AT LAST THESE CROOKS ARE NOW IN JAIL

The following article just came out yesterday (Aug 17, 2014)

News

Three O.C. residents arrested in fraud investigation

Police say Steven Sears and two others created fake corporations that took investors for at least $800,000.

/ STAFF WRITER

Published: Aug. 15, 2014 Updated: 9:22 p.m.

IRVINE – Two Irvine men and a Garden Grove woman suspected of defrauding more than a dozen people out of at least $800,000 were arrested Friday, police said.

Authorities allege that Steven Sears, 59, led the “elaborate scheme,” while Mikael Sears, 56, and Norma Hoskins, 57, assisted him, according to an Irvine police statement. All three were booked into the Orange County Jail system in lieu of $800,000 bail.

According to police, Steven Sears promised to help people protect their assets by purchasing corporations, which investigators suspect he had “fraudulently created.” Authorities say he sold the corporations – which were set up in California, Delaware, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming – with the promise that the people he was doing business with could use them to “protect their assets.”

Police believe that Steven Sears used various aliases to cloak his identity, and allege he claimed to be an attorney despite having been disbarred in 2011. Police also suspect that Sears used the corporations he created to open bank accounts in order to launder money.

Steven Sears has a colorful history. In addition to being disbarred, he lost his real estate agent license after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor domestic violence charge in late 2006.

He arrived on the Irvine Police Department’s radar through his ties to a home at 21 Chester that bedeviled neighbors and community code enforcement officials after it was crudely – and apparently illegally – converted into a boarding house, where a marijuana-growing operation and extraction lab was discovered during a police visit.

Sears in a previous interview denied that it was his house, or that he lived there or managed it. However, he is currently under a court order to bring the home into compliance with the city’s safety regulations, authorities said.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Irvine investigators at 949-724-7180.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7939 or semery@ocregister.com