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In the interest of speed and timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain spelling or grammatical errors.
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Con artist convicted of posing as lawyer
Friday August 22, 2003
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) A man who spent years in prison for
running a variety of fraud schemes was convicted of posing as a
lawyer and representing unsuspecting clients in criminal and civil
cases.
Harold David Goldstein, 57, was convicted Wednesday following a
three-day trial at which he testified he was actually performing a
service by taking on clients other lawyers didn't want and
representing many of them for free.
Although he was not a lawyer, Goldstein said, he had honed his
legal skills during 12 years of writing appeals while in prison on
various fraud charges.
``It was tremendous experience that could be used to help
others,'' he said.
Authorities said Goldstein took the identity of a real lawyer,
David M. Goldstein of Redwood City, and began representing clients
after he got out of prison.
He was arrested last February in Las Vegas after a former
partner in his Newport Beach law firm discovered the deception and
contacted authorities.
He faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced Dec. 2.
He also faces trial in September on mail fraud charges for the more
than $130,000 prosecutors say his clients paid him.
One of his clients, Hasdwell Geovang Pineeda Hernandez, was
deported to Honduras after his request for political asylum was
rejected.
After a judge learned Hernandez's lawyer was a fraud, he ordered
the federal public defender's office to return him to the United
States, but authorities said they could never find him.
Goldstein has convictions dating to the 1970s when he was found
guilty of defrauding 13,000 investors in a commodities scheme and
of selling $1 million in phony gold contracts.
In 1980, the Los Angeles County district attorney charged him
with stealing $4 million from small businesses seeking loans at a
phony overseas bank he and a partner established. He was sentenced
to 10 years in prison but was released in 1986.
It was during his last prison term, for dealing in phony
certificates of deposit, that Goldstein said he began earning money
from legitimate lawyers for legal research and writing briefs.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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