Angela C. C. Viramontes Appointed as United States Magistrate Judge for the Central District of California

The United States District Court for the Central District of California announces the appointment of Angela C. C. Viramontes as a United States Magistrate Judge.  Judge Viramontes, who was sworn in on January 20, 2026, will preside over matters in Riverside in the Court’s Eastern Division.  Judge Viramontes succeeds former Magistrate Judge Shashi H. Kewalramani.

Before her appointment as a magistrate judge, Judge Viramontes was the Branch Chief of the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Riverside, California.  In that role, Judge Viramontes represented individuals charged with serious federal offenses, including capital murder, drug trafficking, and fraud.  She also served as a member of Riverside’s Substance Abuse Treatment and Reentry (“STAR”), and Conviction and Sentence Alternatives (“CASA”) Programs.  Among her most notable legal work, Judge Viramontes successfully represented a detainee held at Guantánamo Bay, where she traveled multiple times, contributing to her client’s eventual release.  Judge Viramontes is a member of the Riverside County Bar Association.  She has also served as the President, Secretary, Treasurer, and a Board member of the Inland Empire Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, and she was previously an Attorney Master in the Leo A. Deegan Inn of Court.

Earlier in her career, Judge Viramontes was a staff and supervising attorney at the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, where she represented plaintiffs in class-action litigation in federal court and worked on appeals before the Board of Immigration Appeals.  Judge Viramontes was also a civil litigation associate at Hirschfeld Kraemer LLP in Santa Monica, Liebert Cassidy Whitmore LLP in Los Angeles, and Bingham McCutchen LLP in San Francisco, where she primarily represented employers in employment-related lawsuits, including discrimination, wrongful discharge, and harassment claims, in state and federal court.

Judge Viramontes obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1998, where she graduated with highest honors in Sociology, and was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society.  Judge Viramontes obtained her Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, in 2002.

Including the position now occupied by Judge Viramontes, the Central District of California has 24 full-time magistrate judge positions.  The Central District of California is comprised of the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo.  It serves more than 19.3 million people, nearly half the population of the State of California.
 

*******************

BRIAN D. KARTH
DISTRICT COURT EXECUTIVE / CLERK OF COURT