Redondo Con Man to Be Arraigned in Stock Fraud

A convicted con man from Redondo Beach is scheduled to be arraigned next week on charges that he sold bogus stock certificates to at least 15 people by posing as a high-rolling stockbroker, authorities said Wednesday.

Jonathan Giovanni Guccione, 29, remained in custody this week in lieu of $150,000 bail pending his arraignment Jan. 11 in Antelope Municipal Court. He was charged Dec. 4 with eight counts of grand theft after five Antelope Valley residents complained that he had defrauded them out of $37,500 by selling them counterfeit shares of IBM stock.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Dennis Papp said Guccione is a convicted con man who was still on parole after serving 16 months in state prison for a prior fraud conviction. He is also believed to have bilked at least nine other investors in Los Angeles and Orange counties, Nevada and Virginia, Papp said.

Those people--none of whom are from the South Bay--are mentioned in the complaint against Guccione “for restitution purposes,” Papp said. But their cases were not added to the criminal complaint because the Antelope Valley charges were sufficient to garner the maximum nine-year prison term for Guccione if he is convicted on the pending charges of felony grand theft.

Papp said Guccione posed as a broker for Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc., driving to his appointments in limousines and sports cars and passing out free tickets to Dodger games.

Authorities said Guccione promised investors that they would sextuple their investments in only a few months. Because the counterfeit stock certificates looked real--complete with the company’s name, the purchasers’ names and other details--authorities had to contact IBM to confirm that they were, in fact, worthless, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Cynthia Leigh Ulfig.

“Anyone familiar with stock brokering would know the certificates were fake,” Papp said. “But to a layman, they look really good.”

In fact, he said, the certificates were forged on blank forms available in most stationery stores and commonly used as award certificates.

Ulfig said that between May and July, the five Antelope Valley investors were defrauded of amounts ranging from $5,000 to $15,000. Another group of alleged victims worked together at a Cerritos firm, Papp said.

In mid-September, Papp said, one of Guccione’s alleged clients became suspicious and filed a complaint. Guccione was located through his parole officer, Papp said, and was arrested at his Irena Avenue home.