Scam Victim Is Sadder, Wiser, Maybe Richer

Growing up in her native Korea, Sarah Hwang learned to hold three figures in high esteem and indisputable trust: God, lawyers and doctors.

And so when Lee C. Brown began bringing his clothes to her Laguna Hills dry-cleaning shop a few years ago, the 46-year-old Hwang recalls that she had no reason to doubt his claims of being a successful neurosurgeon.

In fact, Hwang says she was so impressed with Brown’s fancy cars, expensive clothes and snapshots of high living in Las Vegas with powerful people such as boxing champion Mike Tyson--and so caught up in her own visions of quick money--that she was willing to turn over $166,000 in cash to him for a hotel investment that proved a scam.

The personal shame from her “gullibility” still lingers, Hwang said. But on Thursday, a Superior Court judge helped ease the bitterness by ordering Brown to pay a total of almost $300,000 in general and punitive damages to Hwang.

“This is a simple, straight, old-fashioned, common-law fraud,” Superior Court Judge David G. Sills said in his ruling. Calling the case a classic “confidence game,” the judge said he simply did not believe Brown’s claims of innocence to charges that he swindled Hwang.

Brown, who works out of Newport Beach, is also under broader criminal investigation by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department in connection with his business dealings, officials said. Brown’s attorney, Fred Walker, refused comment on the judge’s findings but said he would appeal the decision. He asserted in his closing statement Thursday that Hwang offered not a shred of hard evidence beyond her testimony to show that she ever gave Brown any money.

Brown, 36, could not be reached for comment after the ruling. But in an earlier interview, the Laguna Hills man insisted that Hwang made up her story against him to try to compensate for thousands of dollars that she had lost in other business dealings gone bad.

“The allegations are totally outrageous,” he said. “She never gave me a single penny.”

But Hwang and her attorney, Joel W. Baruch--and ultimately Judge Sills--painted a different picture of Brown.

Judge Believed Her

Although Hwang could offer no proof to back her claim of the cash payments in 1987, Sills said the question inevitably became one of credibility. And in the judge’s view, the Korean dry-cleaning operator won out.

“Simply put, I believe the plaintiff’s story,” Sills said. He ordered Brown to repay the $166,000 plus 10% annual interest, along with $100,000 in punitive damages.

In his visits to the shop, Brown talked of his contacts with high rollers in Las Vegas and showed Hwang photos of him in the gambling capital, talking in one photo with Tyson and surrounded in another shot by huge sums of cash that he said were his winnings, according to Hwang and attorney Baruch.

Having gained the woman’s confidence, Brown mentioned a business investment in which he was involved--the Cattle Baron Hotel in Las Vegas--and said he needed to find other investors to back him, Hwang testified. Brown does not, in fact, have any connection to the hotel, which is not in Las Vegas, according to Baruch.

Hwang took out a loan to make the investment, she said, and was promised a return of $5 million within weeks of making her original investment of $166,000. “Even 1 million (dollars) would have been enough. I thought I could retire with that,” she said in an interview, occasionally weeping.

Faults Not Crimes

Baruch, in his closing statement to the judge, said that Hwang could well be described as greedy, gullible, even “stupid.” But he emphasized that these faults are not crimes.

“She made the mistake of thinking that Lee Brown lived by the same code she did,” Baruch said. “Lee Brown was very good at what he does--and what he does is separate people from their money.”

Hwang said the money awarded her will help ease the financial strain caused by her dealings with Brown, and also gives her new-found confidence in the judicial system of her adopted country. Now a U.S. citizen, Hwang came to this country by herself 20 years ago. She had never before appeared in court.

“I’m just happy someone believed me,” she said.

“To be trusted is a very important element of this society, and of Korean society,” Hwang said. “I trusted the wrong person. . . . I had no doubts (about Brown). I still cannot believe he wasn’t a doctor. I almost had a heart attack when I found out, and even now, I am so shameful when I think about it.”