Petty Theft Attorney in Orange County
Criminal defense attorney and former Orange County Deputy District Attorney. The case results and legal analysis on this page are drawn from his own Orange County drug cases.
A petty theft charge in Orange County does not have to end in a conviction
There are three ways a theft case gets dismissed here: judicial diversion under Penal Code 1001.95, a district attorney continuance, and a civil compromise under Penal Code 1377/ 1378. Which one is available to you depends on your record, the courthouse your case lands in, and, more than anything else, what you have already done by the time your attorney stands up to ask for it.
That last part is where most of these cases are won or lost, and it happens before your first court date.
Attorney Bryan R. Kazarian has spent his career in the four Orange County justice centers where these cases are heard. What follows is how he handles them, including the numbers, the timelines, and the mistakes he watches clients make in the first forty-eight hours.
The work that happens before anyone asks the judge for anything
A client was stopped at a chain department store in Costa Mesa after walking out with undergarments and blouses. She was an engineer who held a state license. The license, not the jail exposure, was the real problem.
Before any negotiation began, Bryan put him into counseling, a four-hour online theft class, and community service. None of it was ordered by a court. It was finished, and documented, by the time anyone appeared in front of a judge.
What we were able to do ahead of time that other lawyers may not have done was make sure that that client immediately gets into counseling and possibly takes a four-hour online theft class, and also does some community service. This was something that other lawyers didn't do.
Because of that, the court was more receptive to listening to our negotiations.
The court granted judicial diversion under Penal Code 1001.95. On completion, the case was dismissed and the arrest was treated as though it had never happened. Other outcomes from the firm are on our case results page.
The logic is simple. A judge deciding whether to divert someone is trying to answer one question: is this person going to be back? Someone who has already completed the counseling and the class and the community service has answered it. Someone asking for a chance to do it later has not.
The three ways a theft case ends in a dismissal in Orange County
Bryan’s position is that a guilty plea is the last option on the list, not the first. These are the three that come before it.
1. Judicial diversion, Penal Code 1001.95
The judge sets conditions rather than entering a conviction. In Orange County theft cases those conditions typically include a theft class, community service, restitution, a stay-away order ffrom the store, and a period of staying crime free, usually six months to a year.
Two things make this the strongest outcome. First, a judge may grant it over the district attorney’s objection, which is unusual and is written into the statute. Second, and this is the part that matters years later, Penal Code 1001.97 provides that on successful completion the arrest is deemed never to have occurred. You may lawfully answer that you were not arrested, and the record cannot be used to deny you employment, benefits, licensing, or certification. The one carve-out is applying for a position as a peace officer, where the arrest still must be disclosed.
Judicial diversion is not available for every misdemeanor. Offenses requiring sex offender registration, domestic violence as defined in Family Code 6211 or Penal Code 13700(b), and stalking under Penal Code 646.9 are excluded. The diversion period cannot exceed 24 months. Theft is eligible.
2. A district attorney continuance
Instead of asking the judge, the firm negotiates with the prosecutor to continue the case for three to six months. The client completes community service, an online class, restitution, and stays out of trouble. The district attorney then dismisses.
There is a catch that clients rarely hear about until it matters. A DA dismissal is a dismissal, but it does not seal anything. The arrest and the case file remain visible.
The distinction between this continuance and a diversion is that continuance is a case that something the district attorney is just dismissing.
So therefore your arrest and your court case does not get sealed, however your case does get dismissed.
So the firm will then file a petition under Penal Code 851.91 after the dismissal, which seals the arrest record and produces the same end result as diversion. If your attorney negotiates a DA continuance and stops there, the job is half finished. We cover the difference between these tools in more depth in expungement or seal and destroy.
3. Civil compromise, Penal Code 1377/1378
The firm contacts the store directly, makes the store whole through restitution, has it sign a document confirming that, and brings that back to the district attorney and the court. The court then dismisses on a finding of civil compromise.
Bryan rates this the least likely of the three, and the honest reason is that it depends entirely on a party with no obligation to cooperate. A responsive victim makes it fast. An unresponsive one makes it impossible.
| Path | What it requires | How long | Does it seal the record |
|---|---|---|---|
| Judicial diversion PC 1001.95 | What it requiresCourt-set conditions, six months to a year crime free | How long6 to 12 months from arraignment | Does it seal the record Sealed Dismissed, and under PC 1001.97 the arrest is deemed never to have occurred. |
| DA continuance Negotiated | What it requiresSame work, negotiated with the prosecutor | How long3 to 6 months from arraignment | Does it seal the record Not sealed Requires a separate PC 851.91 petition to seal the arrest. |
| Civil compromise PC 1377 / 1378 | What it requiresThe store agrees and signs | How longDepends entirely on the store | Does it seal the record Sealed separately The case is dismissed. Sealing is handled as its own step. |
When the district attorney fights it
A client who worked for a labor union was charged with petty theft. During the case it emerged that a second theft was already pending with the district attorney’s office, and the DA responded by filing a felony grand theft charge alongside the misdemeanor.
The union job was on the line. A theft conviction carried consequences for his membership.
The firm paid restitution up front, got the felony reduced to a misdemeanor, moved the case out of the felony courtroom into a misdemeanor courtroom, and filed a diversion motion under 1001.95 there. The case was ultimately dismissed and sealed, arrest included.
The Orange County District Attorney’s Office fought it the whole way, and Bryan is specific about what turned it:
The Orange County District Attorney's Office was aggressively pursuing prosecution of my client because of the multiple incidences of theft that this person had.
And once again, paying the restitution and getting them into counseling to show that he has an issue with stealing was the thing that overcame the objections of the Orange County District Attorney.
Same move as the Costa Mesa case, carrying more weight. Restitution paid before it was ordered, and treatment started before it was required, is what a judge weighs against a prosecutor’s objection.
The two things people do to themselves before they ever call a lawyer
The back room
Almost everyone stopped by a loss prevention officer agrees to the interview. They believe that explaining will end it, and that they will be released.
They are released either way. The interview is not the reason.
What Bryan sees later is the loss prevention report, and what is in it:
In there is usually a handwritten statement by the client who wrote down exactly what happened upon request of the loss prevention officer, including saying that they took the items from the store and they don't really know why they did it.
That is, as anybody would know, very incriminating and not great for their case, because that is turned over to the police and the police can include that in their police report.
A confession in the client’s own handwriting, written voluntarily in a back room, forwarded to police, quoted in the report. It is frequently the strongest evidence in the case, and the defendant produced it.
A loss prevention officer is not a police officer and cannot make your case go away. Say nothing to either one.
Store video is the other half of that file, and it rarely says what people remember it saying. We wrote about that in petty theft crimes on camera.
Going back to fix it
The instinct to return the item or pay for it after the fact is sincere, common, and actively harmful.
That's a complete misnomer.
That is something that should never be done, because paying the store or taking the items back to the store and returning the items does nothing more than solidify your guilt, because obviously you have it and you're returning it and you're saying I didn't pay for it.
Restitution matters enormously in these cases. It is one of the things that moves a judge. But it is paid through your attorney, at the right moment, structured so that it does not function as a confession. Handed over at the customer service counter, it is just evidence.
The letter that arrives two or three weeks later
A separate envelope shows up at your house, usually two to three weeks after the arrest, from the store’s legal department. It demands money and it is not from the court.
This is a civil demand under Penal Code 490.5. A merchant can demand between $50 and $500 from an adult, plus costs and the retail value of anything not recovered, and it is separate from the criminal case entirely. Two mistakes follow, in opposite directions.
Paying it immediately. It does not resolve the criminal case, it does not make the charges go away, and paid the wrong way it can read as an admission.
Ignoring it. This is the one Bryan warns about harder:
You can't ignore that letter, because there is a possibility that if you ignore that letter and do not pay it or do not address it or talk to your lawyer about it, it could turn into a civil judgment.
And if it turns into a civil judgment, it would go on your credit and follow you around.
What the firm does instead is call the store’s legal department, negotiate the amount below $500, and get a compromise and release in writing that contains no admission of liability or fault. The letter goes away, and nothing about resolving it can be used against you in the criminal case.
How long this takes, and why the courthouse matters
There are two ways this starts. You are detained at the store, cited, and released from there. Or you are arrested, taken to the station, booked, and released. Neither route changes the timeline much. What changes it is the backlog at your justice center and when the district attorney gets around to filing.
Arrest to arraignment runs about 45 days in a typical theft case. When the DA misses that window, the arraignment letter arrives later, often three to four months after the arrest or citation. This is why so many people who were cited and released assume nothing came of it, right up until the letter appears.
From arraignment, the route decides the rest. Diversion runs six months to a year, because the judge wants to watch you stay crime free. A DA continuance runs three to six months. A civil compromise moves at the speed of the store. Bryan’s floor across all of them: nothing resolves in less than three to six months.
Then there is where you are standing. Outcomes and timelines genuinely differ across the four Orange County justice centers.
| Justice center | Typical diversion or DA continuance timeline |
|---|---|
| West Justice Center Westminster | Typical timeline 3 to 6 months |
| North Justice Center Fullerton | Typical timeline 3 to 6 months |
| Harbor Justice Center Newport Beach | Typical timeline 6 months to 1 year |
| Central Justice Center Santa Ana | Typical timeline 6 months to 1 year |
| Addresses and hours for all four are on the Superior Court of California, County of Orange site. | |
Addresses and hours for all four are on the Superior Court of California, County of Orange site.
Where the court sets a longer term, it usually schedules a progress review at six months. That review is an opportunity, not a formality:
When there is a progress review at six months, what usually happens is that I am able to convince the judge or the DA to terminate or dismiss the case at that time because everything is in compliance.
Which is the practical argument for finishing your conditions early rather than pacing them out across the full term.
You will probably never see the inside of the courtroom
In most theft cases the firm appears for the client at arraignment and at every pretrial stage. Clients frequently complete a diversion without ever going to court.
Most of the time we are able to even negotiate and accomplish a diversion without the client ever having to go to court.
Our attorneys go to court, make a deal with the judge or the district attorney on one of the three resolutions above, and then have a meeting with our client and come back the next day and enter into that diversion.
For the engineer with the state license and the union member with a job to protect, this is not a convenience. Court dates are on weekdays. Explaining a string of them to an employer is its own problem.
Why “just plead guilty and get it over with” is the most expensive advice you will get
Most people arrive believing this is a small thing. A misdemeanor, a fine, a bad month. The fastest way through is to admit it and move on.
Bryan’s answer is blunt:
In my opinion this is an extremely wrong thing to do. Petty theft is a crime of moral turpitude. It is a misdemeanor, and it doesn't just fall off your record if you are convicted of it or plead guilty to it.
It will follow you around for the rest of your life on any type of job application or any type of state licensing. You will have to disclose this, and people looking at background checks do not want to see that somebody was convicted of a theft.
A theft conviction is not read as a mistake. It is read as a statement about honesty, which is why it lands harder than offenses carrying heavier sentences. Licensing boards ask, as we covered in misdemeanor consequences for nurses in California. Employers ask, and a criminal charge does show up on a background search. For non-citizens, a crime involving moral turpitude carries immigration consequences that outlast any sentence, and while a single petty theft does not automatically trigger removal, it is not something to find out about after the plea. See crimes that may legally bar you from DACA eligibility.
We have written about how long this follows people in small time crime can still cause big time problems.
The last possible option for any law firm should be to plead guilty.
There are several other options that must be exhausted.
For first and second time offenders, Bryan’s firm has been able to get clients into one of the three programs above, all of which end in dismissal.
What petty theft actually is under California law
Theft is defined at Penal Code 484, and Penal Code 488 makes theft that is not grand theft petty theft. The $950 dividing line comes from Penal Code 490.2. Under Penal Code 490, petty theft is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000, up to six months in county jail, or both, though jail is uncommon on a first offense with no aggravating facts.
Related charges you may see on the paperwork:
- Shoplifting, Penal Code 459.5. Entering an open business intending to steal $950 or less. Charged instead of burglary in most retail cases, and a misdemeanor unless certain priors apply.
- Grand theft, Penal Code 487. Property over $950, and also certain property regardless of value, including a firearm, a vehicle, or anything taken directly from a person. Punishment comes from Penal Code 489, and it can be charged as a felony or a misdemeanor.
- Receiving stolen property and embezzlement, both of which are frequently charged alongside or instead of theft depending on how the property was obtained.
If you have prior theft convictions
This is the part of the law that changed most recently, and it is the reason a case that would have been a simple misdemeanor a few years ago may not be one now.
Proposition 36 took effect in December 2024 and created Penal Code 666.1. A person with two or more qualifying prior theft convictions who is convicted of petty theft or shoplifting can be punished by up to a year in county jail or under Penal Code 1170(h), which means the under-$950 amount no longer caps the exposure. Proposition 36 also added Penal Code 490.3, which lets prosecutors aggregate the value of multiple thefts into a single count rather than charging each separately.
Bryan’s first-hand read on how this is being applied in Orange County, from the union member case above:
The Orange County District Attorney's Office was aggressively pursuing prosecution of my client because of the multiple incidences of theft that this person had.
Which does not make diversion unavailable. That case ended in a dismissal. It does mean the remediation has to be done and documented before anyone walks into court, because the prosecutor will be arguing the other way.
Frequently asked questions
Can a petty theft charge be dismissed in Orange County?
Yes. Three routes lead to dismissal: judicial diversion under Penal Code 1001.95, a district attorney continuance followed by a Penal Code 851.91 petition to seal, and a civil compromise under Penal Code 1377 and 1378. Which is realistic depends on your record, the courthouse, and what remediation is already complete when the request is made.
Will a dismissal remove the arrest from my record?
It depends which route you took. On completing diversion under 1001.95, Penal Code 1001.97 provides that the arrest is deemed never to have occurred, you may answer that you were not arrested, and it cannot be used to deny you employment or licensing. A district attorney dismissal does not do that on its own, which is why the firm follows it with a Penal Code 851.91 petition to seal the arrest.
How long does an Orange County petty theft case take?
Roughly 45 days from arrest to arraignment, sometimes three to four months if the district attorney files late. From arraignment, three to six months on a DA continuance and six months to a year on diversion, varying by justice center.
Do I have to go to court?
Usually not. The firm appears at arraignment and pretrial stages, and most clients complete a diversion without appearing.
I got a letter from the store demanding money. Should I pay it?
Not on your own. It is a civil demand under Penal Code 490.5, which for an adult runs from $50 to $500 plus costs, and it is separate from the criminal case. Do not ignore it, because the merchant can sue, including in small claims, and a judgment lands on your credit. The firm negotiates it down and secures a release with no admission of liability.
Should I return the item or pay the store?
No. Restitution matters, but it is paid through your attorney at the right point in the case. Returning the item yourself functions as a confession.
Is petty theft a crime of moral turpitude?
Yes, which is why it affects state licensing, employment background checks, and immigration status well beyond the sentence.
Talk to us before your first court date
The window where this is most fixable is the one most people spend waiting to see what happens. If you were cited at a store in Orange County, or arrested and released, the work that determines how this ends starts now.
The Law Offices of Bryan R. Kazarian
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Frequently Asked Questions
These terms are used interchangeably to describe attorneys who defend people accused of crimes. Both criminal lawyers and defense attorneys provide the same services – representing clients facing criminal charges and protecting their legal rights throughout the legal process.
You should contact a criminal defense lawyer immediately after any arrest or if you learn you’re under investigation. Getting a criminal defense lawyer early can help protect your rights, potentially prevent charges from being filed, and ensure you don’t inadvertently harm your case by speaking without representation.
A criminal justice attorney is a broad term including prosecutors, public defenders, and private defense attorneys. A criminal defense attorney specifically represents accused individuals. Understanding the difference between criminal justice and defense attorneys helps you choose the right legal representation for your situation.
Yes, the long-term consequences of a criminal conviction far outweigh attorney fees. A conviction can result in lost employment opportunities, damaged reputation, and potential jail time. Why criminal defense attorneys are worth the investment becomes clear when you consider the lifetime impact of a criminal record.
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