Such ugly household battles may be frequent in California. What makes Ávila Bugarin’s story distinctive is that the one who tried to strip her of her autonomy is now Assemblymember Anamarie Ávila Farías, who sits on her chamber’s eldercare committee — the legislative physique that’s supposed to guard seniors.
CalMatters reviewed the case as a part of our ongoing investigation into California’s conservatorship system, which is designed to guard the susceptible by taking management of their lives and funds. Earlier tales have proven that weak oversight by the state’s Skilled Fiduciaries Bureau and the courts has allowed the system for use towards the folks it’s supposed to guard.
Information on file on the Contra Costa County Superior Courtroom present that earlier than Ávila Farías rose to develop into an assemblymember, she confronted a non permanent restraining order for elder abuse after allegedly hitting her mom and ended her conservatorship try solely after her mom agreed to signal over actual property in a settlement settlement.
The information additionally reveal that Ávila Farías and her husband have filed for chapter three occasions on behalf of themselves and their firm since 2011, and the assemblymember offered a vastly completely different clarification of the property in query to the courts than she did to the Honest Political Practices Fee.
Melissa Brown, an elder-law professor emeritus on the College of the Pacific’s McGeorge College of Legislation, mentioned Ávila Farías’ try to position her mom in conservatorship appears like “a weaponization of the method.”
Ávila Farías wouldn’t touch upon particulars of the case, citing a confidentiality settlement that was a part of the case’s settlement. However she mentioned she plans to introduce laws on the difficulty due to her expertise within the case, “hopefully subsequent 12 months.” She didn’t present specifics concerning the focus of the laws.
Her spokesperson, Roger Salazar, mentioned in a written assertion that there “has by no means been a judicial discovering that Anamarie Farías engaged in any wrongdoing.”
“California conservatorship proceedings generally contain advanced household dynamics,” he mentioned.
He identified that she has since been named a conservator for an additional member of the family, which “displays the court docket’s impartial willpower that she glad the authorized requirements required to serve in a fiduciary capability.”
Her different relations additionally declined to remark for this story, citing the confidentiality settlement, or didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Nick Miller, a spokesperson for Meeting Speaker Robert Rivas, mentioned the speaker was not conscious of the non permanent restraining order or the conservatorship petition when he appointed Ávila Farías to the committee.
Ávila Farías grew up in Martinez, the place she served on town council and the Contra Costa County Board of Schooling. She was on the board of administrators for the California Housing Finance Company from 2015 to 2024, in the course of the court docket battles. Two years in the past, voters despatched her to the state Meeting with the endorsement of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
In 2024, the Honest Political Practices Fee acquired complaints that Ávila Farías had not disclosed all of her financial pursuits for a number of years. The fee closed an investigation in 2025 after she amended her varieties, disclosed reportable financial pursuits and accomplished the fee’s academic course.
Lately, she launched a invoice that will ban some U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement workers from turning into cops and academics in California. A watered-down model of the invoice handed the Meeting and is now within the Senate.
Ávila Farías sits on the Meeting’s Getting old and Lengthy-Time period Care Committee and is operating for a second time period within the Legislature.
Earlier than her ascent in state politics, Ávila Farías and her husband tried their hand in actual property, abandoning a path of bankruptcies and questionable property transfers, court docket and property information present.
Their household strife centered on three properties: the household house that Ávila Farías bought together with her mom and sister, which they rented to a tenant; Ávila Farías’ everlasting house; and one other rental property.
In August 2008, Ávila Farías and her husband gifted the three properties to the lawmaker’s mom, Ávila Bugarin, property information present. In court docket filings, Ávila Bugarin maintained she had no thought she’d been given possession of two of the properties. Ávila Farías instructed the court docket that her mom was conscious of the transfers.
About three months after the transfers, the couple signed a $2.3 million enterprise mortgage settlement. They defaulted on the mortgage about 18 months later, in accordance with court docket filings, and the couple’s actual property firm filed for chapter in September 2011, finally turning over possession of an unrelated property to the lending firm.
The chapter case was dismissed in April 2012.
Years later, Ávila Bugarin mentioned that she found her daughter “was behind on her mortgage” on the household house, in accordance with the court docket investigator’s report. It was then, Ávila Bugarin mentioned, that she began researching the properties, and she or he discovered that her daughter had positioned the 2 different houses in her identify.
Ávila Bugarin instructed the court docket investigator she additionally discovered that her daughter had taken out loans towards the household house. Ávila Bugarin, who spoke restricted English, instructed the court docket investigator that she signed the financial institution paperwork for the loans, pondering she was refinancing the house, not borrowing towards it.
She refused to deed the 2 properties again to Ávila Farías, saying she’d need to get the household house again first.
The police finally bought concerned.
In February 2018, in accordance with court docket information filed by Ávila Bugarin, Ávila Farías stormed into her house, yanked the phone from her mom’s hand and hit her wrist.
The mom filed for a short lived restraining order, asking for defense for herself and her daughter who lived together with her, Judith Ávila, which a decide granted. Judith Ávila corroborated her mom’s account in court docket filings.
Ávila Farías denied the allegations, saying her mom slapped her as an alternative.
