LAKE FOREST : Lower Bail Rejected in False Identity Case

In a high-profile case, a Municipal Court judge Friday refused to lower bail for a Lake Forest man charged with giving false information to police and falsifying a birth certificate after he reportedly abandoned his wife and seven children in Illinois nearly 14 years ago.

Santa Ana Municipal Judge Richard W. Stanford denied Gary Elliott’s request to reduce his $10,000 bail. Elliott, who authorities say has lived under the name of Clifford Wraymond Leighton, remains in County Jail.

Standord also scheduled a pretrial conference on March 5.

Elliott pleaded not guilty Tuesday to the misdemeanor charges against him.

According to sheriff’s reports, the defendant told investigators that he faked his own death in 1979 because he wanted a “new start.”

Elliott, who disappeared from the small town of Coffeen, Ill., reportedly took the name Leighton in 1981 by using the birth certificate of a 2 1/2-year-old Simi Valley child who died in 1953.

The man came to Orange County’s attention when he disappeared in January and his fiancee, Jennifer Bradford, also of Lake Forest, organized an effort to find him. Elliott was discovered three weeks later near Hemet. He complained that amnesia prevented him from remembering what happened during his disappearance.