Ill-gotten gain

For several years beginning in about 2008, Orange County attorney/businessman Paul Jeffrey Lucas and his Lucas Law Center ran a mortgage loan modification scam that ripped off numerous consumers between $1,000 to $3,995 each.

From their Aliso Viejo offices, Lucas and his employees promised to perform work, took fees and then did nothing meaningful as unsuspecting homeowners lost their properties, according to government reports.

In Dec. 2010, the State Bar of California disbarred Lucas for incompetence, nabbing unearned fees and failure to cooperate with the agency's investigations.

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Dragan Fustar: POS scumbag

Dragan Fustars' eyes are oddly askew, but that's not a valid excuse for the Irvine contractor to con elderly people out of more than $126,000.

This week, Fustar pleaded guilty to 10 felony charges surrounding the swindling of senior citizens from May 2010 to December 2011 and received a six-year prison trip, according to a media statement by the Orange County District Attorney's office.

The 37-year-old crook took money for jobs and--much like shifty Costa Mesa Congressman Dana Rohrabacher--either did a crappy, half-ass job or didn't bother to show up to do the hired work.

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Swindler Jack Hu with George W. Bush

Using great props to fake credibility, a shameless Orange County mother-son con artist team convinced investors to hand them as much as $2 million in a scam involving speaking engagements for U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush as well as former Vice President Al Gore.More »

Catalan is now battling crook charges on two fronts

The Rancho Santiago Community College District official indicted in May for allegedly stealing $100,000 in federal grants intended for low income students recently received more bad news when the district filed a seven-page civil lawsuit against her.

Anna Catalan cheated by systematically stealing student checks from February 2008 to April 2011 and then covering up her crimes, according to the lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court by Redlands attorney Leigh O. Harper.

The suit alleges Catalan is guilty of breaching her fiduciary duty to the college, negligent representation, fraud, conversion and intentional deceit.

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This time the cheating victim wasn't Sandra Bullock

A federal judge in Santa Ana has sentenced a Yorba Linda businessman to a term of probation for three years and ordered him to pay a $4,000 fine for conspiracy to commit mail fraud.

Following his arrest in February, Richard Alan Glavis--the owner of Superior Computer Gear (SCG)--acknowledged his guilt in a plea agreement that outlined how he shipped counterfeit Cisco Systems, Inc. products beginning in March 2008 through July 2010.

Glavis, who was born in 1972, had faced a maximum potential federal prison sentence of five years for his crimes.

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Busted deceitful OC businessmen get punished

A successful Orange County certified public accountant and property owner indicted for his role in a brazen con game got a break this week inside the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse in Santa Ana.

Facing a potential prison trip, Michael Alan Taylor of Seal Beach argued that while he worked closely with San Juan Capistrano-based swindler Carl Larue Godfrey on a series of fraud schemes that duped investors out of more than $1 million he'd been a relatively ignorant, minor player.

The U.S. Department of Justice (or, perhaps just Assistant United States Attorney Jennifer L. Waier, who habitually files documents shrouded in Top Secret, James Bond-fashion) doesn't want the public to know it's stance on Taylor's punishment.

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SEC bags another OC douche bag

Omar Ali Rizvi graduated from law school in San Francisco and earned a Masters of Laws degree in securities and financial regulations at Georgetown University Law School in the nation's capital, but its obvious that the Irvine man never learned to obey the law.

In the last decade, Rizvi has been convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and disbarred for lack of character.

Now, he can add another impressive milestone to his resume.

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Mitchell David Gold--who created charities for wounded veterans, handicapped children, persons suffering with AIDS and disabled fire fighters--was superb at tugging on the heart strings of people across the nation.

During a portion of the 1990s, Gold collected millions of dollars in contributions for the needy and spent the overwhelming majority of it on the biggest charity case the Orange County man could find: himself.

Before his FBI arrest in early 2002, he'd raised more than $27 million for charity and kept for personal use merely $26 million.

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Apu wouldn't have skimmed his customers

A Santa Ana Shell gas station employee working in this country on a special work visa from India has been sentenced following a U.S. Secret Service investigation that discovered he'd taken $50,000 to allow other criminals to plant ATM card skimming devices inside gas pumps.

Bhavesh Vithalbhai Lakhani hoped his punishment would be limited to just six months of home confinement.

After all, Lakhani believes that the likelihood of eventually being deported back to India was severe punishment enough.

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FTC defeats crooked OC businessman

An Orange County businessman who operated an eBay-related scam that nabbed $45 million from more than 500,000 consumers nationwide learned his fate this week inside the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse in Santa Ana.

Charles Gugliuzza, the onetime president of Commerce Planet, had hoped to escape the ire of U.S. District Court Judge Cormac J.Carney, but that didn't happen.

Carney issued a brutal final judgement and permanent injunction against Gugliuzza.

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