Jury Convicts Garden Grove Couple of $439,000 in ‘Boiler Room’ Frauds

A Garden Grove couple were convicted Wednesday on 63 counts each of consumer fraud for false solicitation of more than $439,000 for charitable causes.

John C. Feldman, 40, and Hoa Thi Adams, 33, each face up to 15 years in consecutive jail terms and a $50,000 fine for the telephone solicitations. The jury deliberated for eight hours over two days. Sentencing was scheduled for July 8 by Central Municipal Judge Randell L. Wilkinson.

Feldman and Adams were the first “boiler-room” operators, as prosecutors call such telephone solicitations, ever to go to trial in a county solicitation case.

The couple, who were business partners and lived together, operated J & H Productions, which had contracts with three charities: the All-American Youth Foundation, the Los Angeles Wheelchair Basketball Assn. and a group called the Wheelchair Basketball Assn.

But while their contracts were real, the evidence at their three-week trial showed that they did not tell those they solicited what would become of their donation.

In most cases, just 10 cents of every dollar donated actually went to charity. The rest of the money went either to J & H Productions or to subcontractors who solicited for them by telephone or collected donations for them.

“The law is clear that if you ask someone to donate to a charity, you must tell them if the money is not actually going to go to that cause,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Gay Geiser-Sandoval, who prosecuted Feldman and Adams.

For the Wheelchair Basketball Assn., she said, J & H Productions collected $147,000, but just 1% of that went to the charity. For the Los Angeles Stars group, $64,000 was collected, about 25% of which went to the charity. For the All-American Youth Foundation, $227,000 was collected, but just 10% went to pay for youth activities.

The counts for which the couple were convicted include theft, false and misleading statements and violation of court orders.

Prosecutors called dozens of witnesses, most of whom gave less than $100; one man had given more than $600.

One victim testified that the telephone solicitor falsely told her in his sales pitch that she had donated last year.

The couple were each acquitted on 12 other counts.

It was the violation of two previous court orders against J & H that led prosecutors to file criminal charges. In almost all consumer fraud cases in the county, the district attorney’s office first files a civil complaint in a bid to stop an unfair business practice.

But Feldman and Adams failed to halt their operation, despite civil actions by the courts, Geiser-Sandoval said.

The counts in the criminal complaint covered charitable solicitations from July 1, 1986, to Jan. 20, 1988.

Feldman and Adams both testified in their own defense. Feldman contended that it was the people who operated the charities who actually ran the operation, not him.

Adams testified that she was essentially no more than a bookkeeper and depended on Feldman to run things.