The judge called her a “predator,” scolded her for her spinelessness and sentenced an actor Monday to 90 months in prison — more than twice what prosecutors had requested — for her role in a multimillion-dollar fraud against a mentally ill doctor who wound up dead.
During a sentencing hearing Monday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson said the 7½-year prison sentence was necessary for Anna Rene Moore to reflect the seriousness of the offense against a “vulnerable victim.”
The government had recommended a 41-month sentence. Moore’s federal public defender recommended 27 months. In handing down a harsher sentence, Anderson referred to Moore as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Anderson said Moore and her ex-boyfriend, Anthony David Flores, had embarked on a scheme to exploit the victim, Mark Sawusch, and “hijack his fortune.”
Moore pleaded guilty last year to seven felonies, including conspiracy to commit mail fraud, mail fraud, conspiracy to engage in money laundering and money laundering. Flores was sentenced in June to nearly 16 years in prison.
During the hearing, Moore, dressed in a white prison jumpsuit, apologized to the Sawusch family for what she called her “unacceptable involvement.”
Moore said she’d struggled her whole life with depression, anxiety, insomnia, anorexia and “crippling co-dependence.”
“Had I had the confidence to stand up to [Flores] more assertively, things could have gone differently,” she said. “I know that, I see that and I am so sorry.”
But Anderson was unmoved.
“There comes a time when you have to be held accountable and accept responsibility,” Anderson said. “When you have to stop blaming your boyfriend … for your failings.”
Flores and Moore met Sawusch, a wealthy Malibu doctor and savvy investor worth more than $60 million, at an ice cream parlor off Venice Beach in June 2017. Sawusch, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, had been experiencing severe episodes of mental illness that had led to his hospitalization and later his arrest.
At the time, Moore and Flores lived in Fresno, where they operated a window-cleaning business and yoga studio. Moore was also an actor, whose credits included one-episode roles in shows like Law and Order and Criminal Minds.
Within days of meeting Sawusch, federal prosecutors said, Flores and Moore moved into his beachfront Malibu home, where they lived rent-free. They wormed their way into his life, acting as his caregivers and new best friends and lived with Sawusch from September 2017 until his death in May 2018.
Flores admitted in his plea agreement that he persuaded Sawusch to grant him power of attorney during a mental breakdown so severe that it ended in the doctor’s arrest in September 2017. Flores opened three different bank accounts in Sawusch’s name and used funds to pay for his and Moore’s personal expenses and to finance his nascent public relations company.
According to the plea agreement, Flores represented to Moore and others that Sawusch approved his use of the funds “because the victim had purportedly become an ‘investor’ in all of defendant Flores’ ventures.”
Days before Sawusch’s death, Flores and Moore gave him LSD, which sent Sawusch’s mental health into a tailspin, authorities said. While Sawusch was under the influence, Flores changed the two-factor authentication on Sawusch’s brokerage account to go to Flores’ phone, then initiated two $1-million wire transfers that ended up in his and Moore’s bank accounts.
Sawusch died alone in his home that Memorial Day weekend. The plea agreement revealed that before his death, Flores and Moore had been watching Sawusch via the security cameras in his house from a luxury hotel in Santa Monica.
After his death, Flores and Moore continued to withdraw money from his accounts until Sawusch’s mother and sister sued them. The accounts were frozen, and Flores and Moore attempted to salvage the funds through various money-laundering schemes.
The pair moved to Mexico during the COVID-19 pandemic, where they later split up.
After serving her sentence, Anderson said, Moore will receive three years of supervised release. She and Flores have also been ordered to pay $1 million in restitution.
