By Paul Serran with guest contributor Frank Parlato
To hear of yet another story about an illegal migrant gaming a broken justice system to get away with lying, stealing, and committing fraud – all while scoring a multimillion-dollar payday – is bound to distress any right-thinking person.
If, on top of that, we learn that the fate of 1500 rescued animals hangs in the balance, it is even more outrageous.
Adriana Duarte Valentines, of Lancaster, California, entered the United States illegally 22 years ago. She came from Mexico with her husband, Raul Lopez, and their young son, Raul Jr. All three entered unlawfully. While living in the U.S. under false pretenses, Duarte and Lopez had two more children.
In 2017, Duarte got a job as a cat caretaker at DELTA Rescue, a 115-acre mountaintop animal sanctuary in Acton, California. The sanctuary was founded in 1979 by Leo Grillo, and it houses over 1,500 dogs, cats, and horses — most abandoned in the desert or Angeles National Forest.
Duarte told DELTA she was a U.S. citizen. She gave a fake Social Security number and claimed she had picked lettuce in California fields. Management, trusting her, didn’t verify the lie. She was hired at $15 an hour.
Soon, Duarte saw an opportunity. Nobody checked what she put in her truck, and nobody asked questions. Over time, she escalated. Eyewitnesses and records show she stole over $350,000 worth of supplies — cat food, dog food, janitorial goods, even blankets meant for rescued animals.
To move more product, she needed more time. Duarte began visiting the trailer of overnight horse caretaker Jorge Avalos. An affair blossomed, and Duarte began billing DELTA for the hours she spent with him.
Then, she became pregnant by her lover. She told no one, neither her husband nor DELTA – which had a policy prohibiting pregnant employees from working with cats due to the risk of toxoplasmosis, a parasite found in cat litter that can cause birth defects and miscarriage. When a coworker asked if she was expecting, she said no.
Duarte concealed her pregnancy until just before she gave birth. One day, she left work abruptly and did not return.
Three days later, on February 2, 2020, she emailed Grillo, revealing to her former employer that she was pregnant, saying she wanted to go back to work. Grillo reminded her that pregnant women couldn’t work with cats. The health risks were real.
Two days later, she emailed again — baby born, daycare arranged, ready to come back. Grillo’s response: “The fact that you lied to us already discredits anything else you say.”
Then, her husband found out about her affair. Furious, Raul Lopez confronted Avalos, who fled to Mexico.
The affair was over. The theft income gone. The job terminated. So, Duarte filed a lawsuit. Despite the lies, the theft, the false identity, and illegal status — she claimed she was the victim.
Enter Jacob A. Nalbandyan who filed a sweeping complaint: Pregnancy discrimination, National origin discrimination, Disability discrimination, Wrongful termination, Retaliation under California’s FEHA.
The trial began October 1, 2024, in Department 24 of the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. Presiding was Judge Kristin S. Escalante.
Escalante shaped the outcome with her pretrial rulings, deciding that jurors weren’t allowed to hear that Duarte entered the U.S. illegally; that she used a fake Social Security number; and her concealment of pregnancy.
The judge also ruled that DELTA Rescue was not allowed to be described as a nonprofit or that it depended on donations.
During the trial, Judge Escalante allowed Duarte to bring her 4-year-old daughter, dressed in rags, into court.
The judge allowed Nalbandyan to present Dr. Anthony Reading, a psychologist who met Duarte once, four years after her firing. He called the job loss a ‘pivotal event’ that caused permanent damage.
The defense called their own expert, Dr. Marcel Ponton. He ran psychological tests. Results showed ‘almost 100% exaggeration’. “She’s faking,” he said.
But the crucial evidence was none of this: Judge Escalante allowed Nalbandyan to play edited video clips from Leo Grillo’s deposition — over 50 times. Twenty-four times on the day Grillo testified.
The videos, stripped of context, showed an upset Grillo losing his temper in the deposition. He called Duarte a ‘bimbo’, said he did not know she was pregnant because she was ‘obese’, and the last – that she was a ‘lettuce picker’- which was exactly what she told her employers.
‘Lettuce picker’ was presented as a slur against Hispanics, became the mantra of the trial. This white guy called a Mexican worker a lettuce picker. And they played the video 50 times!
The jury members — eight Mexican-Americans, one African-American, one Asian, and two Caucasians – were bombarded with it.
So, the jury ruled: $16,002 in lost wages; $180,950 in economic damages; $5.5 million for pain and suffering; $1 million in punitive damages.
$6.7 million — for a woman who lied, stole, and sued all the way to the bank.
Judge Escalante later reduced the total award to $3 million — a number that still threatens the survival of DELTA.
Leo Grillo spent 45 years building a no-kill sanctuary on a mountain, rescuing creatures no one else would touch, and creating a model for humane animal care.
Now, Grillo has to place an enormous bond to guarantee the appeal – his life’s work and the fate of 1500 animals are hanging by a thread.
Please consider helping DELTA Rescue to continue to care for rescued animals, donate here.
The post EXCLUSIVE: How an Illegal Immigrant Lied, Stole, and Sued a No-Kill Animal Sanctuary — Then Broken California Justice Awarded Her Millions – 1500 Animals Endangered by Decision appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.