RANDY ECONOMY: MY WORLD: STICK A NEEDLE IN YOUR EYE: Downey Motorcars owner Ruben Hernandez found quilty of fraud. He used "voodoo" magic to attempt to influence the crime.

Friday, May 07, 2010

STICK A NEEDLE IN YOUR EYE: Downey Motorcars owner Ruben Hernandez found quilty of fraud. He used "voodoo" magic to attempt to influence the crime.

By Randy Economy
www.Economy4ABC.Blogspot.com
May 7, 2010
3:10 p.m.

LOS ANGELES – A Downey real estate owner who engaged authorities in a high-speed pursuit and used voodoo to influence the outcome of his case has been convicted.

Ruben Hernandez, 34, owner of Downey Motorcars, was found guilty of four counts of filing a false application and three counts of grand theft, and this case is bizarre as in "cultist" weird.

Prosecutors said Hernandez purchased six properties using false social security information and bank statements. Rodriguez used false social security numbers to purchase two properties, obtain home equity lines of credit and open a bank account.

Rodriguez was arrested shortly after the case was filed in January 2008. Hernandez, however, eluded authorities. About a year later, Investigator David Ishibashi of the District Attorney’s Office, Investigator Steve Louie of the Department of Motor Vehicles and Deputy U.S. Marshall Sal Reyes tracked Hernandez down to a bungalow in Pasadena.

On Feb. 12, 2009, as Hernandez and his wife, Aida Gutierrez, 24, were coming out of their driveway, authorities moved in. Hernandez, ultimately, was arrested after engaging investigators in a mile-long, 80-mile-per-hour pursuit.

When authorities executed a search warrant on the home where Hernandez was staying, they discovered a voodoo shrine, the prosecutor said. The shrine included various artifacts and voodoo dolls – dunked head down in cups of water with pins in the eyes – featuring the names of the prosecutor, the investigators assigned to the case and the case number.

WTF? A "voodoo shrine?" Do people still practice voodoo in Downey? I thought the City of Downey outlawed voodoo back when "voodoo" was running rampant back in the 1800's?

Deputy District Attorney Eugene Hanrahan of the Major Fraud Section said jurors deliberated for four days before convicting the crime.

Jurors deadlocked on one count of evading arrest and two counts each of filing a false application and grand theft.

Co-defendant Joel Rodriguez, 44, owner of Coast to Coast Mortgage in Downey, was convicted of six counts of filing a false application and five counts of grand theft. The jury deadlocked on one count of grand theft.

As to both defendants, jurors found true a white-collar crime allegation that the loss was more than $500,000 and an excessive-taking allegation that the loss was more than $1.3 million.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lance Ito (yep, THAT Judge Ito from the OJ Simpson murder case fame) said Hernandez and Rodriguez will be sentenced on June 2 in Department 110 of the Foltz Criminal Justice Center. Hernandez faces a maximum prison term of 13 years. Rodriguez could be sentenced to a maximum term of 14 years, four months.

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Meet Randy Economy

You may know me from my role as the Senior Advisor and Official Media Spokesman for the Recall Gavin Newsom campaign that established a worldwide blitz of interviews. I conducted more than 2,200 media interviews on behalf of “The People’s Recall” during a 10-month period from November 2020 to September 2021. The iconic magazine Mother Jones in a dramatic feature article called me “A ‘Superhero Pirate’ Radio Host, (and) Gavin Newsom’s Strangest—and Most Dangerous—Threat. Meet Randy Economy, the man behind the effort to recall California’s governor.” I appeared on more than 330 media outlets around the world in my capacity with RecallGavin2020. Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, Newsmax, NBC Nightly News, ABC News, as well as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Politico, and dozens of other media outlets aired featured reports on my work on behalf of “The People’s Recall.” I am and will always consider myself to be a journalist. Sometimes I think I bleed ink. My talents as an Investigative Journalists in California earned me FIVE top awards from the prestigious Los Angeles Press Club in 2013, 2014, and 2016. I am tenacious. My reporting over the years has led to the prosecution of several elected officials in California. While working for a tiny community newspaper in Southeast Los Angeles County, I worked doggedly to expose the biggest public corruption case in Los Angeles County history when I unearthed a massive pay to play scheme inside the Assessor’s Office that led to the arrest of then Assessor John R. Noguez and four others. However, politics has been in my DNA since I was a child. I have worked on more than 300 political campaigns as a consultant and advisor since 1982 for candidates from all sides of the political spectrum including Democrats and Republicans, and even Libertarians. I am also a small business owner, serving as the President and CEO of Hot Water Studio & Production, LLC. My company works with media outlets across the state, nation, and world exposing public corruption via several new media platforms. I have also overcome personal challenges. I am legally blind with zero vision in my right eye and only 40 percent vision remaining in my left eye. I sometimes wear an eyepatch due to my failed vision. (Hence the nickname of “America’s Political Pirate.”

Friday, May 07, 2010

STICK A NEEDLE IN YOUR EYE: Downey Motorcars owner Ruben Hernandez found quilty of fraud. He used "voodoo" magic to attempt to influence the crime.

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