Blood, drugs, theft and tacos: inside the lawsuit threatening Casa Ramos’ future

Casa Ramos’ corporate office faces a state Department of Justice investigation after the family of the restaurant chain’s founder filed a lawsuit accusing the chain’s new owners of embezzlement. That charge is thrown back in the accusers’ faces in a cross-complaint.

Marco Ramos’ former business and life partner Michelle Hill sued Raul Lecona, Ramos’ nephew, and business partner Carlos Rendon for unspecified damages in August 2016 after being ousted as Casa Ramos’ CEO. Ramos’ daughter Alexis Marcki Ramos joined her stepmother for a series of court statements detailing the internal feuding since Marco Ramos’ death at age 52 in June 2015.

In a cross-complaint filed in June 2017, Lecona claimed Hill was fired as CEO after years of “loan sharking” and stealing money from the company. Barring a settlement, the two sides are scheduled to go to trial in Placer County Superior Court in April 2019.

Hill and Marco Ramos became business partners in 1997 and romantically involved in subsequent years, according to court documents. The two of them orchestrated Casa Ramos’ expansion from a single Yreka restaurant to 14 locations through Northern California, including six in the Sacramento area. Ramos, who spoke minimal English, handled staff training and recipe construction while Hill — known as “La Patrona” around Casa Ramos’ offices — managed expansion plans and financial details.

Much of the disagreement stems from the handling of the trust Marco Ramos established for his children in 2001, which included divisions for Alexis Marcki Ramos and his son Kevin but excluded his eldest daughter Kaelee, a purposeful omission that he had discussed correcting with family and attorney Chris Marto in 2013, according to Hill’s written declaration.

That discussion was hastened when Alexis Marcki Ramos found Marco, who suffered from prescription drug and alcohol abuse issues, lying in a pool of blood in his kitchen in March 2013. Five days after being being released from Mercy Hospital of Folsom, Marco visited his attorney’s office and signed papers written in English delaying his children’s inheritance for 15 years, giving Kaelee a share equal to her siblings and making Lecona — not Hill — the successor trustee, according to the lawsuit.

Marto’s live-in girlfriend at the time was Marco Ramos’ sister Claudia, whom Hill had fired from Casa Ramos for “insubordination and unprofessional conduct,” according to the lawsuit. Marto has since closed his Yreka office, moved to Florida and ceased paying California bar membership fees amid a series of complaints including allegedly mishandling clients’ funds, keeping them in the dark about important developments and not showing up for court dates.

Control of the trust gave Lecona majority ownership of Casa Ramos in Lincoln, Natomas and Rancho Cordova as well as 50 percent ownership at seven other Casa Ramos locations, including those in Folsom and El Dorado Hills, according to the lawsuit. It also gave him access to money that had been left for Ramos’ children and parents, some of which Alexis Marcki Ramos said has been spent on a Mexican vacation property and paying corporate employees to keep quiet about his illicit activities.

Lecona’s cross-complaint accused Hill of loaning hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal funds to MK&A, LLC — Casa Ramos’ corporate title — then recouping the money at up to 50 percent interest beginning in 2012. It also said she commanded Casa Ramos employees to work on side real estate ventures and paid them out of MK&A’s books.

“Hill’s conduct ... was malicious, oppressive and constituted criminal conduct and fiduciary fraud,” the cross-complaint read. “She ... concealed her activities from those individuals financially affected by the activities and intended to harm (MK&A) and its member, Marco Ramos.”

When Alexis Marcki Ramos and Hill found out about the amendment following Marco’s death in 2015, they allegedly confronted Lecona and his alternate successor trustee Rendon, who said the business could continue to run as-is if no one contested the amendment.

The following summer, Hill caught Lecona and Rendon hiding “substantial sales transactions” for both personal gain and the payment of undocumented workers, according to the lawsuit. They allegedly agreed to stop after she admonished them about the legal risks of doing so.

A month later, Lecona and Hill then met for lunch at Yard House in Roseville, where a lawyer from Sinclair, Wilson, Baldo & Chamberlain law firm presented her with notice of her termination, according to both the lawsuit and Lecona’s written declaration. The next day, all supplies from Casa Ramos’ corporate office had been cleared out and moved to an undisclosed location, according to Hill’s suit.

In the coming months, the lawsuit alleges, Lecona and Rendon rehired a woman to work at the Folsom restaurant whom Hill had previously fired for stealing, hired Kaelee Ramos as a manager, server and bartender at the Natomas and Rancho Cordova locations despite her multiple DUI convictions and added a CEO with no prior restaurant experience.

Alexis Marcki Ramos began working in Casa Ramos’ corporate office at age 22 and was expected to replace Hill as Casa Ramos’ CEO around the time she turned 27 in 2020, according to written declarations from both her and Hill. Having been shut out of the office since 2016, that no longer seems to be the plan. Even if it were, she wrote, she feared Lecona and Rendon’s “illegal, inappropriate and imprudent” actions would cause Casa Ramos to be shut down or fail before that time came.

“My father and Michelle built this organization that employs many, many people, and could provide for my grandparents and my siblings for a very long time,” Alexis’ declaration read. “However, through the greed and illegal actions of Raul Lecona that future is imperiled ... I beg the court to act now to protect the beneficiaries, the honest investors like Michelle Hill and the hundreds of employees from a terrible fate.”

Lecona, Carlos Rendon, Casa Ramos office manager Kathi Rendon and Sinclair, Wilson, Baldo & Chamberlain representatives did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Hill and Alexis Marcki Ramos’ attorneys declined to make their clients available for comment.

In a statement last Thursday, Casa Ramos denied all wrongdoing and said it believed Hill had directly contacted the authorities.

“Following (Marco Ramos’) death, the business was operated by the company’s Chief Executive Officer,” Casa Ramos’ statement read. “Her employment was terminated in 2016 due to the discovery of the numerous unethical business practices. We believe she instigated the current investigation.”

Hill and Alexis Marcki Ramos’ attorneys both denied their clients pointed the DOJ toward Casa Ramos, though Hill’s attorney Louis Gonzalez noted the lawsuit has been public record since it was filed more than two years ago. DOJ officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the active investigation.

In a statement last Thursday, Gonzalez accused Casa Ramos of trying to take attention off the alleged illegal activity by blaming Hill, who now co-owns Cicada Cantina in Redding alongside Alexis Marcki Ramos and her husband Spencer Marcki.

“Casa Ramos’ current management is upset that their behavior has subjected them to law enforcement scrutiny, and who better to blame than the wrongfully ousted cofounder of the company who is suing Casa Ramos for its wrongdoing and simultaneously operating a competing business?” Gonzalez’s statement read.

This story was originally published October 1, 2018 at 3:00 AM.