Christopher Ramos, 45, of Santa Rosa, was sentenced on Thursday to four years in prison after an investigation by the California Department of Insurance found he stole over $189,000 from consumers and left them uninsured.

Ramos was convicted of multiple felony counts of grand theft, theft of fiduciary funds and additional enhancements for theft over $100,000.

Ramos was also sentenced to five years of mandatory supervision and ordered to pay $189,526 in restitution to his victims.

Ramos worked as an insurance broker from 1999 until 2015 under the business names See Solutions Insurance Brokerage LLC and CDR Insurance Agency LLC.

The department’s investigation found between 2014 and 2016, Ramos collected money from his victims that was intended to be premiums to pay their respective insurance carriers, but Ramos failed to remit the money to the insurance carrier and kept it for his personal use.

Ramos also created fraudulent certificates of insurance so his victims would be unaware that policies were not placed with insurance carriers. His actions resulted in the victims’ policies being canceled, which they did not discover until the investigation began.

Ramos’ insurance license was suspended and eventually revoked in 2019. The Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office prosecuted this case.