United States of America v. John Tamahere McCabe

Santa Ana, California, criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with fraud.

The Defendant was accused of defrauding a 79-year-old Orange County, California, victim out of nearly $2 million via false promises to broker the sale of the victim’s yacht and by taking out unauthorized loans against the victim’s Irvine condominium, which left the victim homeless.

John Tamahere McCabe, 42, of Kailua, Hawaii, devised and executed a scheme to defraud the victim. McCabe offered to help the victim sell his yacht and promised to transfer the sale’s proceeds to the victim. What the victim did not know was McCabe used fabricated documents to change the ownership of the yacht to McCabe’s name. Once the yacht was in his name, McCabe then diverted the proceeds to his own personal bank account and used most of the proceeds for his own personal purposes.

McCabe further convinced the victim to transfer his million-dollar Irvine residence into a McCabe-controlled limited liability company (LLC), claiming that it would protect the victim’s most-valuable asset and provide tax benefits. Without the victim’s knowledge or consent, McCabe caused himself to be the sole manager of the LLC and caused $1 million in loans to be taken out and secured by the victim’s residence, draining all its equity.

Once McCabe spent most of the loan proceeds, he defaulted on the loans and the victim’s residence was sold at a foreclosure sale, leaving the victim homeless. Through this scheme, McCabe defrauded the victim out of approximately $1,814,000.

The FBI investigated this case with the help of the Irvine Police Department.

Chief Assistant United States Attorney Jennifer L. Waier prosecuted this case.

The Defendant was sentenced to 48 months in prison and was ordered to pay $1,814,000 in restitution.