A San Martin dairy farmer was convicted of several counts of felony grand theft and felony forgery after acting as the go-between in several bogus sales of cows, sheep and farming equipment over a three-year period, according to the district attorney’s office.
A Santa Clara County jury convicted Jeffrey Whalen, 41, of San Martin on five felony counts of grand theft and two felony counts of forgery, according to Deputy District Attorney John Chase.
Whalen faces up to seven years and eight months in state prison for the charges, which stem from a string of related buy-and-sell livestock schemes from 2003 to 2006 that convinced three people to hand Whalen almost a quarter of a million dollars and hundreds of animals.
In April 2004, Whalen, owner of Whalen Dairy Farm at 1565 E. Middle Ave. in San Martin, pretended to broker the sale of 156 head of cattle and two pieces of farm equipment for $180,000 between local mortgage broker James Norris as the buyer and Texas dairy farmer David Fine as the seller. In reality, Whalen used Norris’s $180,000 to pay Fine for about 76 head of cattle he had already purchased. So when Fine got Norris’s check, he assumed it was to pay for Whalen’s previous purchase. Whalen forged Fine’s signature on documents intended to prove the sale of the 156 cattle, Chase said. In short, Norris paid $180,000 and received no cattle.
In 2005, Norris became suspicious, Chase said.
“Because there are cattle on the dairy farm, (Norris) thinks they are his. He can’t tell them apart,” Chase said. But in April 2005, all the cattle are gone. Norris asks Whalen where his cattle went. Whalen takes Norris to another dairy farm, telling Norris that he had to move them there because his own farm flooded.
“A couple months after that, (Norris) realizes that doesn’t make sense,” Chase said. But by then, there weren’t any cattle at either farm: Whalen sold them in June 2005.
Before that, in December 2003, Whalen had convinced Norris to loan him $65,000 by telling him that his cattle and hay trailers were in danger of foreclosure and repossession. Since Norris owned the property leased to Whalen for his dairy farm, he had a vested interest in keeping Whalen in business, Chase said.
That’s where the first of the two forgeries comes in. Whalen forged a signature on a document proving the threat of foreclosure. It was this document that convinced Norris to loan Whalen the money.
In a separate incident in 2006, real estate agent Sergio Roldan was duped into investing $25,000 and then loaning Whalen $30,000 for the purchase of dairy cattle. Whalen also told Roldan that he had a buyer for 43 of Roldan’s purebred sheep; Whalen made off with the sheep but never gave Roldan payment from the supposed buyer.
Norris, Roldan and Fine all testified in the two-week trial. Fine, who was not considered a victim of any of the charges since he was paid for his cattle, flew to in from Texas in order to testify, Chase said.
Whalen was arrested in April 2006, but posted bail two days later after his mother fronted $20,000 from a credit line on her home.
In short, Chase said, “(Whalen)’s a person who engages in this type of fraud. When they need to pay for something, they tell lies to get (others) to make the payment.”
A sentencing date has not yet been set. He remains out of custody on $250,000 bail.
