Couple Charged With Embezzling $1.4 Million

An Antelope Valley couple who ran a real estate investment business were charged Monday with embezzling more than $1.4 million from six clients in a case that authorities said is likely to produce more victims and losses of more than $2 million.

Raj K. Puri, a 36-year-old Palmdale resident who ran Puri Financial Inc. in Lancaster, was in custody Monday in lieu of bail of $1 million, Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Foltz said.

Puri’s wife, Moyne M. Puri, 44, a real estate broker and appraiser, was believed to have left for India last month, Foltz said.

Raj Puri was scheduled to be arraigned today in Antelope Municipal Court on four counts of grand theft by embezzlement and one of conspiracy to commit grand theft. His wife faces the same charges.

The couple are accused of accepting clients’ money for real estate investments and then diverting it directly to their own use, or draining money out of their clients’ property holdings by mortgaging them and pocketing the loan proceeds. Sheriff’s deputies estimated that the investors’ total loss will exceed $2 million.

Foltz said sheriff’s investigators are still trying to determine how many clients were victimized and how much money was lost when the Puris emptied money from their business and personal accounts last month.

Raj Puri was arrested at his Palmdale house late Friday after neighbors mistook him for a burglar and called deputies--who learned in the course of answering the call that he was being sought by fraud investigators. Although bail for embezzlement normally would be $5,000, investigators persuaded a judge to set the $1-million amount to prevent Puri, an Indian citizen, from fleeing.

The criminal complaint against the couple accuses them of embezzling money from at least six Antelope Valley clients: $986,000 from Max Reiss of Collini & Co., $225,000 from Donald and Melissa Combs, $213,000 from Dr. and Mrs. Romeo Stoll, and $8,000 from Jack McComas.

The Puris abandoned their office last month and their employees, left unpaid, began checking on their affairs, setting off the sheriff’s investigation. The couple also operated under names such as the Money Center, Antelope Valley Fund Control Corp. and True Value Appraisal Inc., according to state and county public business records.