A local con artist was sentenced to five years in state prison
for running a real estate scam that bilked a disabled man out of
$115,000.
A local con artist was sentenced to five years in state prison for running a real estate scam that bilked a disabled man out of $115,000.
The sentencing of Charles William White, 61, of Hollister in the San Martin courthouse Tuesday, was the latest in a long line of grand theft and fraud convictions for the career criminal, prosecutors said.
“He’s been doing this for 32 years,” Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Joseph Reader said.
White, who sometimes goes by the name Gary Johnson, pleaded no contest on April 1 to charges of stealing about $115,000 from Arturo Ojeda during the summer of 2001, according to court documents.
Reader, of the Santa Clara County real estate fraud unit, said White has been conducting similar frauds throughout the region.
“He was wanted for a fraud case in San Benito County a few years ago after he took $15,000 from a young woman,” Reader said. “It devastated her. He took all the money she had.”
White will also be serving five prison sentences from other counties where he has worked similar scams, a court report indicated.
His real estate scam started when he met Ojeda in a Gilroy barbershop and Ojeda said he wanted to buy property. White claimed to be an independent contractor, land developer and modular home installer and had a quarter of an acre parcel of land that he would sell to Ojeda, according to court documents. White showed Ojeda three different parcels, none of which belonged to him.
White convinced Ojeda, who had been injured at his construction job, to liquidate his investments so he could buy the property for about $175,000. White even promised to build Ojeda a home on the land at no cost.
Ojeda gave White a $10,000 deposit and White wrote him a counterfeit bill of sale and agreed to let Ojeda pay for the property in installments over the following months.
Ojeda then had a crew go to the property to do some work, but they were stopped by a Santa Clara County deputy who was called out on a possible trespassing offense buy the real owners.
When Ojeda tried to contact White to straighten things out, White could not be found. Investigators eventually tracked him down in the Santa Cruz County Jail where he was being held after being arrested on a similar fraud case, according to court documents.
