Column: The lawyer who thinks he can free street vendor activist Edin Enamorado (2024)

Back in January, I met a lawyer who answered to Rico Suave.

His real name was Damon Alimouri, and he was representing a member of the so-called Justice 8, internet-famous for confronting people they accused of harassing street vendors, videotaping the loud aftermath, then calling on followers to support the vendors. San Bernardino County prosecutors had charged the eight with a potpourri of felonies ranging from false imprisonment to conspiracy to assault and had successfully convinced a judge to deny bail to all but one.

In court, Alimouri stood out from his fellow defense attorneys, and not just for his colorful nickname, coined by fans who swooned over his tailored suits, shiny pompadour and oratorical skills. His passionate yet unpretentious style contrasted with the showboating of some of the other lawyers.

He framed the Justice 8 case as a danger to civil liberties, frequently referencing the U.S. Constitution and the Founding Fathers. The son of an Iranian father and Mexican mother got sheriff’s deputies to contradict what they had written down in their arrest reports.

His client, Vanessa Carrasco, faced 13 felonies and a maximum of 17 years in prison. Last month, she and six others pleaded guilty to the same single charge — assault with intent to commit great bodily harm. They’re free on bail and await sentencing in December, leaving only their leader, Edin Alex Enamorado, fighting his case. (Another defendant’s charges were dropped Tuesday after he agreed to community service and anger management courses.)

“It was a victory for my client,” Alimouri said as we sat in his small Pasadena office last week. On his desk were books by Oscar Wilde and Hegel. Photos on the walls ranged from Emiliano Zapata and Malcolm X to stills from “Goodfellas” and “The Godfather” to police mugshots of David Bowie and Mick Jagger. “Not the one I wanted, but when all the other charges were dismissed, it’s what we’ll take.”

Now, he represents Enamorado, the Justice 8’s most high-profile member. A political organizer by trade, Enamorado began taping his showdowns with street vendor harassers three years ago, eventually earning hundreds of thousands of followers on social media but also critics for in-your-face tactics that included doxxing and protests outside people’s homes and workplaces.

Prosecutors have been especially hard on the Cudahy native, who rejected an offer to plead guilty to two felonies, down from the 16 he faces, and receive a six-year prison sentence, according to Alimouri.

In court, lead prosecutor Jason Wilkinson described Enamorado and the rest of the Justice 8 as practicing “ritualized harassment” and “preconceived vigilantism” for their roles in three incidents: chasing down a security guard who had harassed a street vendor and pepper-spraying him; following a man home after he threw a plastic bottle at them during a protest outside the Pomona Police Department; and beating a driver after he inched toward them with his car.

Enamorado has remained jailed without bail at the High Desert Detention Center in Adelanto since December.

Activist Edin Alex Enamorado protests outside of Santa Barbara Superior Court in 2023 during the arraignment of Jeanne Umana, a woman accused of using racist language to Latino men in incidents caught on video.

(Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times)

Alimouri’s appearance was radically different from when we first met at the Victorville courthouse. In a black jacket, shirt and tie, sporting a bushy haircut and a full, wiry beard, he looked like an MMA fighter ready to attend a Johnny Cash convention.

“I’ve been getting into that whole concept of austerity,” the 33-year-old explained. “A close personal friend died of a drug overdose, and I’ve had some personal tragedies since the beginning of this year. And now, this case.”

Enamorado’s camp approached him last month, looking for a new lawyer.

“I’ve had clients charged with murder, rape, child molestation — they got bail,” Alimouri said, the intensity in his voice ratcheting up with every crime he uttered. “They [prosecutors] say they’re trying to protect Enamorado’s alleged victims. No, they want to make a point.”

Jacquelyn Rodriguez, public affairs officer for the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office, declined an interview request, since the case is ongoing.

Alimouri didn’t want Enamorado to talk to me, “because they’ll [San Bernardino County prosecutors] use anything he tells you against him. They know that millions of people are paying attention online. Edin is a folk hero, and they want to make an example out of him.”

The arrests of the Justice 8 in December were announced in a news conference, with San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus ridiculing their activism as “clickbait for cash” and showing off mugshots on a poster board meant to evoke a Mafia family tree, with Enamorado at the top. Supporters have held fundraisers, and dozens have showed up at Justice 8 court hearings.

The case is serving as a closely watched referendum on internet justice, with fierce debates playing out on social media. How far is too far when calling out people who have attacked the scorned of society? Or is defending the defenseless always justified?

“Enamorado is not just Enamorado,” Alimouri continued. “I love and respect him, but this is a higher thing.”

A San Gabriel Valley native, Alimouri majored in philosophy and political science at USC, deciding to study law after seeing a YouTube video of conservative icon William F. Buckley interviewing famed defense attorney F. Lee Bailey.

Bailey “was advocating for rehabilitation and the right to discovery,” said Alimouri, who has a framed magazine ad of Bailey shilling for Smirnoff Vodka on his office wall. “I thought, ‘This is what I was meant to be. He’s cool, suave, assertive and righteous.’”

Alimouri’s “bleeding heart” came from his father, who fled Iran after opposing both the shah and the country’s Islamic regime, finding work in the United States as a chauffeur.

Alimouri had never heard of Enamorado before answering a Facebook call looking for lawyers for the Justice 8 and feeling outraged at the charges. Representing Carrasco pro bono, he soon realized that she “was small potatoes” to prosecutors in their zeal to nail Enamorado.

Damon Alimouri,33, in his law office in Pasadena.

(Zoe Cranfill / Los Angeles Times)

I told Alimouri that he has an impossible task. Victorville ain’t exactly George Gascón territory.

I agreed with him that the case against Enamorado and the Justice 8 was prosecutorial overreach, but I noted that his client wasn’t likely to get any mercy. Outside the courthouse is a huge, Pietà-like statue dedicated to officers killed in the line of duty and a wooden replica of the first sheriff’s outpost in the city.

In the incidents involving the security guard and the driver, who started what was debatable. But video shows that after following the Pomona man home, Enamorado and others surrounded his car, forced him out, then made him get on his knees and apologize. Someone yelled, “We let you live, homie!”

There was no way anyone could see that video and not cringe, I told Alimouri. He was unfazed.

“You said ‘cringe.’ That isn’t a crime. This isn’t a popularity contest. This isn’t a morality match. This is a case of legal issues. It’s not whether we cringe when we see a certain video or not.”

Enamorado’s next pretrial hearing is July 31. Alimouri plans to file motions challenging the venue, the charges and whether San Bernardino County has jurisdiction over the Pomona altercations. Enamorado is willing to go to trial to clear his name — and Alimouri isn’t afraid.

“I have faith in regular folks who comprise juries,” he said. “That’s the beauty of the law. Edin’s fate would be in the hands of generous folks, not prosecutors and judges. Jefferson said, ‘I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.’”