Rayan Lakshmanan, 48, of Davis was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for his role in a wire fraud and money laundering case, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced last week. Two of his co-conspirators also have been sentenced — Laurence Miles, 76, of Arizona, to nine years, and Robert Stephens, 65, of Petaluma, to 42 months.
According to Stephens’ guilty plea, since at least 2009 and continuing through December of 2015, he defrauded scores of victims of at least $5.6 million. Stephens admitted that along with his four co-defendants — Miles; Lakshmanan; Shirley Molina, 70, of Hawthorne; and Munsif Shirazi, 49, of Bell Canyon — he told people that an heiress to a billion-dollar estate was very ill and was in need of medical attention.
Stephens and his co-defendants convinced their victims that the heiress’ money was tied up in a secret probate case and that, in return for money to help pay for her medical costs, Stephens and his accomplices would return to their victims $1,000 for every $1 they invested in the heiress’ estate.
Stephens and his accomplices promised their victims that they would see the returns on their investments after the money was released from probate. In truth, there was no dying heiress with a large estate. Instead, Stephens and his co-defendants used the victims’ money to support their own lifestyles.
Shirazi and Molina will be sentenced later this year.
In sentencing Stephens, U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh found that he had been conducting the scheme since 2007. The court concluded that Stephens and his co-defendants obtained almost $8 million from the scheme and that Stephens was responsible for recruiting most of the victims.
