“My father always told me that a...

“My father always told me that a man with a briefcase could steal more than a man with a gun, and I think this case illustrates that.”

--U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian, after accepting a guilty plea to fraud charges from Thomas G. Padgett, who said he set up a company that pretended to give millions of dollars in contracts to the the Reseda-based ZZZZ Best carpet cleaning company, purportedly to repair fire and flooding damage to buildings. Prosecutors say the insurance jobs didn’t exist.