Lotfullah Sohaib Latif, a 34-year-old lawyer and Irvine resident, was sentenced on Friday, Jan. 9 to one year in jail and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service for a DUI crash that killed a United States Postal Service driver in Garden Grove.
Latif was convicted on October 21, 2025 of one felony count of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, one felony count of driving under the influence of alcohol causing injury, one felony count of driving under the influence with a blood alcohol content of .08% or more causing injury, and three felony enhancements of inflicting great bodily injury. He faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in state prison.
On June 9, 2019, at 3:55 a.m. California Highway Patrol dispatch received multiple calls about a gray Honda Accord that was blacked out in the lanes on the 22 freeway. A few minutes later, dispatchers received calls about a semi-truck colliding into the Honda and the semi-truck bursting into flames near the 405 freeway and the 22-freeway eastbound near Valley View Avenue. The driver of the semi-truck, 58-year-old Carlos Alberto Lara, was pronounced deceased on scene.
When CHP officers contacted Latif on the right shoulder of the 22 freeway, Latif denied drinking or having been involved in a collision. Officers noticed Latif’s license plate near a broken guardrail, his right passenger door on the shoulder and alcohol on his breath. The Honda’s Event Data Recorder, known as a vehicle’s black box, recorded the Honda going 89 miles per hour five seconds prior to colliding with the guard rail.
“Every day, approximately 34 people die in America in a drunk driving crash. That is one person every 42 minutes who is killed as a result of a selfish decision to get behind the wheel and drive while intoxicated,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “Drunk driving is a crime that is 100 percent preventable, and countless innocent lives would be saved if a night of drinking never included getting behind the wheel of a deadly weapon and driving. If this defendant had made the right decision, Mr. Lara would have been able to go home safely to his family that night instead of being killed by a stranger in a completely preventable crash.”
In 2013, Sohaib earned his Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of California, Irvine. In 2016, Sohaib earned his Juris Doctor from Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. He was an attorney with CA Legal Advisors. He later apparently started his own law practice, Latif Law APC, per his Linkedin page.
Currently Latif’s license to practice law has been suspended by the California State Bar Association due to his conviction.
What will happen to Latif’s law license?
- Interim Status: Under California law, an attorney convicted of a felony involving “moral turpitude” is typically placed on interim suspension while the State Bar Court determines the final disciplinary action.
- Potential Outcomes: The final disciplinary period (which could range from a multi-year suspension to permanent disbarment) will be decided after a formal hearing. Because his conviction involved a fatality, the State Bar may seek severe sanctions.
- Latif could lose his law license permanently. In California, an attorney’s conviction for a felony that involves “moral turpitude” is grounds for disbarment.
- Moral Turpitude Determination: The State Bar Court will evaluate whether the facts of his 2019 fatal crash—such as driving nearly 90 mph or initially denying involvement to officers—constitute “moral turpitude”. If the court finds his conduct meets this standard, summary disbarment (permanent removal from the roll of attorneys) is a possible and often presumed sanction.
- Severity of the Offense: Disbarment is frequently sought in cases where a felony conviction results in a fatality or demonstrates a gross disregard for public safety.
- Finality of Conviction: Once the criminal conviction is final (after any appeals are exhausted), the State Bar Court will issue a final recommendation to the California Supreme Court, which has the ultimate authority to disbar him.