Ex-Broker Sentenced to 9 Years in Land Swindle

Defiant to the end, former real estate broker Gerald Ramos was sentenced to nine years in prison Monday for his central role in a land swindle that netted $21 million from financial institutions across the country.

U.S. District Judge Harry L. Hupp concluded that the case was “an egregious fraud” and gave Ramos a sentence three times longer than any of the other seven co-defendants convicted to date.

The scheme involved use of inflated land values, false financial statements and worthless mortgage guarantee bonds to purchase two large tracts of land in Chatsworth and Newhall.

Ramos told the court he was a bona fide businessman who was a victim of the swindle, not the victimizer. Yet he also claimed that the deal could have succeeded.

“Had the state of California, the federal government and the Orange County district attorney’s office kept their nose out of my business, this deal would have been perfect,” Ramos insisted in federal court in Los Angeles.

Ramos, 38, told a probation officer recently that he spent what prosecutors have alleged was his $2.7-million split of the swindle on “women, cars, booze and real estate.” But prosecutor Guy N. Ormes, an assistant U.S. attorney, testified that he believes Ramos has hidden what remains of his share of the loot.

Ramos spent a year as a fugitive before federal wiretaps on relatives’ telephones led to his arrest in northern Spain.

Of the 10 mostly Orange County businessmen who originally were charged in the scheme, eight have been convicted, one was acquitted and one still awaits trial.