Association, a non-profit organization made up of tribal governments, states on its Web site that the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act requires tribes with casinos to establish regulatory agencies like a gaming commission to make sure casino operations continue to comply with tribal gaming laws and tribal-state compacts.

The San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians owns the Valley View Casino in Valley Center.

Ostbye said tribal members were once allowed to charge personal items on tribal credit cards as long as they reimbursed the tribe by the end of the fiscal year, but that the current tribal policy prohibits using the cards for personal expenses.

In an arrest warrant affidavit filed with the Superior Court in November, Steven Epperson, an investigator with the state Department of Justice, wrote that the tribe's chief financial officer said in February 2007 that he believed members of the tribe's business committee were using the tribal American Express card for personal items in violation of tribal policies.

Angela McNeal, the tribe's secretary and treasurer, said in June 2007 that all tribal gaming commissioners were issued American Express cards for tribal business, but that Ramos' credit card statements showed $7,524.13 in personal charges, Epperson wrote.

Epperson wrote that McNeal said Ramos told the business committee she had used the card for personal expenses, but had paid the tribe back. McNeal, however, could find no evidence that the tribe had been reimbursed, Epperson wrote.

Tribal policy in place as of Aug. 20, 2003, prohibited the use of tribal credit cards for personal charges regardless of whether the tribe was reimbursed, Epperson wrote.

Similar allegations were raised against Campos, although she was alleged to have amassed $3,306.95 in personal charges in 2003 and 2004, Epperson wrote in an affidavit filed in her case.

Campos had a tribal credit card because she was a delegate who attended local and state meetings on behalf of the tribe's business committee, Epperson wrote.

Contact staff writer Scott Marshall at (760) 901-4049 or smarshall@nctimes.com.