Man to Serve 45 Months for Fraud

A former Mission Viejo insurance agent who defrauded three elderly investors out of their life savings and then fled the area was ordered Monday to serve 45 months in prison and repay $595,000.

Jacques (Jack) Doigny, 43, had faced up to 30 years in prison following a guilty plea in July to charges of securities and mail fraud.

After his April arrest in Arizona, Doigny was also charged with 14 other counts in connection with the investment scam, but prosecutors agreed to drop those charges in exchange for his guilty plea.

Authorities said the former Mutual of Omaha agent took $230,000 in early 1988 from Peter Ross, 102, and his wife, Esther, 83. Doigny told the Atwater couple that he would invest the money in annuities and also file their income tax returns and perform clerical and financial tasks for them, authorities said.

Instead, Doigny used pilfered Mutual of Omaha letterhead and computer software to show the Rosses how their purported investments were doing and forged their signatures to write himself checks. He used their money to buy himself a motor home, a car, and a house in Mission Viejo and to support a lavish lifestyle, authorities said.

Doigny also defrauded Roy Aldridge, 75, a friend of the Rosses, out of $394,000 that the Hollywood man had invested with him, prosecutors said.

A native of Italy, Doigny fled first to Europe and Israel and then later to Arizona after federal investigators contacted him about the case in November, 1989. Peter Ross had become suspicious after checking directly with the insurance company about his investments. Doigny was finally tracked down in Arizona in April and extradited to California.

The Rosses said at the time of Doigny’s guilty plea in July that they had recovered all but a few thousand dollars of their investment from insurers.

Doigny was ordered Monday by U.S. District Judge James M. Ideman to pay the $595,000 in restitution to Mutual of Omaha and Transamerica, the two corporations that reimbursed the three investors, according to Assistant U.S. Atty. John Walsh.