A former real estate broker accused of bilking more than $500,000 from her clients will be sentenced next month under a plea agreement.
Louisa Katrina Dubinsky, 54, was charged with 39 counts of embezzlement, financial elder abuse and writing bad checks. The charges all stem from incidents that took place in 2007, according to prosecutors.
Dubinsky was scheduled to go on trial for the charges last month, but instead pleaded no contest to 15 charges of embezzlement and passing bad checks.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, Dubinsky faces a maximum of eight years behind bars. Had she gone to trial and been convicted on all counts, she could have faced as many as 15 years in prison.
Dubinsky was president of Vision Lending and Investment, which had offices in Capitola and Santa Cruz, at the time the crimes were committed. She also did business as Mariposa Mortgage and e-visionlending.com. Her mortgage broker’s license was revoked in 2008 after an administrative law judge found three trust funds handled by her firm were short $187,000.
During a preliminary hearing in September 2011, investigators with the Santa Cruz District Attorney’s office testified that one of Dubinsky’s clients was paying her $3,000 a month for his mortgage, which she in turn was using to pay several lenders involved in the home loan. This went on for more than seven years until one of the lenders informed the victim that the lending firm hadn’t received several months’ worth of payments. The money never made it to the lender and the victim couldn’t make contact with Dubinsky.
Charges were filed against Dubinsky in 2009 but she was not arrested until February 2011, when she turned herself into Santa Cruz County authorities after she appeared on the county’s Most Wanted list in January. Dubinsky was living in Hollister at the time and has claimed she was unaware there was a warrant out for her arrest.
Dubinsky, who is not in custody, will be back in court on Feb. 8 for sentencing. As part of her plea, she also will be ordered to pay restitution to some of the victims.
