Jury Selection Begins in Fraud Trial

Jury selection began Wednesday in the trial of a former Santa Paula man charged with defrauding several people and writing a bad check to buy a bankrupt hospital.

Liam Patrick Russell, 34, now a Los Angeles resident, is charged with 36 felonies, including grand theft, sales tax fraud, forgery, false personation, writing bad checks and perjury.

Russell, who is free on $40,000 bail, was indicted twice within the last year by the Ventura County grand jury. His attorney has said the case involves unfortunate business failures rather than criminal behavior.

Many of the charges in the first indictment center on Ron’s RV Sales in Santa Paula, which Russell bought in April, 1990, for $120,000 with no money down. Prosecutors say the dealership’s sellers never got their money, and within four months the company lost its license to operate and shut down.

Furthermore, prosecutors contend, tax collected during the sale of recreational vehicles was never forwarded to the state, the company that financed the inventory was not paid $235,000 it was owed, and individuals who let Russell sell their vehicles on consignment were not paid.

Russell also is charged with defaulting on payments for a lot in a luxury Camarillo housing development, running up a $3,300 bill on a cellular telephone he set up in someone else’s name, pawning a recreational vehicle that wasn’t his for $25,000 and lying to the grand jury investigating the incidents.

In the second indictment, Russell was charged with writing a $250,000 check in July, 1991, to buy General Hospital of San Diego, which was in bankruptcy proceedings. The check was written on an Encino bank account that had been closed and never had more than $8,200 in it, prosecutors said.

Trial is expected to last seven weeks.