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Coins case ends in plea bargain
Michigan
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Coins case ends in plea bargain
Woman gets year in jail for thefts
By VIRGINIA HENNESSEY
Herald Salinas Bureau
A Pacific Grove woman pleaded no contest Thursday to stealing close to $1 million worth of valuable coins and jewelry from her 98-year-old great aunt.
An agitated Cynthia Hurley, 47, appeared reluctant but waived her right to a jury trial and admitted one count of elder financial abuse.
She will be sentenced to one year in jail and three years probation as part of the agreement. The plea bargain requires her to sign over her 30 percent interest in four Pacific Grove properties to reimburse Lillian King for her losses.
Prosecutor Lisa Poll said Hurley's portion of the properties, which are co-owned by King, have been appraised at $640,000. But Poll said she and King have agreed that if Hurley signs over her interest, the restitution will be paid in full.
King "would just like Cynthia Hurley out of her life," Poll said. "She wants this case to be over, so she can move on."
Judge Russell Scott set Hurley's sentencing for Nov. 7.
Reached at her home Thursday evening, King said she was glad to put the case behind her, but felt sad about her grandniece.
"I am hurt and I'm sad because my niece just threw her life away and she could have had a lovely one," said King.
According to testimony at Hurley's preliminary hearing, King took her in and let her live in a house on her property because Hurley was "ill and needed help badly."
King, whose late husband was an heir to the famed King Ranch in Texas, bought seven rentals on four properties and signed over 30 percent to Hurley. She gave her grandniece the responsibility of managing the properties in return.
While Hurley collected the rent, King told the court, little of it ever made its way to King's bank accounts. At the same time, according to testimony, gold and silver coins that King had been purchasing for investments since 1980 began to disappear, along with jewelry and other property.
King had stored most of the coins in paper bags around her house, where she thought people wouldn't expect to find them.
In September 2005, Pacific Grove police went to King's five-acre Sunset Drive property on reports of illegal drug use on the property. They found the house and surrounding grounds filthy and strewn with garbage.
Authorities red-tagged the house as uninhabitable,
King was briefly placed with Adult Protective Services and Hurley was told to leave. In March, police returned to the house on reports that Hurley had moved back. In April they learned that a storage locker in which King kept 16 boxes of coins had been burglarized.
Investigators eventually found evidence that Hurley had sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of coins to dealers in Carmel and Watsonville for pennies on the dollar.
One man told Pacific Grove police that he and others were helping Hurley clean King's property after the September 2005 search when they found a steamer trunk filled with pure silver coins. Some of the men helped themselves to handfuls of coins, he said. The trunk was never found.
Poll said all that is left of King's fortune in coins are two boxes of gold coins that were removed from her storage locker by Nader Agha, a family friend and co-executor of King's estate, prior to the burglary. Together they are worth $550,000.
While King estimated at Hurley's preliminary hearing that her missing coins were worth $2 million, Poll said Thursday that she and defense attorney Scott Erdbacher had agreed on a restitution figure of $975,000. Hurley will meet the restitution by signing a quitclaim deed on the four properties.
"Both sides are happy to say 'let's just end it'," Poll said.
Woman gets year in jail for thefts
By VIRGINIA HENNESSEY
Herald Salinas Bureau
A Pacific Grove woman pleaded no contest Thursday to stealing close to $1 million worth of valuable coins and jewelry from her 98-year-old great aunt.
An agitated Cynthia Hurley, 47, appeared reluctant but waived her right to a jury trial and admitted one count of elder financial abuse.
She will be sentenced to one year in jail and three years probation as part of the agreement. The plea bargain requires her to sign over her 30 percent interest in four Pacific Grove properties to reimburse Lillian King for her losses.
Prosecutor Lisa Poll said Hurley's portion of the properties, which are co-owned by King, have been appraised at $640,000. But Poll said she and King have agreed that if Hurley signs over her interest, the restitution will be paid in full.
King "would just like Cynthia Hurley out of her life," Poll said. "She wants this case to be over, so she can move on."
Judge Russell Scott set Hurley's sentencing for Nov. 7.
Reached at her home Thursday evening, King said she was glad to put the case behind her, but felt sad about her grandniece.
"I am hurt and I'm sad because my niece just threw her life away and she could have had a lovely one," said King.
According to testimony at Hurley's preliminary hearing, King took her in and let her live in a house on her property because Hurley was "ill and needed help badly."
King, whose late husband was an heir to the famed King Ranch in Texas, bought seven rentals on four properties and signed over 30 percent to Hurley. She gave her grandniece the responsibility of managing the properties in return.
While Hurley collected the rent, King told the court, little of it ever made its way to King's bank accounts. At the same time, according to testimony, gold and silver coins that King had been purchasing for investments since 1980 began to disappear, along with jewelry and other property.
King had stored most of the coins in paper bags around her house, where she thought people wouldn't expect to find them.
In September 2005, Pacific Grove police went to King's five-acre Sunset Drive property on reports of illegal drug use on the property. They found the house and surrounding grounds filthy and strewn with garbage.
Authorities red-tagged the house as uninhabitable,
King was briefly placed with Adult Protective Services and Hurley was told to leave. In March, police returned to the house on reports that Hurley had moved back. In April they learned that a storage locker in which King kept 16 boxes of coins had been burglarized.
Investigators eventually found evidence that Hurley had sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of coins to dealers in Carmel and Watsonville for pennies on the dollar.
One man told Pacific Grove police that he and others were helping Hurley clean King's property after the September 2005 search when they found a steamer trunk filled with pure silver coins. Some of the men helped themselves to handfuls of coins, he said. The trunk was never found.
Poll said all that is left of King's fortune in coins are two boxes of gold coins that were removed from her storage locker by Nader Agha, a family friend and co-executor of King's estate, prior to the burglary. Together they are worth $550,000.
While King estimated at Hurley's preliminary hearing that her missing coins were worth $2 million, Poll said Thursday that she and defense attorney Scott Erdbacher had agreed on a restitution figure of $975,000. Hurley will meet the restitution by signing a quitclaim deed on the four properties.
"Both sides are happy to say 'let's just end it'," Poll said.
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Comments
<< <i>Investigators eventually found evidence that Hurley had sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of coins to dealers in Carmel and Watsonville for pennies on the dollar.
>>
I hope they go after the dealers who are the real crooks.
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Cynthia Hurley - pretty obvious
The dealers that ripped Hurley for pennies on the dollar.
The dealers that sold King the coins that were probably not worth the $2 million she thought. (This is a little difficult to discern from the facts presented)
A sad story
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This is a very ambiguous statement. What value were they determining the coins with? Did the lady purchase the coins from a boiler room, Home Shopping Network, etc? Nobody had a listing of what she had or what had disappeared, so nobody knows the value. How do they know they were sold for "pennies on the dollar?" I see coin acculumations everyday where the people claim it is worth tens of thousands of dollars and it is worth a couple hundred. The one I looked at yesterday had all Littleton coins in the clear envelopes. Each envelope had a Littleton inventory number. One common date BU wheat Cent had a number of 269.60 and that was how they were determining value.
So...Your statement: "I hope they go after the dealers who are the real crooks." is very uneducated and biased, as you don't have any facts besides what is in the story!
thank you for sharing Michigan.
I'll get some meds and popcorn.
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<< <i>I see three crooks: . . . The dealers that sold King the coins that were probably not worth the $2 million she thought. (This is a little difficult to discern from the facts presented) >>
It may be a 'little difficult to discern from the facts presented' since you just completely made it up.
And having worked in a coin store I a have also run into many people with those Littleton cellophane envelopes with those stock numbers that look like prices and the owners of the coins are convinced that those are what the coin is worth. And some of those people you can't convince that that isn't about what they should get for the coin, and by god they want their $269.17 for that 1963 AU nickel. And if I offer them 17 cents (which is more than it is worth) I'm trying to rip them off for more than $200! (And if I did buy it I run the risk of having them file financial elderly abuse charges against me. Sure I'm innocent but the expense for defending oneself can be crippling. Ask Ron Gillio.)
I know what many dealers would do, and no one else, including the police, would ever know.
<< <i>No proof of the "pennies on the dollar" claim, but any time you have someone stealing and fencing property, esp. coins, it seems more likely than not that it was pennies on the dollar. >>
Why? Does someone tell the dealer they are stolen? Or do dealers assume that all coins coming in from people they don't know are collectors are stolen?
If someone brings coins into an honest dealers shop, unless the seller is acting odd enough to convince the dealer that there may be something questionable going on they will be offered a fair price. Or do all dealers only pay pennies on the dollar for the coins they buy? (And in the case of an honest dealer, if he feels something "hinky" is going on, he will pass anyway.)
No I think the "pennies on the dollar" claim is usually the result of peoples overinflated estimates of the value of their property combined with the odd conception that most people seem to have that a dealer should pay them full retail for their coins. (I can't count the number of people I have heard in shops who can't understand why the dealer won't pay them what the price guides say their coins are worth. "He only offered me X and it says right here that it is worth Y".)
This should be, IMO, about a woman who steal between $1-2 million from a relative & gets 1 year in prison!!
What message does that send!
The 30% interest in those rentals where given to her. At first I thought that some of the money she stole where used to buy these interests, but the grandaunt have her this to begin with.
I say let her do hard time, I believe anything up to a year prison term means county jail?
And who's to say "dealers" are coin shops? It very well could have been pawn shops & the like......maybe some of the coins when straight to the drug "dealers". This to me is a small piece to the big picture.