Man Who Posed as Youth Is Found Guilty of Fraud

A 31-year-old con man who pretended to be a movie star, a cross-country bicyclist and a 17-year-old high school student became a real-life convict Wednesday when a Ventura County Superior Court jury found him guilty of 12 counts of fraud.

David Michael Murray, alias Shi Stone, sat quietly as the jury pronounced him guilty of charges that he defrauded an Ojai couple and Ventura County businesses out of room, board, goods and services.

Then he shook Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles R. Roberts Sr.’s hand, said “Good job, Chuck,” and walked into the sheriff’s custody.

The jury deliberated for about an hour Tuesday and eight hours Wednesday--once asking to review transcribed testimony from four of Murray’s victims--before returning its verdict just before 5 p.m.

Ken and Dorothy Johnson of Ojai testified during the trial that they took Murray in and fed him, believing that he was 17-year-old Shi Stone, the hemophiliac son of a military officer wounded in Operation Just Cause, the invasion of Panama.

Court records show that Murray even attended Nordhoff High School in Ojai briefly, where, he told jurors during his closing argument, “I was making A’s and B’s.”

Witnesses testified that Murray often established his fake identities ahead of time, sending Mailgrams to his victims before his arrivals.

Jurors found that Murray conned the Ventura Holiday Inn out of two days accommodations with a Mailgram announcing him as Randy A. Phillips, an employee of the U.S. Embassy in Panama City whose luggage was lost in transit.

They also convicted Murray on witnesses’ testimony that a Mailgram to Open Air Bicycles in Ventura allowed him to walk into the store, announce himself as bike marathoner Steve Randallson and pedal away on a $732 Trek touring bike.

At one point, Murray telephoned an orthodontist and posed as a Paramount Studios producer who needed to have fictitious actor Will Martinson fitted with fake braces to match earlier footage of the actor before his braces had been removed. Murray then showed up posing as Martinson, had the doctor fit him with the braces and left with the promise to give the bill to his boss.

Roberts said Murray used the fake braces while he was in custody to get a dental appointment in the Ventura County Jail infirmary, claiming that a deputy had dented them.

Roberts said Murray faces up to six years in prison for the 12 fraud counts.

A court trial is scheduled for today to establish that Murray was the one who was convicted under four different aliases in four prior felonies in Utah, Texas, Idaho and Ventura County.

If his identity is confirmed in those crimes, he could face another two years in prison, Roberts said.

Murray acted as his own attorney throughout the trial, a role that won him good reviews from Judge Kenneth R. Yegan.

“It was an unusual case,” Yegan told jurors. “Based on what you saw, the defendant is a very intelligent person who cross-examined the witnesses, did a good job of it, gave a good closing argument,” Yegan told jurors before excusing them.

And Roberts said afterward, “He’s the best 17-year-old non-high-school graduate I’ve ever prosecuted, except for the fact that he’s a 31-year-old ex-convict. With the number of priors he’s had over the past 10 years, he’s been in court almost the same number of times I have.”

Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury, Assistant Dist. Atty. Colleen Toy White and Deputy Dist. Atty. John L. Geb, chief of the county’s fraud prosecutors, were present for the verdict.