A Fresno hairstylist will spend practically 16 years in jail for stealing hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from a mentally in poor health physician after which making an attempt to defraud the person’s property after his dying.
Anthony David Flores, also called Anton David, pleaded responsible final yr to 9 felony violations for his position within the scheme, together with wire fraud, mail fraud, cash laundering and conspiracy. His ex-girlfriend, Anna Rene Moore, 40, pleaded responsible to seven felony violations in the identical case, in keeping with Flores’ plea settlement.
Earlier than handing down his sentence, U.S. District Decide Percy Anderson referenced Flores’ “merciless disregard of the sufferer’s struggling” and the shortage of worth that he positioned on a human life.
“What this defendant did erodes core values that we as a folks have of empathy, compassion and kindness,” Anderson mentioned. “This conduct was solely pushed by greed. [Flores] grew to become misplaced, if you’ll, within the glitz and the glamour, the vehicles and the jewellery, residing on the seaside.”
Anderson additionally ordered Flores to pay $1 million in restitution.
Throughout sentencing, Flores’ members of the family packed the courtroom and watched as their cherished one, who had a sequence round his waist and his arms cuffed in entrance of him, learn a letter to the courtroom.
“I’m ashamed of myself,” Flores mentioned, including that he’d allowed “temptation and greed to get the most effective of me.”
He mentioned that he and the sufferer, Mark Sawusch, have been “like brothers” and that he cherished him and would always remember him.
“Your brother? Your good friend?” Anderson scoffed. “What’s so galling and so disturbing is you knew precisely what you have been doing. You knew it was flawed, you knew it was immoral and it merely didn’t matter to you.”
As Flores ready to depart the courtroom, he turned and smiled at his household and advised them, “I like you.”
Flores’ legal professional, Ambrosio E. Rodriguez, argued for a sentence of not more than 33 to 41 months, stating that his shopper took accountability and pleaded responsible and has no legal historical past.
“Clearly we settle for the decide’s sentence, however we’re upset,” Rodriguez mentioned after sentencing. He described Flores’ household, who declined to talk to reporters, as “devastated.”
In an announcement offered to reporters, the Sawusch household mentioned they have been “lastly discovering some consolation in understanding these relentless criminals have pled responsible, confessed to their widespread net of deceit and lies, and are dealing with the implications.”
“There may be nothing worse than those that prey upon the extremely weak,” the assertion learn.
Flores and Moore met Sawusch, an ophthalmologist price greater than $60 million, at an ice cream parlor off Venice Seaside in June 2017. Sawusch suffered from bipolar dysfunction and had misplaced the power to look after himself after a number of hospitalizations, in keeping with the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Central District of California.
Oceanfront houses on Pacific Coast Freeway in Malibu.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Instances)
Inside days of assembly Sawusch, federal prosecutors mentioned, Flores and Moore moved into his beachfront Malibu house — the place they lived lease free — and pretended to be his caregivers and new finest pals. They lived with Sawusch from September 2017 till his dying in Could 2018.
Flores admitted within the plea settlement that he persuaded Sawusch to grant him energy of legal professional throughout a psychological breakdown so extreme it ended within the physician’s arrest in September 2017. Flores advised Sawusch on recorded jail calls that it might be a “very restricted” energy of legal professional and solely used to handle his affairs whereas he was in custody.
Anthony Flores, Anna Moore and Mark Sawusch in 2017.
(Federal courtroom filings)
However the energy of legal professional was by no means revoked after Sawusch’s launch from jail. Flores used it to open financial institution accounts in Sawusch’s identify and acquire entry to his cash, prosecutors mentioned.
Days earlier than Sawusch’s dying, Flores and Moore gave him LSD, which despatched Sawusch’s psychological well being right into a tailspin, authorities mentioned. Whereas Sawusch was beneath the affect, Flores modified the two-factor authentication on Sawusch’s brokerage account to go to Flores’ telephone, then initiated two $1-million wire transfers that ended up in his and Moore’s financial institution accounts.
Sawusch died alone in his house that Memorial Day weekend. The plea settlement revealed that, earlier than his dying, Flores and Moore had been surveilling Sawusch from a luxurious lodge in Santa Monica by way of the safety cameras in his home.
The L.A. County coroner discovered it was an unintentional dying brought on by ketamine and alcohol intoxication.
However a pathologist who did an post-mortem discovered that the “therapeutic ranges of ketamine” and small quantity of alcohol “didn’t considerably contribute to the rapid reason behind dying.” Sawusch died because of two coronary heart situations, the pathologist concluded: dilated cardiomyopathy and a congenitally slim coronary artery.
After his dying, Flores and Moore continued to withdraw cash from his accounts till Sawusch’s mom and sister sued them. The funds have been frozen, however Flores and Moore tried to salvage them by means of numerous money-laundering schemes.
In late 2018, Flores and Moore claimed Sawusch had promised them his home and one-third of his property, however he was unable to alter his will earlier than his dying. The following litigation over Sawusch’s property resulted within the pair withdrawing their claims and agreeing to repay the property $1 million.
In the course of the sentencing listening to, Anderson mentioned that judgment stays unpaid and a few of the funds Flores misappropriated stay unaccounted for.
Flores supplied an apology to the Sawusch household for “utilizing the authorized system” in opposition to them.
Rodriguez, Flores’ legal professional, gestured to the greater than a dozen members of the family and pals who have been seated within the courtroom.
“This isn’t an individual who has created a lifetime of crime,” Rodriguez mentioned. “He has created pals and households which might be right here to assist him.”
Asst. U.S. Atty. Andrew M. Roach acknowledged that Flores had his household there and had their assist, however he famous Sawusch “was actually focused as a result of he didn’t have that assist.”
“That allowed [Flores] to get management and take management of his life,” Roach mentioned.
Moore is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 28.
