‘Jamaican Switch’ : 4 Con Men Plead Guilty in Sleight-of-Hand Thefts

Four men pleaded guilty Friday in Van Nuys Municipal Court to swindling people in a scheme police call the “Jamaican Switch.”

Authorities said one of the victims in the scheme was Los Angeles attorney James M. Epstein, who said he sniffed out the confidence game and was trying to set up an arrest when he lost $5,000.

In the elaborate scheme that netted more than $33,000, at least three more victims each lost thousands of dollars in cash, police Sgt. Dennis E. Adams said.

Adams said the scheme works this way:

One of the thieves approaches an elderly or well-dressed man and poses as a naive Jamaican seaman, shows a thick roll of cash and professes a distrust of banks. After asking for help in finding an out-of-the-way address, he convinces the victims that he could easily be robbed.

The man posing as a seaman gets in the victim’s car, and as the victim drives him around to help him find the address, accomplices follow in another car. One of them approaches when the victim’s car stops so that a bystander can be asked for directions.

Show of Good Faith

The two thieves, pretending to be unacquainted, argue about the trustworthiness of banks. The argument leads to the suggestion that the victim safeguard the so-called sailor’s money by putting it in the same envelope with a substantial sum of his own money, as a show of good faith.

But the thieves switch the envelope with one filled with newspaper while the victim isn’t looking, or through sleight of hand.

The four defendants who pleaded guilty on Friday were in the process of swindling a 73-year-old man when arrested by detectives Nov. 4 during a stakeout in Manhattan Beach, Adams said.

Pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy and grand theft were James Brooks, 38, Jerome Gooden, 36, and Edward John King, 38, all of Houston. The fourth man, Archie Taylor, 37, of Denver, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit grand theft.

Judge Leslie A. Dunn scheduled sentencing dates of Jan. 8 for Brooks and Taylor, and Jan. 11 for Gooden and King. Each is being held in lieu of $100,000 bail.

According to the court file, in addition to criminal-defense attorney Epstein, 46, of Venice, three other victims were named. Lawrence Siegel, a 36-year-old Chatsworth accountant, lost $20,000; Encino pianist Paul E. Pitman, 43, and another victim, Paul Fasman, lost $4,000 each.

Adams said the scheme was so clever that even intelligent people can sometimes fall prey.

Epstein, who is defending Mark Allen Olds, the convicted attacker of City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, said he immediately recognized the scheme from a case he had argued 20 years ago as a public defender.

He said he withdrew his money to play along so that he and the second man who approached him could arrest the so-called sailor.

“But I had totally forgotten that the second guy was involved,” he said. It was the second man who made the switch, he said.