VENTURA : Man Cited in Thefts Shows Up in Court

A former used-car wholesaler facing extradition from Arizona on charges of selling Ventura County dealers vehicles with rolled-back odometers stunned the county district attorney’s office Thursday when he unexpectedly appeared in Superior Court with his attorney, authorities said.

Gregory W. Larsen, 34, was being held in a Mojave County, Ariz., jail following his arrest last week on a fugitive warrant. Extradition proceedings were not scheduled until Jan. 11, but Larsen posted bail and came to California of his own accord, said Charles R. Roberts, senior attorney in the district attorney’s major fraud unit.

“He strolled in with his lawyer and placed himself under the jurisdiction of the California Superior Court,” Roberts said.

The Ventura County grand jury on Oct. 26 indicted Larsen on 27 counts of grand theft stemming from deals his now-defunct La Brea Auto Sales in Los Angeles made with five Ventura County used-car dealers in late 1989 and earlier this year.

A state Department of Motor Vehicles investigation showed that Larsen was buying high-mileage, late-model cars and vans from other wholesalers, rolling back their odometer readings by about half and selling them to used-car retailers, Roberts said. The practice of reducing the officially logged miles from, for example, 80,000 to 40,000, increased Larsen’s prices by an average of $2,000 per vehicle, Roberts said.

“The dealers were livid,” said Roberts, adding that most of the vehicles were previously leased 1987 and 1988 American cars and vans. “They had to either buy back the cars they had sold or give big discounts,” he said, because the cars’ true mileage was unknown.

Larsen’s lawyer told Judge Frederick A. Jones on Thursday that his client has been living in Bullhead City, where he owns a concrete company, Roberts said. Larsen was allowed to remain free on the bond he posted in Arizona after being ordered to appear in court Jan. 25.