Ex-San Bernardino Cop Scammed $5.6M, Blew $2M at Yaamava’ Casino
A former San Bernardino County sheriff’s lieutenant has admitted swindling at to the lowest degree $5.6 meg from victims he invited to commit in non-existent business opportunities.
Christopher Harold Lloyd Burnell, of Highland, Calif., frittered off a great deal of the victims’ immediate payment at the nearby Yaamava’ Resort & Casino, formerly the San Manuel Casino, prosecutors said.
In a federal royal court in Riverside on Monday, Burnell pleaded shamefaced to 11 counts of wire dupery and 2 counts of filing a sour task return. The 51-year-old worked on and away for the sheriff’s department for several years, according to records viewed past The Press Enterprise. Now he faces upwardly to 20 years in prison house when he is sentenced inward August.
Bulletproof Investments
Burnell portrayed himself to his victims, falsely, as a successful businessman who had made millions from marketing a patent of invention for an air-cooled, bulletproof waistcoat to Oakley Inc., prosecutors said. He also claimed to feature won millions of dollars inward lawsuits against the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Office and Kaiser Permanente.
From around November 2010 to Sep 2017, he offered “exclusive” investment funds opportunities with unlikely returns, soliciting hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time. Some were offered ROIs of 100%, to follow delivered inward a matter of weeks, according to prosecutors.
None of these opportunities were real. Instead, Burnell blew the money gambling, losing to a greater extent than $2M at the Yaamava’ Casino.
Additionally, he wasted $500,000 on private squirt trips, $70,000 on Joseph Louis Barrow Vuitton merchandise, and $175,000 on luxury cars, and apartment leases for girlfriends, according to court of justice filings.
Bogus Bank Statement
“Burnell continued this investment funds humbug scheme for years until he could non place new victims to defraud and the money from his victims ran out,” the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said inwards a statement.
“As victims began to hike concerns to him near a lack of repayment and defaults, Burnell claimed that his money had been fastened upward inwards a combine fund and his remaining assets had been seized by federal authorities,” said the prosecutor.
He and so extracted to a greater extent money from victims past claiming he needed monetary resource to pay off for his wife’s malignant neoplastic disease treatment, a kid custody contravention with his father-in-law, and other personal expenses.
To preserve them sweet, he showed them a forged Wells Fargo bank building financial statement indicating that he had over $150 zillion in his account, which he would apply to repay them one time the money was freed up.
In truth, he had less than $6,500 in the account.