Tales from Scam Diego

The Department of Justice announced yesterday (May 2) that it has permanently barred Michael Turner from preparing federal tax returns. The government says that Turner entered bogus deductions on his customers' returns. When the Internal Revenue audited his customers' returns, Turner provided phony documents to help them claim false charitable contributions. He would often submit returns without signing or affixing a tax-preparer identification number, thus attempting to avoid detection.

Former San Diego resident Laura Ortuondo pleaded guilty today to making false statements to federal agents. She was an assistant to a small-business owner (who has pleaded guilty in a separate case). She helped him obtain a fraudulent $1.8 million loan from La Jolla Bank, then entered into a five-year effort to thwart federal agents investigating the fraud, according to evidence introduced in court.

According to the Antelope Valley Times, a 23-year-old University of California San Diego student, Edward Sommers, was arrested Monday night for allegedly tossing a Molotov cocktail at a Palmdale home owned by relatives and burglarizing the home. A nanoengineering major at the university, Sommers was named one of the school's outstanding students in a 2013 article on the school's website.