VENTURA : Trial Begins for Man Accused of Fraud

Acting as his own lawyer, an alleged con artist accused of claiming to be the hemophiliac son of an Air Force colonel wounded in the Panama invasion went on trial on 12 counts of fraud.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles R. Roberts Sr. told jurors in an opening statement Wednesday that David Michael Murray, 31, posing as a 17-year-old hemophiliac high school student named Shi Stone, took money, merchandise and medicine from Ventura County business people he defrauded between Jan. 8 and 22.

Roberts said Murray also posed as a displaced airline traveler, a Western movie star, a producer for Paramount Studios, a model and a cross-country bicyclist, fraudulently procuring free hotel rooms, clothing and dental work.

But during his own opening statement, Murray said that the facts could be interpreted several ways and that several people may have been responsible for the crimes.

Testimony began with Carol Monahan, a caretaker at Hobson Park on Pacific Coast Highway who met Murray in 1979. Monahan testified that Murray swindled her out of $3,000 while posing as Steven Randall Stringer, an Exxon oil surveyor afflicted with leukemia.

She said Murray persuaded her to keep her husband from taking all the property in their divorce by putting it in Murray’s name. He also persuaded her to buy a 1979 Mustang in his name, with which he then disappeared, she said.

After serving time in Ventura County Jail in 1980 for car theft in connection with that scheme, Murray moved in briefly and then vanished, she testified.

The trial is scheduled to continue Monday. Murray is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail in Ventura County Jail.